Price Check MF 135 pricing for newbie

Alasdair · Feb 13, 2011

"135 MF diesel tractor with loader, power steering - front and back PTO - one owner, really good condition. Loaded tires. Used daily on horse farm - no field work - 2800 hours with regular maintenance. Price $6900 CAD"

Seems expensive from the other threads I have looked at but that maybe due to it being in the Canadian maritimes and the FEL. I don't know whether it's worth following up or not.

What are your thoughts?

Alasdair · Feb 16, 2011

OK - Maybe my original post wasn't explicit enough.
I am considering buying this tractor. So what I am asking is ...
Is this a reasonable price for this bit of kit? (Obviously you need to see it to say for sure but... is it a silly price?) The little internet research I have done suggests it is slightly overpriced.

As a newbie in the world of tractors what should I be looking at/for when I go to view.

If I am posting in the wrong area please let me know - I understood that "brand specific" posts should be directed to the respective areas.

If you need more info to comment here is my origional post in the "general forum" -

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Hello all,
My wife and I are planning our first foray into tractor ownership.
We have 28 hilly wooded acres on Cape Breton Island. 12 x 24 in Cape Breton Around 4 acres are cleared and need cutting. We plan to clear another couple for garden and pasture and keep the rest wooded as our fuel supply - we would also like something which will help us put a wood road into the rest of the land.
We have a lot of building and gardening plans! We built a cabin last year, began a house this year and I hope the future holds a garage and a small barn. I guess you could call us homesteaders or hobby farmers (although I'm not sure either label really fits.)
We also live in a snow belt (I enjoyed a snowday from work today - which allowed me to discover how little I know about tractors!) Our driveway is a hill around 200 yards and one of our priorities would certainly be snow removal!
We are lucky we have great neighbours who have their own machines - one has an older JD tractor backhoe another a JD with several attatchments - FEL, 3PH, BH, winch, snowplow, rear grader - (is it OK to covet your neighbours' tractors?) These guys have enabled us to get a foothold here and have often helped us out for little or nothing but we can't always rely on their charity and sooner or later we will need our own machine.
Like everyone else we are scraping along financialy and on top of the building projects (we're building the house as we can pay for it) there's not much fat to skim.
I'm looking for pointers on what kind of machine would be most useful (and realistic) for us. I can see it's easy to look for too much, snowremoval, grasscutting, groundwork etc. etc. At the moment I am imagining a 4WD compact tractor with frontloader and snow blower but perhaps I am asking too much from a smaller machine. What do you all think?
We're not in a huge rush to buy but if we know what to look out for we can shop around for a deal.
Alasdair

Mike476 · Feb 17, 2011

As you said, without seeing the tractor it is a little hard to judge. My wife and I did the same thing you're doing, bought our 135 / with MF 7 foot back blade for $4500, 10 years ago, while building our home. I'd spent a year or so looking and found that while it was, on average, about $750 - $1000 more than some of the other older tractors I'd looked at, I was comfortable with the purchase because in comparison to everything else I'd looked at, it was by far in the best shape. Things like replacing all four tires will get you pretty close to $1000 for example.

Over the past 10 years I know the tractor has paid for itself, did all the grading / landscaping ourselves, have cleared part of our land that I've both sold and milled log from to build garage / stables etc. There's no doubt the tractor has paid for itself twice over when consideing what I would have paid someone else to do it, and I still have a machine that's worth at least the same today, and haven't had to put a lot of money into it.

All that to say, make him an offer you're comfortable with, don't worry too much about the "I only paid *** for mine", I'm sure you've looked in your area, done some price comparisons. If you think the machine will do what you need it to do and is in good shape, pull the trigger and start enjoying the feeling of making your property your own. :thumbsup:

flusher · Feb 17, 2011

Alasdair said:
"135 MF diesel tractor with loader, power steering - front and back PTO - one owner, really good condition. Loaded tires. Used daily on horse farm - no field work - 2800 hours with regular maintenance. Price $6900 CAD"

Seems expensive from the other threads I have looked at but that maybe due to it being in the Canadian maritimes and the FEL. I don't know whether it's worth following up or not.

What are your thoughts?

If you're buying that 135 because it has the FEL, then I'd pass--the price is high and the 135 is not a particularly good FEL tractor (the 135's front axles are not strong--the MF150 is a better FEL tractor).

I paid $3600 in Jul06 for my 1964 MF135 diesel deluxe with multipower. You can see from this photo how spindly the front axes are.

Also, you really want power steering on an FEL tractor. The 135 has power-assisted steering--a poor man's power steering, not very powerful--you still have to wrestle the steering wheel quite a bit even without an FEL attached to the front end.

Unless you really, really want a 135, I'd say pass on this one and keep looking.
Good luck.

edthecat · Feb 17, 2011

We live outside Sydney, and bought a '72 135 US model from a dealer on consignment in New Glasgow for $5500 a year ago. It was well used but not abused, with a loader and good rubber. He wouldn't budge on priceIt has 6800 hours and is diesel. It has started every day we needed it, even the -15 days, without being plugged in or ether. There is not much around this area for that kind of money, really. We looked at another 135 in Oxford for $6000, but it was hacked and butchered and leaked oil from everywhere.

If you could beat them down a bit on the price it would be OK. They are a well built tractor with lots of aftermarket support. I agree it's not ideal for loader work but again there isn't a wide selection of stuff in Cape Breton, and it works well enough for what it does. It isn't a 966 Cat but will move snow or lift things and carry them. The tractor is overbuilt, the engine is very sturdy (a co-worker has a 135 with over 10,000 hours on it) it is awesome.

We need snow removal gear this year, eh!

Alasdair · Feb 17, 2011

Thanks for all the replies. It is good to hear a few different opinions too. We'll go and check it out as we're going to be in the area anyway this weekend. We don't feel any pressure to buy so if we decide to make an offer and it isn't accepted we're no worse off.
Edthecat - I was planning to put the tractor purchase off for a couple of years - this winter has convinced me I should have bought one last year!
Cheers all
:thumbsup:

Mike476 · Feb 18, 2011

All good points, you'll read other posts ref loaders on 135's, price points etc. Not the best tractor to move class A with all day for sure, but as is the case with everything you need to make sure you understand the limits of the machine and what you have in mind for it.

Seller was asking $5500 for mine when I bought it, left him to think about my $4500 offer for a little over a week before he called to accept it. As edthecat and I have said, the area you live in is an important consideration, from that era 135's are the most popular older tractor here in the Annapolis Valley from what I've seen, and I've never had a problem getting parts. :thumbsup:

Alasdair · Apr 11, 2011

When we got to NB I rang the guy and the machine was in parts, not running as he was replacing a seal ....
Needless to say I didn't bother going to see it.
On to the next one!

Mike476 · Apr 12, 2011

That's unfortunate, don't blame you. I can remember buying a motorcycle when I was younger that was apart and in ammo boxes. Wasn't anything wrong with it, the owner had a vision that never quite came into existence, needless to say the price made it something I felt I had to have.

blackdog43 · Oct 15, 2011

I owned my 20 acres (bought it undeveloped) for 14 years before I bought a Case Uniloader (Bobcat). Nothing has ever been a bigger help on hills brush and trees than the skidder. Had to put Grouser tracks over the tires though. It was pretty helpless in wet grass or mud. But with tracks it goes any where. I have bucket, forks and auger. This and a cheap 2 wheel drive tractor does it all.