Your experience with china traktors

[gluehstrumpf]

Hallo Forum,
i`m form germany. I`m intereseted in a china traktor. Here in Germany i dont know what is true by the horror-stories of chinesee produkts.
So please help me in my decission :

For working fire wood, i need a small traktor max. length 2800mm, width 1270mm. For safety by working i want to use max width.
I found Jimna 204, Lenar204, Mahindra 204, the dimesnsions are good, speed is good, power is enough

What`s your really experience to these traktors?
Which one is better? Wy is it better? Problems with it?

best regards
Gluehstrumpf

 

[bp fick]

Welcome to TBN.

When it comes to manufacturing, and quality manufacturing of industrial commercial or agricultural products, some thing are obvious. The world likes German engineered products. American too. Japanese? Yes, very much.

Now, who is "up and coming"? Who is advancing? Obviously, the South Koreans. Mahindra is an Indian tractor company that is growing on the international scene. The do employ a considerable amount of Korean and Japanese technology, engines, etc.

When you put the world's most famous tractor names on a list, the top companies would have to include Fiat which markets under many divisions and brand names around the world, including owning New Holland.

John Deere, Kubota, Massey Ferguson, Landini, Iseki, Yanmar, DaeDong, all these are top names and well respected products, proven products along with dealer support, repair facilities and parts availability. Proven.

Chinese tractors? Surely they are improving, but they have a long way to go to match the world's major manufacturers by any criteria. They are often priced below the top grade tractors. There are many reasons why that is so.

 

[creekbend]

The final decision is evidently going to be yours' in the end, but I sincerely doubt that you would receive satisfaction from any product, whether it is a tractor or anything else, if it was inferior and lacked quality engineered components. I say this from my personal experience. My parents met right after the war in Frankfurt. I was born in Salzburg, Austria several years later. I came to the United States when I was seven years old. Just my thoughts. Good Luck. Guten tag.

 

[kenmac]

The Chinese have a long way to go to get their quality up to par with the other brands. All one has to do is read the chinese tractor thread. Tractors with only a few hundred hrs with front end rebuilds, engine rebuilds, etc,

 

[doxford jim]

To put things in perspective, try checking out CTOA (Chinese Tractor Owners Association) and a few other websites.

I used to have a 1959 MF65 (petrol engine) 2 wheel drive tractor. It was old and was well used with over 11,000 hours on it. It was worth about $5000 with the FEL on it. At 45 hp it barely met my needs.

For around $14,000 I was able to buy a new 55 hp diesel engined Jinma 4x4 tractor with a Front End Loader. The tractor was new and yes, I had a few problems but they were all minor and none have cost me more than $200 to fix. Most of the problems I have had have been from the parts suppliers in the US and the greedy UPS shipping company - who I will never ever do business with again, in my lifetime.

Like any piece of machinery, it has to be maintained properly and good oils used for the transmission, engine and hydraulics. My Chinese Jinma tractor has worked well and I am more than happy with it considering what I paid for it.

Yes, there are better machines out there but they are much more than I can afford to pay (pensioner on a low fixed income). Had I lots of money I would no doubt have bought one of the bigger name brands, however money is an issue and I bought what I could afford.

There will be lemons in every make and price. If you go into the purchase of a Chinese made tractor with your eyes open, you will probably be just fine. Expect to do your own maintenance and repairs and you will save a lot of money - in my case about $20,000 or more.

There are a lot of posters who will decry anything other than what they have - owner loyalty ??? Everyone would like new but a large number of owners buy used. Buying used can be very expensive too, so in a way, it is a crap shoot.

Best advice is check out the different Chinese brands on the different websites - even this website has a section for Chinese and foreign tractors. Research will be your best tool. Try these other websites for general info:

Chinese Tractor Owners Association | "Helping Each Other With Knowledge"

CHINESE TRACTOR WORLD FORUMS - Login

CHINESE TRACTOR OWNERS CLUB FORUM - Home

Hope this helps in your quest for information. Don't be afraid of using the internet and if you buy, buy through a known dealer if possible.

Cheers

Jim

 

[kenmac]

Here's the front rebuild. You can see the quality of the steel gears here


http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/chinese-tractors/113843-kama-554-front-drive-repair.html



Same owner as above... 700 or 1000 hours on the tractor and having to rebuild the engine


http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/chinese-tractors/159299-engine-overhaul-kama-554-a.html

 

[gluehstrumpf]

Hallo Forum,

thank you all very much for your experiences!!!
In my case, it is i have only less money for this projekt, i cant pay twice at a bad tractor, this decission must fit.
IｴM 53 Jears old, the tractor has to run my life long, min 25 Jears. But in my case not realy hard working. I have no agriculture as i told you making firewood in the forest... It will run about 120 hours a year.
Length and width come from the rented building with is my garage for the traktor.
Used good mashines , may be Mitsubishi 2350fd i got one offered in Nederlands ( 800km away) one other 2050fd is in Hungaria also 900km away. this one would get a maintendence.
My problem is, i`m not able to go to the dealer and have a look to this offers.
An arround me, there are only old normal width traktors, or new ones much too expensive for me.
Theese Mitsubishi`s only make 15km/h , the Mahindra runs 30 km/h to drive 10 km to the forest it is a great differenz .

By using internet i found as an other way : import direktly. including shipping, taxes, fees,... the price will be 1/2 to 2/3 of the dealer prices. Also in such a way, a top product is nessecery.

Gluehstrumpf

 

[dennis52]

Be cautious about importing directly.
You will have no warranty or dealer support and local parts for your model may not be readily available.
My advice would be to stick with a known brand sold locally, buy second hand but firstly pay to get a reputable tractor mechanic to inspect the machine.

 

[Localmotion]

There seem to be a lot of people here who just want to knock Chinese brands, possibly without having even driven one themselves...

It is true that many Chinese models lack the refinement of better known brands, and it is also true that there are issues with quality control at many of the factories. However this is the very reason they are priced so affordable and when you compare prices of Chinese tractors against better known brands, they do represent excellent value for money - I would argue far better than some of the entry level or mid range tractors available from JD, MF, NH, Case etc....

As has been mentioned, you will need some mechanical knowledge as dealer support is very limited. However it is mis-leading for people to say you will not get warrenty - depending upon where you purchase the tractor, many European sellers will offer warrenty of Chinese tractors. In addition I know that Yancheng (the factory which makes Jinma) offer a 12 month factory warrenty - not long, but definately long enough to "snag" any issues which quality control have missed.

I am a dealer for Siromer tractors in Spain - Siromer is effectively a Jinma with a few factory fitted enhancements. When we first started selling here four years ago, many of the local farmers were sceptical about owning a Chinese tractor. However since seeing them working in the area, interest has grown - possibly because of the financial crisis here and the fact that a brand new Siromer costs less than €10,000 while a same spec John Deere costs over €20,000!

Here are a couple of videos of our own Siromer 204s (Jinma 204) working:

Siromer 204S & Loader - YouTube

Siromer 204s Ploughing / Siromer 204s Tractor arado - YouTube

The tractor in these videos is a 2007 Siromer with over 2500 hours on the clock and NO PROBLEMS to date :laughing: It has been abused - over worked and taken beyond it's design limits on a regualr basis, with no adverse effects.

Siromer will sell to Germany, and offer a warrenty subject to distance selling terms (ie: you pay transport for any parts from the UK). If you would like more info, just let me know or check out our website (link below).

Whether you eventually buy Chinese or not is your decisiosn - but please take a balanced view of the pro's and con's and not listen to the "bashers" who can clearly afford to throw money away just to say they own a JD or similar premier brand! :thumbsup:

 

[kenmac]

Not knocking Chinese brands. I just stated fact.. The quality of the chinese tractors are not even close to a JD,MF,NH,Case, Etc,. You want a cheap tractor . buy chinese. You want a tractor that will last. Buy a quality tractor. Quality tractor usually cost more $$. I tried out a new chinese tractor when I bought my 30 + yr old yanmar. I could have bought the new chinese tractor for about the same or less $$