"Can borrow your tractor?"

[2ndhalf]

One thing I learned the hard way. Once you start lending something out, how do you stop it. (Without being an ahole about it)
Keep this in mind before making a decision. Think of Kramer on Seinfeld.

This is s good point. Loan it to one person and another person who you wouldn't loan it to finds out and now they want to borrow it. Not good. Bottom line, there are things I will loan (Many) and a few that I wouldn't to about anyone. Both my FIL and my Dad could borrow anything I own; that's pretty much it.

My FIL has big tractors and wouldn't need to be borrowing mine any time soon. He still farms. He has had a neighbor come and get one of his tractors out of his barn (kept keys in back when you still could) and went and used it without asking. That happened once! :thumbdown: Then he had a neighbor with horses who would ask him to use his backhoe to bury a dead horse on a couple occasions and never offered to pay. My FIL would have probably turned down the pay (Very principled man) but the fact that he didn't offer torqued him off and he started telling the guy nope!

 

[Creamer]

My brother - who is a real farmer - was visiting once when it snowed. I had an appointment so he started up my tractor to plow snow. He swore he would never use a tractor like that again. I guess when you are used to 100+ Hp my 1710 won't do much.

 

[Wagtail]

There's an 'underlying current' to this thread and the stories/reasons to not lending out your equipment/rigs unless you're with it & operating it yourself. It's your stuff. You bought it and you've learnt how to operate it and if you want to try something, and it breaks, then it's on your own 'head'.

Here's an example of 'knowing your equipment': This past haying season I was helping out with my tractor. The folks are long time (generations) farmers and have 3 tractors of their own. So, at the end of getting the hay in they said for me not to bother coming out to the property to get my tractor, they would load it up on their flatbed lorry and bring it to me. Cool.

The tractor arrived fine... although I did notice that one of the new tie-down straps was fraying. Hmmm... It turned out that they hadn't properly set the parking brake on my HST tractor (all of their tractors are gear shift) and, even though the FEL and ballast box had been fully lowered, my tractor had shifted fore&aft during the trip.

Lesson learnt. I go with my tractor.

 

[murphy1244]

The chances of me loaning out my tractor is the same as me loaning out my wife. Ain't gonna happen.:thumbdown:

 

[k0ua]

The chances of me loaning out my tractor is the same as me loaning out my wife. Ain't gonna happen.:thumbdown:

Hey, Murph, can I borrow your tractor for a bit? I have some "digging" I need to do.

 

[murphy1244]

Hey, Murph, can I borrow your tractor for a bit? I have some "digging" I need to do.

Send your Mrs my way. I have some cleaning for her.

 

[yanmars]

Maybe. If it was someone who had experience with a tractor and was a good friend perhaps. I lent my tractor out once and it came back with no clutch and it was a low hour tractor. I have not done that since although I have done some work for others to help them out.

 

[k0ua]

Send your Mrs my way. I have some cleaning for her.

I will let her know. I cannot think of anyone right off hand I would loan my tractor to.

 

[Deere Dude]

I have a friend camping group that offered me the use of a bunch of scaffolding which I accepted and it worked great for my new addition on my house. He also let me use his sheet metal bender just out of the blue. I told him I was looking for a pole saw to buy and he just told me I would use his new Stihl pole saw and he said it was just sitting there anyway.

I declined because I understand how things can happen with saws. Fast forward to Thursday after checking out forums on what to buy I decided to buy a Stihl pole saw.

I took it home and showed my wife and she said, "You pain $650 for that. Are you nuts?" I told her it would pay for itself in no time.

She went away so I went to the edge of the woods and found a branch about 10" in diameter and 12' off the ground to practice on. I under cut it, top cut it half way through then went on the other side to finish it off. No sooner than I started cutting the branch came down and slammed the saw to the ground. It happened that fast. I bent the telescoping pole section on maybe a 30 deg bend. I took it to the house and bent it sort of straight but didn't work right.

After dinner I told my wife the saw had a vibration in the saw so I took it back to the dealer to fix it. I did not tell her what happened for very obvious reasons; she would rip my face off.

In hindsight I should have used my friends saw.

That is why i don't loan things. You bent yours so you should have used your friends? WOW. Ed

I was kidding and must have forgot the emoticon. I would rather ruin my own stuff over anyone else's any day of the week.

 

[aczlan]

Most anyone who I would be comfortable lending one of our tractors to already has their own tractor... As such, the tractor comes with an operator.

Aaron Z