Buying Advice Buying used, how many hours are too many?

FreeWulf · Sep 25, 2021

I'm kind of laughing to myself seeing people worried about 1,000 hours. Not laughing at you mind you, laughing at myself. I'm looking at tractors with 5,000 hours on it thinking it's a spring chicken. I think my budget is just a lot lower than some of you folks

There's a LOT of tractors out there that have turned over the hour meter (10,000 hours) and are still going strong.

For comparison, my car gives me the average speed it travels for the life of the car, and it's 41MPH. So 1,000 hours is like 41,000 miles on the odometer. 5,000 hours is 205,000 miles. Which for many diesel trucks is not very high. Especially since a lot of tractors just lope along at the same RPM for hours a day. Much like freeway vs city driving.

But as a lot of said, it's much more about the maintenance than the miles/hours. My mother would be able to destroy a machine in 2 days flat. I usually keep my (gas) cars until about 200,000 miles when I get rid of them, and I know people that get a lot more miles than that out of a car.

scaredychicken · Sep 25, 2021

I average about 100 -120 hrs a year / 10 hrs a month, for light hobby farming and snow removal.

Other than overall appearance for confirming repairs and maintenance, even 2500 hrs would not concern me on a used tractor (say averaging 200 - 250 hrs per year). if the price was good.

ArlyA · Sep 25, 2021

I asked my bro-in-law about tractor hours some time ago who really is in the farming buz, I can't recall details but seems he runs his about 10,000 before he trades them in.

A bully I was operated a few years ago had 8,000 some hours on it and broke on a regular bases. It was trashed before it hit 9.