Well, I went back to the dealer. Sat and listened for a few minutes while another customer told the salesman he had a price from Ocala about $1500 less then my dealer. Listened to my dealer say, "Well, then go on back up there and buy it." Customer signed on the dotted line for higher price. Dealer knows Ocala is too far away for customer to call his bluff. I can't complain; I do the same thing in my business.
Anyway, I looked at the used TC33D with backhoe, FEL and a nice set of bucket forks. 322 hours. Dealer came down from $17,500 to $16,300...which is probably a fabulous price...and I passed. Tractor looked more like 3000 houurs than 300 - not well maintained. Looked like it had been rode hard and put away wet. Salesman could not assure me warranty would be transferred - sounded like he knew it was rough and didn't want it under warranty - I may be reading more into that than he intended.
Anyway, I took another hard look at the TC18, and decided it was the right size for maintenance once our construciton is complete, and anything it can't do for the construction project, I'll hire out for a lot less than the cost to move up to a TC33D - which may not be able to handle all the jobs, anyway.
Dealer stuck with his price of 14,800, which was 13,600 for tractor and 12LA loader, 850 for 4' bush hog and $350 for 4' box blade. I insisted they had to sweeten the pot. I happened to mention that I had a real need for pallet forks of some kind to unload pallets from delivery trucks. Suddenly, he remembered an implement they had stocked in one of their other stores, but which had never sold. The General Manager was hanging around, and he said if I bought the TC18, he'd throw this gadget in.
It's a rear 3 point hitch mounted hydraulic forklift. It's similar to this desgin from Cadco:
I can't remember the brand, but the salesman looked it up, and it has a list price of $987+. The one they have will lift 36" above the height the 3 point hitch will lift, which should get me into the back of most semi trailers. The unit weighs about 500 pounds, and the TC18 has a rear liftt capacity of 1265, so that leaves me about 750 pound forklift capacity - about double what I'll ever need. Since the TC18 has a loader, if I experience weight problems, I can always scoop up a bucket of dirt for balance. I could run the hydraulics off a remote, but the dealer suggested I simply get a longish hydraulic hose and plug into one to the loader lines to run the forklift.
Anyway, the price is about 600 more than hazmat paid for his TC18, and I'm happy with the forklift attachment as the sweetener. They're running my credit now, and I'll find out tomorrow whether I'll get the 0% deal - no reason why I shouldn't.
"If anyone has reason to prevent this marriage, speak now, or forever hold your peace..." /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif I'm sure we're going to live happily ever after.