FarmTrac Tractors

[poolman]

Only been shopping for 2 weeks or so for a good and fair priced tractor. The dealer up the road said these tractors are the same as the old ford tractors. He also said that any tractor by any maker under 100hp was made overseas. Can anyone shed any light on this and has anyone got one of these tractors? <font color="red"> </font>

 

[Golfgar4]

Welcome to TBN! /forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif

You might do a search using the search function at the top of the page for FarmTrac , but to help get you started, here's a link to a thread in this forum about Farm Trac tractors. FarmTrac Tractors

Good luck with your search. /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

[Soundguy]

I've also heard that farmtrac bought the old ford patents for like the ford 3000 era. The casting do look awfully similar.

Soundguy

 

[yooperdave]

This is somewhat true for their larger HP tractors, but not true for the smaller tractors. The smaller tractors are made by LG out of Korea and are loaded up with modern features.

I have no regrets with mine.

Yooper Dave

 

[cmuncy]

I absolutely love my 300DTC.

Got it 2 weeks ago. I have 12 hours on it. At 11.5 hours I found the only quicksand on my property. .5 hours getting her out. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Well worth the investment I made.

 

[DK35vince]

My neighbor got a 360 DTC with a 7' rear finish mower and 6' tiller about 2 weeks ago, seems to like it so far..

 

[bluechip]

There are two manufacturers of Farmtrac tractors, LG of S.Korea as has been mentioned, makes the CUT line, and Escorts of India build the Utility models. As I am told, Escorts built tractors for Ford from about 1969 till the early/mid 1980s. Certain models of Ford tractors sold in the US as Ford, where totally built by Escorts as well as other models for offshore markets. During Ford's divestiture of the tractor division, Escorts elected not to sell their plant to New Holland and instead acquired rights to continue to manufacture models they had been producing. They have since totally modernized thier plant with capacity of some 52,000 tractors annually, using two shifts.

They also offer brand new bolt in replacement engines for several Ford tractors for less than some rebuilt units.

4WD Utility Farmtracs are arriving also.

Escorts now has controlling interest in Long Agribusiness and is in the process of changing the company name to Farmtrac. Long tractors, which have long (no pun intended) been made in Romania by UTB, are now called Longtracs and continue to be available in 52 and 68HP versions.

I look for Farmtrac to become a strong contender, even in this crowded market. The fit and finish on both utility and compact lines of Farmtrac tractors are very good, IMHO.

 

[Woodbeef]

Escorts bought out FarmTrac after Fiat bought Ford New Holland. FarmTrac was the Ford Tractor licensee for India. Fiat already had manufacturing plants in that part of the world and no longer needed FarmTrac. No FNH tractors sold in North America were ever built by FarmTrac. The Fords of this size after 1985 all came from Europe.

True there are no(except for PT and Saukville) under 90 hp tractors manufactured in the US any longer. But there are some assembled in the US.

 

[blueyed_wolf]

I purchased a Farmtrac 300 DTC with FEL BH and a 6'FM a few weeks ago and only have 24 hours on it. It was made in South Korea. I don't know if it was assembeled over there or here? The back hoe was made in South Carolina. I've pulled 10 fruit trees out with it and buried the stumps. Still learning how to use everything. I used the finish mower twice so far and I like it. Had to take the back hoe off to hook up the mower and it was pretty easy. Can't say much more about it till I get a little more experience on it.

blueyed_wolf

 

[Suburban600]

I own a 2003 Farmtrac 60. I have had a total of three problems...one loose fitting on power steering, one missing grease fitting on loader and lost the dust cap on my front axle trunion connection to main tractor frame. Only had down time when I had one flat tire.

I use the tractor on weekends on my tree farm bushhogging brush, plowing with my antique disk plow and piling brush that I've cut. 80 total hours.

I have the following attachments: the disc plow, a 72 inch bush hog, a box blade, the loader and a set of 3000# chain on bucket forks I bought on Ebay.

Good old fashioned tractor that will probably last me a lifetime.

Jim

 

[bluechip]

The company in India is Escorts, Farmtrac is their brand name which they adopted when they stopped selling tractors to Ford, I have been told in a meeting by the president of Farmtrac North America (aka Long Agribusiness) that there was at least one model of Ford tractor (sorry I don't remember the model number, I'll try to find it my notes from the meeting) that was built by Escorts for Ford that was sold in the US.

Escorts built Fords under contract from about 1969 till mid 80s (about the time Ford became New Holland). Escorts now holds controlling interest in Long (maybe all of it by now) and is changing the company name to Farmtrac.

The Farmtrac brand is applied to the a Ford heritage tractors manufactured in India by Escorts and to LG tractors mfg in S Korea. They now call the European built, Fiat based, tractor Longtrac. There is significant interchangeability of parts between the current Farmtrac 2wd utility tractors and Ford tractors, In fact Farmtrac offers a new bolt in replacement engine for several Ford tractors. Escorts has continued to build on the Ford designs and in fact is currently introducing 4WD versions of these tractors.

Of course assembly is done in Tarboro which I guess makes them as American as jsut about any other tractor under 100hp sold in the US.

Sort of confusing but hope this helps.

 

[Woodbeef]

Hmmmmm...........be interesting to see which Ford tractor sold in North America was built by Farmtrac. Also if you could get the serial number designation for those tractors. Never seen any Utility Tractors sold under the Ford name in North America not come from the Northern Hemisphere.

 

[bluechip]

I"ll see if I can find my notes from the meeting I attended where this was mentioned. (I want to say the model was 3910 but numbers have a way of getting twisted in my middle aged mind so dont rely on that).

I also learned at that meeting that Escorts and Carrero have a joint venture and all the Carrero transmissions up to about 85 HP are now made in India, This includes the 12x12 shuttle shift used on the FArmtrac 70 and 80, which are also supplied to Mahindra, and others, including John Deere. Not to be missleading, this is a separate plant from the Escorts plants making Powertrac and Farmtrac tractors. Certainly Escorts made Ford Tractors for the domestic market in India as well as other countries.

It does not surprise me that Ford did not make a big deal out of where these tractors were built, just as JD makes little mention of the place of manufacture of many of its tractors under 100HP today. Back in the 70's or 80's when this would have happened, awareness of world wide sourcing was not as widespread as it is today, In fact many are not aware of it today.

 

[Woodbeef]

I think you'll find that Escorts did not own FarmTrac back when they made the licensed tractors. The Escorts tractors stem from a totally different philosophy compared to the FarmTrac line.

The tranny plant JV is called Escorts/Carraro. Yes Carraro likes the quality coming from India so well they quit making that transaxle in Italy. Claas also has ties to Escorts.

Have you seen the Euro cabbed version of the mfd tractors yet? PolMot is the company in Poland who put the driven front axle under the FarmTrac tractors. They are called PolMot-Escorts over there. For an econo class tractor,they look pretty good.......

 

[bluechip]

My notes say that that Ford 3610 was produced in India, not necessarily all of them, but they did say some came to US although prime market servec by this plant was Euope and Asia.
I also made a note that the name was changed on 3-1-95 from Ford to Farmtrac. THe plant has capacity to to produce 72,000 units per year on a 2 shift basis. Thier facilities have undergone a $ 100,000,000 modernization program between 1997-2001.

 

[Woodbeef]

3610 were sold from 1982 till 86 I do believe. I can not find anything or anyone that says or knows anything about production in India though for the ones sold in North America,but some might have came in to bolster inventories at sometime. Like you said it probably was not advertised as a made in India model back then. Interesting all the same though. I'll have to start checking the ID plates on all the 3610s I see from now on.

 

[rkplano]

I am looking at a 300dtc in East Texas. They want $16,500 for the tractor with the FEL, 5' rotary cutter and 5'box scraper. It comes with a 3 year service warranty. Is this a good deal?

Thanks in advance
RK

 

[SHIFTY]

Sounds fair,
I sell the same machine under the TAFE name which is orange in color and I sell that tractor loader package at $14,200.00
Depending on make and features it seems to be about 1000.00 worth of implements

 

[rkplano]

Thanks for your help. What does TAFE stand fo? Are those tractors available in East Texas?

 

[CMunger]

Tafe stands for Tractor And Farm Equipment, (no kidding). In India the tractors are painted red and are sold as
Massey Ferguson. The larger ones, not the compacts. The compacts are built by LG.
Chuck M.