Help please

   / Help please #1  

KenQ

New member
Joined
Jun 12, 2005
Messages
8
Location
Southwestern NY
Tractor
SImplicity Legacy 20hp
I need advice. I have been looking at subcompact tractors, like kubota's BX series & Simplicity's new Legacy XL. But I found a 2004 New Holland TC24DA, its a little larger but it is in "new" absolutely excellent condition. It has rear, mid & front PTO rear tires are loaded and many other extras. There's a FEL, rototiller, scraper, & rake too. He is only asking $15400 for all and he says "he's practically giving it away"! I own 115 acres mainly wooded (good timber) but I only mow my 1-1.5 acre lawn. I would like to keep my driveway, ditches & logging roads in good shape and put in some food plots. I know it will do alot but is it too big for mowing my lawn and what to you think about the price?
 
   / Help please #2  
I cannot comment on the price, but for mowing, it will do fine. A buddy of mine has about 1½ acres of mowable grass and uses his TC24. He has a Mid Mount Mower. They're pretty expensive, so you might want to go with a rear mower.

I use a Deere 790 to mow an acre of finished lawn...bit of overkill, but that's just one of the tractor's tasks.

So, I'm sure the TC 24 will work fine for your lawn, but I'm wondering if it will be big enough for your other tasks. It really sounds like you could use a smaller lawn tractor for the mowing and a bigger (then the TC 24) for the other tasks. Of course, with budgetary limitations, you do have to compromise.
 
   / Help please #3  
I'll have to agree with Roy. I own and love my TC24D, it would be small enough for mowing a 1.5 acre lawn and it is very capable at doing all sorts of real work, but it does have limits. If most of what you are going to do is 'around the house' and if the food plots are fairly small (a couple acres each) then I think it would be a nice little tractor. I'm not sure how much work your driveway needs, the TC24 will pull a box scraper and do a good job with that, I use a 48" unit on heavy clay with minimal problems, on any other type of soil I've found it to pull with authority. I have a 6' rake and have used that to clean fields and smooth areas. My drive is asphalt so I've not tried to dress a drive, but I suspect it would have no problems at all. I really like the TC24, it has a great loader, for a small tractor I think the 12L loader is awesome, it has the best visibility of any small tractor loader and and the capacity is at/near the top of any machine of similar size. I like the available PTO hp too, very few tractors that size can match the PTO hp.

I guess the only hesitation I have in recommending it is that for 115 acres I'd be looking at 2 tractors, one for around the house and a BIG tractor for the land, BUT THEN AGAIN, if you are not out logging the woods, then you really may not need a big tractor. The TC24 is a great small frame tractor, it is my favorite of all brands for small frame machines.

The price is also pretty good. 2 years ago I paid $10,300 for mine (after beating him up a little bit he dropped the original asking price from close to $12,000), the loader was about $3000 more, this year I paid $400 for a Midwest BB20-48 box blade and $410 for a Midwest LR20-72" landscape rake. My Land Pride RTA-1550 50" tiller was $1050 last year (but every other bid I got was closer to $1500). Mine does NOT have loaded tires, that is often an extra $100. This year I was offered EXACTLY what I paid for the tractor 2 years ago by my dealer on a trade in for a larger tractor (but I decided to keep it). You also said he has extras to go with it. So I would say with all the implements, you are paying about what I paid, and apparently my dealer thinks that is a fair price because that is what he offered me.

Also, as Roy said, the MMM is expensive, you can get a good quality rear mower for 1/2 the price. I don't remember the exact price I paid for my MMM but I think it was about $2300.
 
   / Help please #4  
Ken; My neighbor "upnorth" has an older Ford 1550 or 1750, can't recall which, other than I beleive he said it's only 17 HP. He's got 80 acres of mostly very dense cedar, along with 20 acres of oaks/maples on the higher ground. That machine has worked well for him. We also used it around my place before I got my TC35DA. Now he doesn't talk to me anymore /forums/images/graemlins/crazy.gif. Any way, I also have a tiny LS25 Ford that I use for mowing around an acre up there. The combination of my TC and the LS, really work for me. If I was to do it again, I would. I've 21 acres that has some wetlands, uplands, and even some level ground. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

In any case, one of the Class III Boomers would be excellent IMO. I'd suggest R4 tires also. My neighbor has R1's on his, and they really tear up the ground. I've found the R4's to destroy less ground, have better flotation, but a little less traction maybe. Besides those 17.5/24's look bad!! /forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif /forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif

Hope I've help you some. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif
 
   / Help please
  • Thread Starter
#5  
Thanks for all of your advice. I really need it to mow my yard, keeping the ditches clean, dressing up my driveway and other around the house projects. As far as the timber land, I thought the larger TC24 could be used to clear some of my roads that brush has taken over and the tiller could be used to make some small food plots for deer. Love this site! Thanks again.
 
   / Help please #6  
<font color="blue"> It has rear, mid & front PTO </font>
Are you sure it has a front PTO?
 
   / Help please #7  
You are getting good advice here. And Bob's advice of 2 tractors, 1 SCUT and one Ag tractor possibly, is dead on... lots of uses for a big brute on 115 acers.. and lots of use for a smaller nimble tractor on 115 acers.

Soundguy
 
   / Help please
  • Thread Starter
#8  
He put a front PTO on it in case he ever wanted to use a snowblower.
 
   / Help please #9  
Ken,
A new 2004 TC24DA HST w/ 12LA loader goes for about $ 15,000 to $ 15,500. It will be great around the house. The small size has some tradeoffs. It gets into really tight places with a lot of precision, but its also powerful enough to get the job done. I have a 600' dirt and gravel driveway to maintain and it does fine. Loader is very capable. If you are going to need something for heavy work on the rest of your property, you'll want to look at a bigger tractor.
 

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