Is this tractor trashed or am I being too picky?

[hawkeye08]

Regarding the bent PTO shield, I did that to mine on my Kubota by backing up when mowing along a ditch. The mower angled down into ditch and the top link apparently creased the shield? That is the only thing I could figure anyway.

Regarding the welded front tube on FEL, that is common repair when sides get out of sync (such as when lifting a very heavy load with one side of bucket). The weld could have been cleaner, but you could redo that. I seriously doubt that the tractor was babied for a couple hundred hours, likely worked hard.

It is your choice, is it a good enough deal for you to take the risk?

 

[ning]

Cosmetics aren't important in tractor work, but it's a given when you sell something that you spruce it up.

It's like this - I work in an "industry" (guess which) where you can wear almost anything you want - suit, jeans, pjs. How should you dress for an interview? My take is, an interviewer is going to assume you spruced up for the interview, and you'll probably dress down from there. If you show up at the interview in sweat pants without having showered, it's a pretty good indication about how serious you take the process.

If I put something up for sale, at the very least I clean it so at least superficially there's nothing to complain about, and it looks well taken care of. If I'm in the market for something used, and it looks trashed on the outside, I'm going to assume no care's been taken in general for the things that I can't see, and that's that.

My guess is that it's been underwater, got cleaned up best they could on the outside, and they're leaving it at that. There's a thread lately about a guy whose tractor is/was underwater and the measures he needs to take to ensure that minimal damage has occurred. Did they do that with this tractor? I guess the upside to seeing the evidence is that at least there's the red flag; they could've swapped the headlight housing and you'd never be the wiser...

 

[mred2]

I would be concerned about the whine in the HST. Maybe used the wrong oil to change it. Could just need to be changed or could have caused damage. I don't know much about HST maintenance. That would put me off more than anything.

 

[AchingBack]

I wonder about the torque on the loader frame mounting bolts.

 

[Dclerici1]

With respect to the fact that the dealership did little to really put the unit in a more favorable selling condition, it makes me wonder if it’s there on consignment. Maybe the dealer didn’t actually take it in on trade.

 

[varmint]

Just read thru this short but complicated saga, and didn't notice the actual selling price mentioned. In any event, it looks pretty beat to me. Multiple hourly workers who may not know or care about properly treating a machine scare me. Sometimes a bargain can bite you later. And 10 hours? The cost of hauling it home amounts to something.