L3130 New or L3130 Used

daTeacha · Dec 14, 2005

I should amend my comments say we use the tractors to support our chosen lifestyle, as opposed to simply living. /forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif

I really enjoy having mine, and it makes my lifestyle a lot easier. If I chose to live in town in a condo or something, I wouldn't be able to justify it, but I also wouldn't be happy.

I figure if the wife can spend $5k on a fence, have me and the boy spend a summer getting the trees made into lumber and building additions to the pole barn for 6 sheep and firewood -- another $2 plus our labor -- then feel she made a good profit selling 7 lambs for $900, I can justify spending some on a tractor after my house sells. Besides, having the sheep and a donkey makes the tractor an agricultural purchase and exempt from sales tax here.

Hobbies are not meant to be a means to earn a living, but we just need to keep it all in perspective. It definitely isn't worth what I've got tied up in shooting related stuff to kill a groundhog now and then, but it's fun. Even if I ate the things, it would take a couple of years of strictly groundhog diet to amortize the cost of my rifle, scope, and loading equipment. /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif

N80 · Dec 14, 2005

I tend to think of my land (250 acres) as the luxury since I don't farm it (technically it is a tree farm) and I don't live on it. I've owned it about 5 years. Over that five years it became very evident to me that there were things (fields, yards, roads, etc) that needed to be maintained and that a tractor was needed to do so. During that time I pestered my B-I-L into doing some occasional mowing. But he is a real farmer, with old equipment. He has better things to do with his time and machines. He also never offered to let me use his tractors, and I don't blame him. He relies on them for his living, plus they are held together with baling wire and duct tape.

As the fields got grown over and you could barely walk, much less drive down the roads. So I got a tractor. When I first started looking for one I was not excited about the prospect of spending that kind of money, but I was fortunate enough to have the money. Tractors had no 'toy' appeal to me. So I pretty much considered the tractor part of the price of land ownership, not as a toy or a luxury.

Now that I've got one, yes, the toy appeal has come through and I enjoy using it. But more importantly it has, in the last 4 months, made a huge difference to the appearance, usbalility and value of my property. So now I see the tractor in both ways 1) a necessity of land ownership and 2) a really great toy. In a very small sense it aids in my "tree farming" but even in that regard I derive no income from the tractor and could certainly live without it.

SkyPup · Dec 14, 2005

How true.

In reality the tractor has paid for itself already by the added property value, both monetarily and aestitically.

Not to mention the fun you had learning to do it all yourself! /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif

daTeacha · Dec 14, 2005

So N80, do you let your BIL borrow your tractor now and then? I've used my little B7100 to make it easier for my neighbor to do things with his big equipment. He milks about 200 Holsteins, grows all his food, so has some serious tractors, but nothing like my little B.

N80 · Dec 14, 2005

He hasn't asked yet. He's done so much for me that I'd have a hard time refusing. But, if he broke it, it would almost be worth it for the lifetime of grief I'd give him! /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

rk246 · Dec 15, 2005

You can always offer to do the work for him lending itself to more seat time. I keep trying to think of other projects to do with mine, maybe a little for justification and mostly for the fun aspect....

cuzncletus · Dec 21, 2005

I'm going on 3 years with my then-new 3130 DST. This thing has lived in a continual battlefield of clearing land all its life. The bushhog has had repairs, but the tractor has been bulletproof. Haven't checked in a while, but when I bought my tractor new there was a 100% first-year write off for new ag equipment. This, plus 0% financing and the abused state of used equipment available, made a new tractor a no-brainer. My accountant says keep it for another two years, then I can sell it for cash under the IRS radar as amortized equipment (?) and go buy another new one. 100% write off, 0% financing, hours used vs. hours paid if I'd rented or hired the equipment, plus sale for cash equals I get another new tractor virtually for free. Is my mind too simple in this equation? Us Georgia boys ain't too bright. Anyway, my advice is to buy new.

CT_Tree_Guy · Dec 21, 2005

Is my mind too simple in this equation? Us Georgia boys ain't too bright. 

Are you kidding? You sound like a financial genius to me! Just brush up on your Swedish, I see a Nobel Prize for Economics in your future! /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Jay4200 · Dec 22, 2005

( My neighbor has a
L3130 DT,
R4 tires loaded,
513 QA Fel, and
boom pole for sale.
$16250.00 )

$1000 isn't enough to make me go used over new.

Just as a price point, my local dealer has (or had 2 weeks ago) a flawless ~100hr L3830 w/ 723 FEL and R4s for sale. Literally not a scratch on it. His asking price was $16,900 (and I was tempted...). His OTD price for the same setup new is somewhere around ~21K. The dealership owner told me that the low-hour used machines values have taken a significant value hit due to Kubota's financing deals. On a monthly-payment basis, the interest rates on loans for used machines vs. Kubota's low or no interest for new machines knocks thousands off the used values. The payment on a used machine obviously must be lower than new.

Jay