Being a mechanic who enjoys working on old machinery, I've never actually had to pay the premium price necessary to buy anything brand new. What started as the fun of finding new ways to use older machines became a habit which eventually turned into experience building and rebuilding just about everything from vintage sportscars to sailboats to houses....all aided by having access to a completely equipped machine & welding shop where I worked. So it isn't surprising that my preference has always been to pay a fair price for older equipment in good used condition and then spend some enjoyable time making it work even better.
Then one day and completely out of the blue my previously stable and frugal wife just about knocked me over when she said, "You know.....you really ought to consider buying us a brand new tractor. If for no better reason than it always interests you to learn something new, and buying a new machine is certainly something you know nothing at all about doing. You've been using those same old machines for so long, you owe it to ourself to go see what the new ones are like."
Well, rather than disagree with such perfect reasoning I quickly agreed to at least take a look at the new ones, but only on the condition that we did it together. And that's how we set out on a summer search which ended up with us buying a new Kubota
M59 back in 2008.
What a revelation that whole summer was and continues to be! Completely against my expectations, eight years later I can tell you that the new tractor we found really is far better than any of our older machines and not just because it was new, either. It's because every single system from the position of controls clear thru to the motor, tranny, the electricals, the balance, the steering, brakes, gear ratios, pumps, serviceability....and even the materials themselves are just purely better than the old ones. If this is what they mean by a design evolving then I'm in favor of it. And frankly I didn't expect to be feeling that way at all.
Now I don't know if the same applies today but suspect it does. What I'm describing was back in 2008 when the
M59 was not only a new machine, it was for me an unfamiliar make, and it was a new model in its first year. Normally those would all be red flags, but looking closer I could see nothing that was much of a revolutionary change in design even if the machine itself was brand new. I recognized this technology. This was simply the end product of a long time spent by the whole Japanese tractor industry in tweaking and improving the same basic engineering year after year until it was working very well indeed. My wife was right (again!). We really hadn't known what the new ones offered until we went and tried them.
And try them all we surely did. I was determined to be completely open-minded about this once in a lifetime opportunity. So for months we tried most every machine at every dealer within about 60 miles, and frankly the Kubota dealer wasn't among the first dealers we stopped at either - basically that was because I'm old fashioned to have never particularly liked the color. Maybe that sounds crazy, but it's truth.
Going back to a month before the Kubota dealer, I think it was to sort of test out just how serious we were really going to be that led to us stopping by the Caterpillar dealer on one fine Saturday. This was the only machine we looked at that was not brand new. It was a maxed out tractor/loader/backhoe with 100 hours and every option including multi speaker stereo. Attractively priced at only about twice what Ag machines go for, it featured a price somewhere north of 10x what we had ever paid for anything with wheels before. Well, that was nearly a high dollar mistake; the inside of those new air-conditioned Cat cabs are a study in being luxurious. Fine furniture, for sure. There's even room for a passenger inside. This machine was NICE! It was so nice we ended up going back there several times. Oh, I think we both knew we weren't going to really buy a new Cat combo tractor/loader/backhoe. Even making those monthly payments would eat up about most of our savings as well as all our common sense. But we weren't going to let little details like reality put it completely out of the running either. Even though those were completely crazy prices, they had the beneficial effect of making previous outrageous new tractor prices seem almost sane. And it did prove to each of us that the other was prepared to be serious.
BTW, on the subject on in-cab furnishings, there was the only weekend I went alone. Wife had to work, so I drove almost 100 miles to a dealer with beautiful new Zetor 4WD tractors - this one was a six cylinder I think; maybe a four - anyway, it had AC and powershift and a fully upholstered wrap-around bench seat behind the driver! A really, really nice tractor. Massively built. But what's wrap around back seat for? A student driver? Possibly several student drivers all at once? Or maybe so that the whole family can go to market? Whatever the reason for the seat, the engineering on the tractor was impressive. And the paint was as thick and hard as polished glass. A contender for sure.
It turns out that my wife was right about the result of the search too. As we searched and compared, we began to believe that we really did deserve to have a brand new machine at least once every half century or so. Maybe even every few decades. Progress had been made everywhere and we'd nearly missed out on the fun. All the brands were at least as good as our older equipment and most were better. At least a few were a whole lot better. The unexpected result of the search was a realization that the new machines were different and better than the old ones. Not only better made, they were better in lots of ways we never anticipated - starting with almost everything mechanical and progressing right down to how easy they were to get on and off.
OK, I'll stop now, but if somehow I have missed making the point, the bottom line is this: Every time our new tractor fires up, one of us is bound to turn to the other and remark about what a good idea it was to get it.
On your dilemma of whether you should build up the old equipment or buy new, I'm thinking you don't have to decide now. Just go try a few. There's no other way to know. It might strike you the same way.....or the other way. Or maybe your perfect machine isn't out there yet. Just because ours was doesn't mean yours is.
And just so you know - the new tractor hasn't reformed either of us. We still have some old machines and we still count every penny on every bill before paying as little as we can on any of them. Frugality is a way of life here, so it seemed natural and prudent to keep a few favorite old tractors - as well as being smart insurance of the "just in case" kind. After all, how can you really compare something if the alternative isn't right there at hand? Well, eight years have gone by. Those wonderful older machines still live here, but they're mostly retired now...
Enjoy!
rScotty
