Since the Zero, the Tractor Sits

[gstrom99]

If all you use the BX for is snow removal, maybe you should sell it and buy a halfway decent pickup with a plow, and pocket the extra cash.

 

[jonsstihl]

30,000 would pay for a lot of driveway clearing. but you can't just look at the numbers. If you enjoy doing it and it keeps you active, and its paid for...

 

[Robin Veerman]

Thanks everyone. I’m of the same thought. Why sell for $0.50 on the dollar just to wish I’d have kept it. I could see selling the bagger and mower deck, but I feel someday when I’m too old to keep up our property and it gets sold, the package will be worth more than the peanuts I’ll get jibbed out of by some dude looking for implements for a song and dance.
Johnthomas and I’ve have bought, sold, and traded a lot of orange, and I think I’m about done thinking about this. I wasn’t even near the edge of the ledge, but I appreciate everyone’s responses to pull me back. Thanks!

Yep, the package would fetch a nice price, I'm sure, if you ever go to sell it that way. Hope you have a battery maintainer on the BX battery 24/7... ;>)

 

[MoKelly]

I’m a lot like you.

The Z-Turn gets the majority of the work. Every now and then I use the tractor RFM on a long field. Not many turns and pretty flat so it’s fun to mow.

Other than that, the tractor gets occasional use hauling down branches to burn pile, moving rock to where it needs to go and some brush hogging.

The tractor gets about 60 hours/year.

But - it does get used and nothing else would do as well/easy, so I have both.

A luxury.

 

[CloverKnollFarms]

I'd keep it. A good, clean tractor will retain a lot of value. Heck, in an inflationary period it may become worth more than you paid. Unless I NEEDED the money or planned to invest it WELL, Id keep the tractor.

My tractor tills a couple acres several times each year. It does a little loader work. It's very well cared for and I suspect will retain most of its value.

 

[masseyrider]

I came off a fruit farm to my little 6 acre plot.
I still have 2 60hp tractors that are overkill my Gc2300 and a new 1725M.
You know what?
I like having them even when all in they get 40-50 hrs a year combined.
Unless you get an offer you can't refuse dust it off, polish it, enjoy.
The few bucks will disappear and one day, and it will come, you'll wish you had it for one more job.

 

[Ricn]

keep the tractor is my call, more uses than a mower. zero mowers are good, for some, I think they ride to rough so never bought one. Love my JD rider, also the flail mower on my 3 point.

 

[shooterdon]

I do a lot more grass cutting than snow removal but we run vehicles that can run over 6 inches of snow easily. I blew out or plowed our driveway four times this year...this in northern MI. I still use a walk behind blower to clear the paved part of drive 25 ft in front of the garage when we get a dump or wet snow. For light snow under 3" I use a backpack blower. We keep the cement part of drive in front of the garage cleared to avoid falls but a few inches of snow on the rest is no big deal.

I hate cutting grass and that is how I justified a ZT for only 2 acres. The rider worked fine but took twice as long. Tractor is too big for cutting grass.

Not sure why you will not consider paying someone to plow. At $100 per event it seems silly to have $30k tied up. Heck, buy a beater plow truck for $5000 if you still want to do it yourself. I bought a truck with a plow and will be selling the inverted blower for the tractor. It is a great blower but has been used less about 12 times in three years.

 

[Panik]

My son is all over me to sell the bagger and mower deck because they aren’t used. Yeah, they’d net a few bucks, but I own them and they are paid for and useful when needed… like if my zero is out of Commission. Can’t see selling those except with the tractor.

In a somewhat similar boat with a BX and a zero turn with the exception that the BX and its FEL still gets weekly use during the growing season. When we purchased the zero turn it became the primary mower and I removed the mid-mount deck from the BX.

My issue is what to do with the deck for the BX. Even when the zero turn has gone down for maintenance/repairs it's been way easier to just hook up the brush-hog to the BX and use that implement as the back-up yard mower. As a result the mid-mount for the BX has sat unused in my shop for the last 4-ish years.

I go back and forth with whether or not to sell the mid-mount deck for the BX. I've heard used mid-mount mower decks are hard to sell separate from the machine and that I'd probably take a bath on the sale price selling it individually. On the other hand, as much as I might like to one day sell the BX (with mid-mount) for a slightly larger tractor I don't seen that in the cards with teenage kids (vehicles, college, insurance etc).

Right now the thing is taking up valuable real-estate in my shop..... If I had the wall space to reinforce, I'd hang the thing off chains and forget about it.....

 

[shooterdon]

Panik, I had the same issue trying to sell the MMM on my JD 855.

IMO most folks buying these smaller tractors to be "swiss army knives" are making a mistake getting the MMM. Add $2000 and get fairly decent ZT that works better, does the job twice as fast and does not need to be mounted and disconnected.