Re: Used pricing on PT\'s....
Hello,
I've been watching the posts to this topic with interest. And in the interests of full disclosure: I am the SOB who probably sparked this topic by offering Dave a price he felt was too low for his tractor.
Before going on about price, I will say that I spent an hour or so with Dave and played in his sand pile with the tractor (thanks Dave!) I am inexperienced with this specific type of equipment, but in my inexpert opinion, everything appeared to work as advertised. A little more on this below.
There are a number of issues regarding price that I considered when haggling with Dave.
1) The PT-422 was listed as roughly equivalent to Dave's Tractor. The list price for this tractor with a mini-hoe and auger is $9,100 new. Dave's asking $6,500 for a 15 year old out-of-production machine. Personally, given these options, the choice would be clear, I'd get the new machine, spending the extra $2,600, and getting a factory warranty, a current production machine, readily available spare parts, available attachments that fit without modification (the PT-1418 used a different attachment system), and the support of the manufacturer.
2) When you are buying a old piece of equipment like this (i.e. 15 years), you are buying into a repair program. The engine was replaced 5 years ago, so that should be good for a few more years. How about the hydraulic pumps, valves, and actuators? What is the expected lifetime of those? (Note: Dave did tell me that he replaced the hoses.) I didn't closely check the condition of the tires, but will those have to be replaced?
3) So if you take my point about buying into a repair program, where are you going to get the spare parts? Are the parts still available for this machine? Or have they, like the tractor itself, gone out of production? What will you have to do to keep it operating? For example, a pump goes out and say you can no longer get the pump that is on there. So you try to find an equivalent pump. Then you may have to make a manifold to attach it to the drive...perhaps you have to customise the drive shaft to couple them properly.
4) With this used tractor specifically, you don't have the advantage of knowing how many hours are on the machine (since the hour meter is broken.) So you don't know how far along you are on the expected life of the various equipment. So there is an additional big unknown here.
5) I would find it hard to believe that anyone from Power Trac would undervalue resale value. In fact, if anything, I would expect them to overstate it. There are two good reasons for this: First, pumping up the resale market makes their machines look better, increasing new sales. Second, if the resale value of their machines is pumped up high enough, people will buy new instead of used machines. Understating resale value would hurt Power Trac in many ways. The argument that they would try to take the air out of the resale market by doing this doesn't make any sense. They would essentially be saying 'Our equipment doesn't hold up', which would be death to an equipment maker.
Evaluating these factors, even if the tractor were in pristene condition, I couldn't see paying anywhere near 70% of new value.
I don't have any aversion to doing mechanical and electrical work. So, buying a used tractor is worthwhile to me if the price justifies it. However, if I don't find anything that works for me, I'll just buy one new.
All that being said, my opinion may not resonate with others. If you find that this price range is acceptable, I would recommend checking out Dave's tractor. I drove it around, used the loader, the backhoe, and the auger. We moved a little dirt, dug up some roots, and dug a post hole. Dave showed me some tips on digging and what not. I kept pushing the wrong treadle and going backwards instead of forwards (must be my dyslexia!) So perhaps I should stay away just on mere safety grounds.
