What is a Tractors Lifespan?

[Rock Crawler]

I remember hearing very similar fairy tales back in the late 90's about how vehicles with computers and electronic fuel injection will be the end of long lasting vehicles. They were wrong. We have had vehicles as efficient, reliable, user friendly and long lasting as we have today. And a lot of this is not in spite of the electronics, rather because of the electronics. The hard parts of the new equipment should be as good (likely better) as it ever was, and the electronics will see failures, sure enough, but you will replace a module here and a PCM there and keep going. Your opinion is likely a natural response. But looking at history, I think you will be wrong. Material selection for your mechanical parts should be much improved today, electronics of today are long lasting, everything that counts should be good to go. Where years ago they made long life units by oversizing anything and everything to try to prevent failure, I believe that today we can use engineering and finite stress analysis to design away failures without adding a bunch of unnecessary material. Now... body metal thickness... Junk.

 

[Agvg]

The problem to day are bad design, cheap solutions on expensive machines. Outsoursing almost all and that ofte makes it harder to keep the aftermarked for parts alive. But it shall be interesting to se if 3D printing vill change the parts game.

 

[Phillip w]

I've owned 2 little japanese tractors in my life time. One a b7100 kubota. It busted the loader, shelled front axle, shelled 2 and 5 gear in transmission, and screwed up the locking differential feature. That tractor was a 1978 and went to scrap in 1985. Now i bought a mf 1531. It is having loader issues, front differential has shelled 3 times, pto shelled twice, steering cylinder busted and so on and so forth. We never had issues like this years ago. Other newer tractor owners are having similiar issues. When i worked in ag manufacturing, we had a couple engineers we had to educate. I don't care if it works on paper or in some computer. Need results, does it work in real life??? I'm not against using electronic whizzos, but you have to start with a tractor. All the electronic whizzos in the world are worthless sitting on tractor with major component failure. No whizzo is going to help when the loader arm breaks, transmission fails, differentials fail, axles break etc. I'm not from missouri, but some of that show me stuff rubbed of on me. These modern newer tractors are not showing me anything worth giving consideration to purchase another one.

 

[CincyFlyer]

I've owned 2 little japanese tractors in my life time. One a b7100 kubota. It busted the loader, shelled front axle, shelled 2 and 5 gear in transmission, and screwed up the locking differential feature. That tractor was a 1978 and went to scrap in 1985. Now i bought a mf 1531. It is having loader issues, front differential has shelled 3 times, pto shelled twice, steering cylinder busted and so on and so forth. We never had issues like this years ago. Other newer tractor owners are having similiar issues. When i worked in ag manufacturing, we had a couple engineers we had to educate. I don't care if it works on paper or in some computer. Need results, does it work in real life??? I'm not against using electronic whizzos, but you have to start with a tractor. All the electronic whizzos in the world are worthless sitting on tractor with major component failure. No whizzo is going to help when the loader arm breaks, transmission fails, differentials fail, axles break etc. I'm not from missouri, but some of that show me stuff rubbed of on me. These modern newer tractors are not showing me anything worth giving consideration to purchase another one.

It sounds as though you are either unlucky, or you hammer your equipment; I'm one of those for whom cars, motorcycles, airplanes, and tractors seem to last forever and ever.

 

[Phillip w]

From what i can tell, it is a quality issue. I got a 1973 ford pickup still going one tractor 60 years old another tractor 40 plus years old and still going. Yes we buy our tractors and put them to work. We expect them to hold up. Their is a relatively local guy who also tried the kubota experiment about 25 years ago. I tried to warn him but similiiar result. Broken loader arm, front end trouble. Needless to say he is back to jd and i don't think he's switching brands anytime soon. In last couple weeks, got a mf with what probably has a catastrophic tranny problem and another mf with a broken loader. We were discussing that other gentlemans 4020. I'm somewhat familiar with that tractor. You put a westendorf or koyker loader on that tractor, and if you manage to break it, i want to know how you did it. Same with the transmission, differential and axles. If you got grease in it and you break one of those components, i want to know how you did it. Failures of this nature are uncommon in that era of tractor. Both my old tractors are way past the 10,000 + hour mark. Now i will admit my my allis pulled a stinker recently. Some engineer had cranial rectinitis and was clueless on the design. Had to get a little creative and "re engineer" the thing but im back in Businees. It boils down to an engineering debacle and i dont hold that against the tractor. So, i don't see the raw rugged tractor quality of yesterdays tractors.

 

[Creamer]

From what i can tell, it is a quality issue. I got a 1973 ford pickup still going one tractor 60 years old another tractor 40 plus years old and still going. Yes we buy our tractors and put them to work. We expect them to hold up. Their is a relatively local guy who also tried the kubota experiment about 25 years ago. I tried to warn him but similiiar result. Broken loader arm, front end trouble. Needless to say he is back to jd and i don't think he's switching brands anytime soon. In last couple weeks, got a mf with what probably has a catastrophic tranny problem and another mf with a broken loader. We were discussing that other gentlemans 4020. I'm somewhat familiar with that tractor. You put a westendorf or koyker loader on that tractor, and if you manage to break it, i want to know how you did it. Same with the transmission, differential and axles. If you got grease in it and you break one of those components, i want to know how you did it. Failures of this nature are uncommon in that era of tractor. Both my old tractors are way past the 10,000 + hour mark. Now i will admit my my allis pulled a stinker recently. Some engineer had cranial rectinitis and was clueless on the design. Had to get a little creative and "re engineer" the thing but im back in Businees. It boils down to an engineering debacle and i dont hold that against the tractor. So, i don't see the raw rugged tractor quality of yesterdays tractors.

JD 4020s are famous for broken front axles with loaders on them. they were not a good loader tractor unless the front axle was beefed up.

 

[ovrszd]

You can't selectively blame modern tractor failures on the tractor, and then blame your Allis' failure on the engineer.

Sending any brand tractor to the scrap yard in 7 years is abusive.

My neighbor has a JD4240 with 8K hrs. It's a complete POS. Front end is completely worn out. No park pin left. I've rebuilt and rewelded every pin sleeve on the FEL.

When he needed to do FEL work he borrowed my Kubota. Same with brush cutting.

Rock Crawler's comments above are spot on. I certainly don't want to go back.

 

[joeu235]

JD 4020s are famous for broken front axles with loaders on them. they were not a good loader tractor unless the front axle was beefed up.

I agree with that, my dad broke the front axle last year off the 4020. But it was designed as a dirt tractor and not really for loader work.

 

[ovrszd]

I agree with that, my dad broke the front axle last year off the 4020. But it was designed as a dirt tractor and not really for loader work.

Yep, it was JD's leap into modern AG tractors. Very successful leap too. Possibly the most successful leap of any brand.

 

[joeu235]

And a lot of this is not in spite of the electronics, rather because of the electronics. The hard parts of the new equipment should be as good (likely better) as it ever was, and the electronics will see failures, sure enough, but you will replace a module here and a PCM there and keep going. Your opinion is likely a natural response. But looking at history, I think you will be wrong.

Coming from the electronics industry and dealing with obsolesce, I do not believe companies will have the part support for electronic components 30 years from now. With my employeer, we are willig to pay 4x the cost of some circuit boards and they just dont exist. At least with mechanical things, if you can find the right welder and machinist, you can fix something made 100 years ago

 

[Phillip w]

I've seen alot of hay fed and or loaded with a 4020. I myself would not be afraid to put a loader on a 4020. Yeah you can get carried away and bust a spindle. I did it on a 930 case. Have not busted one on the allis. The allis did develop a hydraulic issue. After some research i found out it is common problem and about everyone that has run into this problem just scratch their heads on wonder what the engineers were thinking. So, we have figured out how to get around the engineering debacle which the engineers should have done in the first place. And yeah, i got another crappy tractor headed to the junk yard as soon as it craps out completely. Abuse or quality does not matter. I'm waiting to see the neighbors show up with mf, kubota, kioti, mahindra etc. Everyone i know that has tried it ended up with sub standard quality tractor that was a basket case. Do we all abuse our tractors??? I don't think so. Some of these guys are 3rd 4th 5th generation farmers so i'm pretty sure they got this tractor thing figures out and i Don't see them switching brands anytime soon.

 

[ovrszd]

Well obviously the Allis is an excellent tractor. It's a shame it was designed by such stupid Engineers.

 

[Phillip w]

When i worked in ag manufacturing, 3 farm boys basically started and ran the company. One of the brothers was real smart and could figure out how to get anything to work. No college, just good old fashion no how. He helped develop a seed treater, anhydrous applicator and so on. On more than one occasion he pretty much Told couple engineers why something would not work. We had a trumpf laser, the pride of german engineering. One night it tooka major dive. They were were going to have to fly parts in from germany, we were busy and could not afford to be down. The "can fix about anything" brother came in and the three brother were accessing the situation. "mr fix it" went to work on the problem made some parts and had the laser up and running by noon. Trumpf lost the parts order and i kind of thought they were gouging them with their prices. The laser was still running when i left the plant. Just another farm boy stepping up to the plate and getting it done. No engineering degree required. Engineer may have been the problem. He did have to make some "engineering changes" with his fix.

 

[ovrszd]

Yeah, you wonder why such a company as Allis Chalmers would let such stupid engineers work for them. Especially since they were producing such a quality product.

 

[Creamer]

I've seen alot of hay fed and or loaded with a 4020. I myself would not be afraid to put a loader on a 4020. Yeah you can get carried away and bust a spindle. I did it on a 930 case. Have not busted one on the allis. The allis did develop a hydraulic issue. After some research i found out it is common problem and about everyone that has run into this problem just scratch their heads on wonder what the engineers were thinking. So, we have figured out how to get around the engineering debacle which the engineers should have done in the first place. And yeah, i got another crappy tractor headed to the junk yard as soon as it craps out completely. Abuse or quality does not matter. I'm waiting to see the neighbors show up with mf, kubota, kioti, mahindra etc. Everyone i know that has tried it ended up with sub standard quality tractor that was a basket case. Do we all abuse our tractors??? I don't think so. Some of these guys are 3rd 4th 5th generation farmers so i'm pretty sure they got this tractor thing figures out and i Don't see them switching brands anytime soon.

I was not dissing the 4020 in any way - for its time it was a great tractor. We used one for our main field tractor for many years and put well over 10,000 hours on it (hard to say how many because the meter broke just before turning over) and then sold it for twice as much as my Dad paid for it in 67. It was a great tractor but the pipe across the front did not like carrying loads on an FEL across rough ground and tended to crack. like someone said they were designed as an ag tractor and not really as a loader tractor but they did work well with a reinforced front axe.

 

[Phillip w]

That is basically how i busted the spindle on that 930 case. Had a bale of hay on the front and hit a hole and kerplunck. I kind of baby the allis when i got a big pay load on the front. I think all them old tractors had the means to bust a spindle if you didnt be kind of care when you had a big payload on the front.

 

[Phillip w]

Yeah, you wonder why such a company as Allis Chalmers would let such stupid engineers work for them. Especially since they were producing such a quality product.

Probably the same reason jd was producing quality tractors with the 2 lungers. They had a design flaw: there front ends were light and vulnerable to raring up and upset. They compounded the problem by putting narrow front ends on alot of those tractors. What were they thinking??? Who hired those guys anyway??? Oh well, they are collectors tractors now.

 

[goeduck]

I was not dissing the 4020 in any way - for its time it was a great tractor. We used one for our main field tractor for many years and put well over 10,000 hours on it (hard to say how many because the meter broke just before turning over) and then sold it for twice as much as my Dad paid for it in 67. It was a great tractor but the pipe across the front did not like carrying loads on an FEL across rough ground and tended to crack. like someone said they were designed as an ag tractor and not really as a loader tractor but they did work well with a reinforced front axe.

I googled the 4020 for some pictures because I am not familiar with it. I would agree that the front axle looks like it was not built for an FEL. Good field tractor from what I understand however, just not robust in the front for FEL work. ,

 

[finn1]

I don't know how it works in Canada but in the USA the IRS determines the number of years you can amortize a piece of equipment. My JD 110TLB cost around $51,000 new and I could write it off over 6 years using it for business.

Another reason a modern tractor痴 lifetime is limited.

John Deere makes virtually nothing on Parts for a 50 year old tractor compared to what they make selling a brand new , tax write off tractor every five years.

I think selling parts for obsolete tractors is as much a defensive move to keep the aftermarket vendors at bay as it is a Parts profit business.

 

[ovrszd]

Another reason a modern tractorç—´ lifetime is limited.

John Deere makes virtually nothing on Parts for a 50 year old tractor compared to what they make selling a brand new , tax write off tractor every five years.

I think selling parts for obsolete tractors is as much a defensive move to keep the aftermarket vendors at bay as it is a Parts profit business.

I don't know what the logic is. I have two 34 year old Fords. A part that you think should be available isn't. A part that you think shouldn't be available is. Go figure. In the end I don't care. I'll take whatever part I can get and need. I'll improvise the others.