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