What makes you buy ?

[garth466]

Do French tractors have bad seats and brakes? Anyway, who wants a tractor that will treat you so poorly after you save its butt numerous times?

 

[Grrrr]

Do French tractors have bad seats and brakes? Anyway, who wants a tractor that will treat you so poorly after you save its butt numerous times?

I was wandering the same thing?

 

[N80]

Be careful of making assumptions on LT support just because there is a Major Mfgrs name of a product.

YMMV

I think being careful is fine. You have to look at the company. You have to see how viable it is and you have to pay attention to who makes its products. That's one of the reasons Kubota appeals to me. Kubota makes Kubotas and they are a major manufacturer of diesel engines.

You never know what can happen to a company and anyone can make some bad models. But there is some statistical safety in going with big, well established brands. A company's history is not a perfect indicator, but it is still a good one.

I also hear people suggest that buyers look at the less established brands in order to get a lower price. When I bought my L4400, few of them had anything like it in its price range. My point being, don't dismiss a major brand on the assumption that it will be more expensive. It is not always true.

 

[canoetrpr]

I don't think that the dealer will be very important things to me next time around. I've not been impressed by dealers of either cars or tractors. Others here seem to have great dealers. I can't replicate that.

With my cars, I buy new, I try to buy reliable and for the long term. I don't worry about extended warranties. The original one expires quickly - usually within 2 years given the miles I put on them and things have worked well for me this way. I have a local mechanic who the cars go to for service and I never feel ripped off dealing with him. As silly as it sounds, I'm often looking forward to the car coming outa warranty so that I don't have to deal with the dealer. If something breaks my mechanic fixes it.

Sure would be nice to have a great tractor dealer and maybe I'll find one around here but the delears appear to range from really rally crappy to so so - with the exception of one Kioti dealer I encountered. He was great. I'm not going to put much emphasis on warranty either given my pretty poor experience with the corporate warranty rep in this area. Heck the local Kubota warranty rep watches my posts here and reported on my activities to the purchasing dealer since I was a 'bad boy' (unhappy with the purchasing dealer and attempted to do business with their customers). Good thing the Canadian arm of Kubota dosne't actually make the tractors - it just sells them.

Bottom line, I'll do my best to find a great tractor with a good reputation from a company with a reputation for making reliabile machines with a good parts network for the long term (more important than dealer network - even though they are often one and the same). I plan to place little to no emphasis on warrantees, dealers and service reps but a lot of emphasis on overall reputation for reliability for the brand and model and for parts availability.

 

[Builder]

There are many things that trigger a sale. Some folks (cough cough - Soundguy! - Cough cough) may even have more tractors than acres. They just like tractors and narrowly target machines to uses or even a single use.

What I have found is that there is really little difference in price between similar tractors. Sure, a fancy JD 30 hp tractor is more than a stripped Kubota 30 hp tractor, but if you look at each segment they are very close on price. Now, you may have to travel a bit to get that low price as regional variations are astonishingly large.

jb

Sorry to get off-track, but respectfully, I would have to disagree there. JD is without question, the most expensive tractor, especially when buying used. I'm not saying they're not worth it, but they are the most expensive. Deere has high resale value. I've been looking for a 50-60HP/utility/cab/4x4 for 1/2 a year now, and Deere is consistently 20% more than Kubota. I've personally looked at a dozen deeres & kubotas and looked at hundreds on-line. I can really say that I'm 100% sure Deere is consdierably more expensive than Kubota, and barely any better, if not even as good as Kubota.

Most clean 50HP deere 4x4's with a cab & loader are in the mid 30's while most comparable Kubotas are in the mid 20's!

 

[Builder]

I think being careful is fine. You have to look at the company. You have to see how viable it is and you have to pay attention to who makes its products. That's one of the reasons Kubota appeals to me. Kubota makes Kubotas and they are a major manufacturer of diesel engines.

You never know what can happen to a company and anyone can make some bad models. But there is some statistical safety in going with big, well established brands. A company's history is not a perfect indicator, but it is still a good one.

I also hear people suggest that buyers look at the less established brands in order to get a lower price. When I bought my L4400, few of them had anything like it in its price range. My point being, don't dismiss a major brand on the assumption that it will be more expensive. It is not always true.

To me, Kubota is like the Toyota of tractors. They don't make anything really big, but the small-mid size tractors they make are dead-nutz reliable. They have excellent engineering and they really never made anything sub-par. Between 20-90HP, they're REALLY tough to beat. I find their prices are very reasonable for what you get and they last a long time. If you have a good local dealer, it's a big help because Kubota still has some issues with getting parts quickly, compared to Deere. That's about the only bad thing about K.

 

[texasjohn]

Before my current tractor, I had an old Case (claw 3PH, tricycle), and a MF 165 gas. Case beat me to death and pulled arms out of sockets with no power steering. MF 165 was somewhat underpowered for what I was wanting to do and I was always having to struggle to get things done. So, when looking for my next tractor I decided that I needed to move up in hp and capability. I was tired of throwing my body into the fray when tractoring.

I'm in JD country, so when I started looking I looked for green. I decided that I needed 4WD and a FEL. Having 3 dealers within 25 miles, I visited each and priced their new wares. Also discovered that MF dealers were kaput in the area. No Case dealers either. Visited Kioti dealer, reputable old line ex MF dealer, but was unfamilar at the time with Kioti.. and dealer said it was "just like a Kubota." It just didn't feel right and price wasn't that different from JD.

Visited NH and saw/priced their wares. Also at NH dealer was the used (230hrs) Kubota I finally purchased. For the same price as a JD I could add HST, a cab, quick attach and two rear hydraulic ports. Since the tractor ran like a top, it was an easy decision for me. I knew that there was a good Kubota dealer in Austin... but their price was about $8K more (new) than the used one.

So, my purchase decision was based on

1) more wonderful features for the price
2) transferable warranty
3) good dealer in the area, if needed
4) it was available immediately and delivery was free

 

[GaryCrowell]

I'm not of the belief that if I buy one of the top tier, old line makes, that I can assume there will be support 15-20 or more yrs down the road for any model with their name on it.

All the makes Gary Cowell mentioned as top tier have offered models made by those 2nd, 3rd, tier mfgrs he wouldn't touch. They are a contract build and the big boys may or may not be buying from that suppler in a few yrs. What assurance do we have there will be support beyond the min number of yrs the law requires? We don't!

........

Be careful of making assumptions on LT support just because there is a Major Mfgrs name of a product.

There's a certain amount of truth in there, but I do disagree with some of your assumptions. There are no guarantees in life, we just have to make our best guesses and with something like tractor parts support we won't know if we were right until we need parts, maybe 25 years down the road. That being said, my experience has been that the bet is better placed on a more established company keeping up their parts supply on older models. I can go down to the local massey dealer and get virtually anything for a 135 that's nearly a half century old, even though the brand name is now owned by AGCO and isn't even the same company that built it. Same with the 1969 John Deere 4020 that we use for food plots at my deere camp, anything is just a trip to the deere dealer away, and a lot of stuff can be bought from the local Napa dealer which you're never more than 15 miles from here. However, you coulnd't find parts for my father's 15 year old Belarus 250AS on a bet. History has shown me that you're better able to find parts for established brands. There's no guarantee that that will remain so, but it's a safer bet than the off brands.

We live in a world where everything is outsourced. Very little is made by the brand that sticks their name on it. I'm well aware that lots of Deere stuff is made in india, MF in brazil, Case/NH in turkey, etc. However, just because a Deere tractor is made in a plant right next to the Mahindra in India doesn't mean that the parts support will be the same. I'm not knocking Mahindra, their tractor may be just as good or better than the Deere, but I know that even though the Deere is made in India, Deere will ensure a reliable parts supply in the future. Mahindra will probably have good parts support too, but they're less established in the U.S. and if their U.S. operation folds then where are you going to get stuff to fix your tractor? Deere will be here, and they will get the parts for you because their name and reputation is riding on it, no matter where the tractor was sourced from. We may not have assurance that Deere/MF/CASE/NH/Kubota will offer parts beyond the time period the law requires, but they have a lot more riding on their good names than the 2nd tier brands. People pay a lot of money for that green paint just because they KNOW they will be taken care of if their tractor breaks. Brand names DO matter. I figured that out every time I chased all over the country trying to find a part for my father's Belarus.

 

[canoetrpr]

Very interesting discussion.

Another way to look at the parts supply question is that if you buy a tractor model that is selling well and has sold well for a while, then chances are parts supply will be great - no matter what happens to the manufacturer 25 years from now.

The MF 135, Ford 8N, 9N are examples. If MF and Ford folded up there would still be great part supply because there are so many of these machines out there that the demand will create the supply.

Based on this logic, one is best of buying the most popular / best selling models within any brand. That said, I don't really see anything that is selling now that is going to be a MF 135 or 8N, 9N in popularity... but in some sense, I think the logic still holds.

 

[Compact1]

When I first bought a tractor I wanted something in the 24hp range since I have a small piece of property. I shopped Deere, Kubota, and NH and made many trips to all three dealers. I was able to get more features with NH for less money and they were offering 0% at 48 months, therefore I bought a TC24DA.

I had the tractor for 2 years and decided I needed a 30+ hp tractor. I shopped the same three dealers and found tractors I was happy with in each color. NH was the only manufacturer that offered the right combination of hp, features, frame size, price, and 0% financing. I bought a TC33DA from the same dealer and was happy with the end result.

The 30+ hp Deere I wanted was just too big (frame size) for my property and the price was substantially more. The best financing I could get through Deere was 0% for 36 months but I got 0% for 60 months with NH.

If all three manufactures offered the same tractor for the same price with the same financing...I would still be making the decision.