Why so few BIG Kubotas on used market?

[ace10]

First time poster, long time lurker....


I'm shopping for a utility sized MFWD cabbed tractor. Newer. We have only two tractor dealers in my close-by area. I'm not getting the warm and fuzzies about the JD dealer's future, so that leave the Kubie/Case dealer. I like the road service guy for Kubota, so I'm leaning in that direction.

With all that said, why are there so precious few big Kubies out there? I know that JD outsells that many to one on the new market, but I seem to see 20 or 30 to 1 in the 70-95 HP range second hand. I'm looking on all the websites and I'm not ruling out anything within 1200-1500 miles away.

I'm pretty sweet on an lightly-used M95S that I found, but the comparable sales aren't plentiful enough for me to be comfortable in working up a price. And it seems that the MXXXX's are priced right on top of the few M95's that are out there.

What gives? Did/does Kubota just not sell may of these larger tractors?

 

[bigbull338]

i picked my kubotas dealers machanic brain about the samething.an he told me that kubotas are so good an prob free that once their sold very few are traded in.ive found very few used 9540 kubs for sale.

 

[timswi]

i picked my kubotas dealers machanic brain about the samething.an he told me that kubotas are so good an prob free that once their sold very few are traded in.ive found very few used 9540 kubs for sale.

I found that to be true across the board..Very few Kubota's come up for sale. Just mentioning that you want to sell a good one will get the word of mouth thing going.

 

[Egon]

The larger sized Kubota's have not been in production for that long have they?

 

[Couple of Achers]

I have been looking for a larger used Kubota for over 2 years now and they are as rare as hens teeth. Larger tractors are "typically" bought for ag purposes and once bought, they are used for many many years. Since larger Kubota's have not been manufactured for very long, compared to the other color tractors, the used market for larger Kubota's has very few in the pipe line. It will take many years yet before there are any significant number of used ones available. And they may never reach the numbers available of the other brands. But it doesn't keep me from searching. If you haven't done so yet, let your local dealer know that you are looking for one. They are aware of potention trade-ins long before they are actually traded in.

 

[timswi]

In this part of the counrty, the only Kubota's I've seen for sale are either overpriced or destroyed. Size doesn't even matter. Someone always hears about the good ones and they never make it to advertising.

The suggestion to check with a dealer about up coming trades is a good one. These purchases are almost never impulse and can take weeks or months to develop.

Put the word out as well..If someone is thinking about selling, you'd be surprised how quickly the word can make to them...

 

[TripleR]

Our Kubota M8540 will never be for sale as has been mentioned people tend to keep them as long as they are reliable and that is a loooong time. I have never seen any M Series for sale in my area and like to look on the lots even though I am not in the market.

I will probably sell or trade my L5030 in at some point to get a little more head room and the HST Plus Transmission, but maybe not. If I do, it will be pretty well worn by then and probably won't stay on the lot long even then and it is not large tractor like the M Series.

 

[crazyal]

It's very simple. For every one big Kubota that's too big for what the user wants there's 20 to 30 smaller Kubota's bought that were too small or the buyer realized how much fun, I mean work the small tractor could do and figured that so much more work could be done with a bigger tractor. :laughing:

My guess is that Kubota sells a lot more smaller tractors. For every farmer out there who buys a large Kubota there's probably 10 people who buy a BX, another 5 to 10 who buy a B, and another 5 to 10 who buy a L. It's probably true with most brands.

 

[newbury]

Did you check Barlow's and Messicks?

 

[Grandad4]

I'm just going to speculate a little here, since I've wondered about the same thing.

Just as Honda and Toyota came into the US with high quality smaller cars instead of luxury cars and pickup trucks, Kubota came in with high quality small tractors instead of big iron for the ag market. They have branched out somewhat with some really great ag utility tractors, but probably figure it would be very tough to build a large market share in the production ag machinery market against the established manufacturers like Deere and others.

 

[PapaPerk]

They are on the farms working!

 

[Kyle_in_Tex]

Can't say why exactly, but there have been 2 or 3 large Kubs traded in at the local JD dealer. I think the last one was maybe an M9500 ??? And if I remember correctly, they were asking $25K or $28 maybe without a loader but it was 4wd and cab.

 

[Egon]

In many farming areas a Big Kubota may be considered a small tractor.

 

[newbury]

In many farming areas a Big Kubota may be considered a small tractor.

Agree -
My wife's cousin, a dentist, retired and bought a "small" tractor to "play around with", even though he still has "large" tractors on his hobby farm. The "small" tractor was over 100hp. I think he uses it to fetch the newspaper.

 

[om21braz]

Dealer local to me has had a few this year. Two of them sold the same week and only 1 - a M105XDTC w/ loader remains. Priced close to 30 grand less than list, I'm surprised it's still there.

 

[davygp38]

In many farming areas a Big Kubota may be considered a small tractor.

I have to agree. Where I live, a 100hp tractor, is considered a big tractor. My brother in law just moved out from Indiana, and in his opinion, a 100hp tractor, is not suitable for field work in Indiana. He thinks there ok for working around a dairy, or chicken house/hog operation.

 

[bigbull338]

the farms around here run mostly 85 to 110 hp tractors.up until 2 months ago we relied on 1 85hp tractor an loader.an that tractor has over 20,000 hrs on it.

 

[TripleR]

In many farming areas a Big Kubota may be considered a small tractor.

That is pretty much the way it is here. The guys who rent our land use 7000 Series John Deeres as utility tractors with 8000 Series and up for farming and even those aren't really considered big.

 

[Ranger Rick]

Just out of curiosity what are you planning to use the that size tractor for on 20 acres?

 

[ace10]

Thanks for all the replies.

Yes, I understand that a big Kubota is not a BIG tractor, but I'm thinking more of apples to apples in terms of Kubie M's versus newer JD 5XXX's. The availability of the JDs is staggering, provided I was interested in one at those price points (which I am not).

Does anyone agree/disagree about the used market on the M95s versus the MXXXX's being very closely priced. The M95's I see are asking in the mid to upper $30's (clean, low hrs) and the smaller models usually fall in a similar range.

I'm looking for a true luxury vehicle. I don't "need" something this large, but I'm simply not interested in a compact or a small utility. For several reasons.

*I'm going to be cutting (and possibly haying in the future) my pastures.
*I need a larger loader capacity than my Bobcat can provide. Which is only 1200 lbs. It's an open cab model and I frequently drag stuff around on my two front wheels.
*I need a cab because of some respiratory issues.
*I don't want to repeat the mistakes of each and every neighbor with buying and trading up. My neighbor to my rear has now done that twice. I made a similar mistake buying a lawn tractor when what I needed was a 0turn.
*I want to be able to run a good sized PTO snowblower. Last winter was a real wake-up call. Two storms. 40" each. It took three days (each time) to dig our way out to the paved road using three modest sized FELs. Snowbound will never happen again. The wind never stops at my place, neither do the drifts.

I want ground clearance, power and traction. I have the Bobcat for hand to hand stuff. It's good for some tasks, but it simply cannot do what I want all the time.

As for putting a request in to my dealer... I've bought a couple of pieces from them. And had quotes for other stuff. They're a "home run every time" sort of place. I like their service side, but the front of the house is too rich for my wallet.

Anyway, please keep the comments coming. I really do appreciate the thoughts.