Well I listen to you guys talk about the fancy way to check out a tractor. I guess I might get my two cents in a country boys way. I supervised a machine program for 25 years, buying and selling printing machines, lots of them came from Japan. So importing tractor and sell tractor was just another product to me when I retired. Good common horse sense can tell you more than anything. I tell my customers to do the "pine tree test". That is put the front bumper against a tree and go thru the range of gears and see if anything tears up. Well if you see the wheels spin in most of the gears then that tell you a lots. Next I look for stripped off or rounded bolt heads, that tells me where problems have been. Next and most important to me is around connection on the fuel lines. I know there is bleeder points on most of the lines, but some people don't know what they look like. So if they have been taking loose the lines to bleed fuel when they run out. I wonder what else they have failed to do. Does it have a fuel filter in the tank. I won't buy one unlesss it does. Has all lthe filter been changed. I never offer a tractor for sale unless I've changed or they are new all the filters. Also look at the general apperance of the tractor. You can tell if its been mistreated. If you see visable signs of abuse, walk. There is no telling whats inside. I gues I've got my two cents in, but I can walk around one and tell you wheither or not I want to crank it up. After making my living for many years buying and sell used equipment, I've not took many wooded nickles.
