I shopped used spreaders, got a nice older one for $1500. It was in working condition. but husband did paint it to cover the old metal with a layer of protection before using it. Had it now about 6 months and it has done a great job for me. Husband located it parked with a For Sale sign, on a country road. He even dickered the guy down some in the price!
We had been hunting on Craigslist and he was keeping an eye out on his daily drives. Just were kind of overpriced and worn out in many cases.
Husband had “put in his time” keeping our old JD spreader patched together over the years, but had reached the limit of his patience when he started shopping for another old spreader.
You might want to look at fixing things yourself, is not really hard on a spreader if the gearing pieces work. We put on new bars as they wore out, enough new links that chains were replaced at least twice over the years we owned it. Had almost a new chain and bar set when we sold it. One of the gears wearing out on the old spreader is what made us choose to buy another spreader. That ONE gear would cost $900 to replace. More than half of the cost of the replacement spreader!!
Do consider SELLING your old spreader and be honest when listing it. I sold our old one on Craigslist, but said it was for parts or use as a wagon. Had good tires, a good wooden floor. Got a number of calls on it. Ended up with a man buying it for over $300 for the parts and he planned to sell it on as a wagon after he took the parts off to fix HIS old spreader! He was very happy to get it, thought the price was OK. I was happy with the money, it was gone from here!
Are you shopping for a new spreader? Tractor and equipment dealers might be a good place to search for used spreaders.
I just don’t leave the spreader loaded because the urine and manure will really eat the chain, walls, and kill the metal in short order. Wood floors, even treated wood, doesn’t last very long if you keep manure in there for days. And in this cold, you risk the load freezing hard around the bars and chain, so they are easy to break when you turn on the PTO. Then you have to shovel and fork out the frozen load by hand, before you can attempt to fix the chain. I don’t LIKE dumping daily in bad weather, but to save money on replacement parts, problems later (ALWAYS in the coldest, worst weather), broken machinery, I do daily spreading anyway.
They also have superior engineering, but if something should happen to go wrong knowledgeable customer service and parts are just a phone call/email away. This is not the case with all spreader manufacturers.