Tractor noob, help!

[mdp9]

First time tractor buyer here. I lease a farm and have rented my landlord’s tractor. Well, to be fair, I pay my landlord a monthly rate and our shared maintenance guy drags my rings, pushes the manure pile back, delivers round bales, etc. So I actually don’t even touch the thing.

Landlord’s tractor, which is pretty old, is breaking down and it’s about time I get my own anyway. I’d like to feel comfortable doing it myself.

I’ve spoken to some dealers and it appears I need something 30-40 hp. I’d love to find something gently used but that seems hard to come by.

Any words of advice or encouragement for me?? I feel like a dummy looking at tractor ads and don’t even understand what I’m looking at.

[anon55755751]

I’m in roughly the same position. The used options for compact tractors are not great in my area (as far as I can tell), esp. for a first time buyer. I’m tracking some local auctions online, but I’m afraid I’m going to end up buying new. Having trouble pulling the trigger on the purchase, but I’ve only got a few weeks now before I can’t say I’m not mowing yet b/c “the ground is too wet”…

Check out these excellent youtube channels: Ask Tractor Mike and Messick’s. You will learn a lot and feel less overwhelmed.

[SuzieQNutter]

And add to the above a FEL. Front end loader. A gal and her tractor can do ANYTHING!!!

[hosspuller]

22 years ago I was a tractor Noob … That’s I knew little to nothing about land and tractors. A few things I learned:

Size matters. Horsepower is just how fast you can operate. But, you need size and weight to safely handle heavy implements and heavy loads. A compact tractor can’t grow.

Old tractors don’t have ROPS … “Roll Over Protection Systems” Getting killed or maimed through inexperience is a poor cost savings. Tractors are large and powerful. You are soft and weak. They are NOT overgrown suburban lawn mowers.

A front end loader. Horses make manure out of prodigious amounts of feed. A FEL saves one’s back and arms.

Four wheel drive. When using the FEL, or in muddy conditions, the MFWD will help keep you moving.

Dealer. Unless you’re mechanically gifted or have a constant companion that is, you’ll need service. Red, green, orange, or blue … dealer is key. Not color.

[ElementFarm]

Definitely spring for the FEL.

Don’t discount new tractors! Kubota has a pretty appealing deal where it’s interest free if you do a 5-yr finance with them. We also get the insurance for it, which has paid for itself twice. When we were shopping, we found we could get more tractor for the money with Kubota than JD, but a lot depends on what you’re near–you don’t want service/parts to be 2 hrs away.

It is possible to find gently used tractors, but you have to be to purchase immediately. When we wanted to trade up to a bigger model, we listed our 2yo, less than 1K hours tractor and it sold to the first couple who came to look at it the night we advertised it.

When you are shopping, definitely 4WD, get the widest bushhog you can, it’ll be worth it in fewer laps mowing. For parts like drags, box blades, sprayers, augers, you can get the less expensive TSC brand instead of the tractor’s brand.

I love our tractor. I drag the ring with, the pastures with it, use it to move square and round bales, etc. It’s actually much easier for me to drive than our little riding lawn mower.

[Madhouse]

https://www.tractorbynet.com Is a GREAT source of information.

In my less-than-humble opinion:

A Front End Loader (FEL) is absolutely necessary - Make sure it has the capacity to lift a 1500# bale of hay - If you don’t use rounds or large squares now once you have the equipment there isn’t any reason not to.

Don’t bother with an FEL if you don’t have front wheel assist… I know it CAN be done - But why?

Tractors depreciate very slowly - hence slightly used isn’t much of a savings to new. O% financing, a good, close dealer that can work on it - simple maintenance items - You mentioned your a noob. Makes buying new make a lot of sense.

It took me several years to convince the DW that I needed a tractor. After owning if a few months she apologized for not letting me get it sooner then she convinced her friend that THEY too needed to get a tractor.

[walkinthewalk]

@hosspuller

22 years ago I was a tractor Noob … That’s I knew little to nothing about land and tractors. A few things I learned:

Size matters. Horsepower is just how fast you can operate. But, you need size and weight to safely handle heavy implements and heavy loads. A compact tractor can’t grow.

Old tractors don’t have ROPS … “Roll Over Protection Systems” Getting killed or maimed through inexperience is a poor cost savings. Tractors are large and powerful. You are soft and weak. They are NOT overgrown suburban lawn mowers.

A front end loader. Horses make manure out of prodigious amounts of feed. A FEL saves one’s back and arms.

Four wheel drive. When using the FEL, or in muddy conditions, the MFWD will help keep you moving.

Dealer. Unless you’re mechanically gifted or have a constant companion that is, you’ll need service. Red, green, orange, or blue … dealer is key. Not color.

That’s some pretty good advice for the new tractor owner to heed:)

I am fortunate dad had a wrench in my hands at an early age, on the dairy farm, so I can fix minor stuff that might otherwise stop progress until DH gets home from work. DH has built more than one race car from the ground up, which makes him more than capable of saving us BIG $$$$ in maintenance and repairs but there are still times we need to take the tractors to the dealers because “really major surgery” is involved and we just don’t have the tools to do the job:).

So make sure you buy a tractor brand with a dealership near you that has an excellent service department. Smart service is everything, regardless of what piece of equipment or vehicle you own:)

[Guilherme]

A tractor is a tool; match the tool to the job.

What jobs do you need to do? This is the time you get out your yellow pad and write them down. Then do some internet shopping looking for the type of tractor that will do those jobs. Don’t buy too much, but don’t buy too little. If you’re going to err, remember that there is no substitute for horsepower!!! Better one size too big than one size too small, in most instances.

Specific things to consider seriously are selective all wheel drive; a front end loader big enough to move the biggest hay bale you’ll ever move; a bush hog that will allow you to mow in the most efficient way possible; forks to move pallets; a bucket big enough to move the dirt/grave/etc. you need to move. These are pretty much the minimum things you’ll need to have.

Good luck in your search!

G.

[ReSomething]

DH bought used on an internet site that I cannot find now, ten years later, it’s a ‘97 Kubota FEL with a lotta hours but keeps on running,I think at the time it cost about 14K including getting it here on a semi, and got a bushel of implements including a backhoe arm which has seen a lot of use. We had to bury the old guy when he passed, expose the septic tank, replace the frost free hydrant and dig up lots and lots of rocks, the place is full of them. We have hilly land and the FEL moves dirt, hay and provides a counterweight for mowing (we still mow in an M pattern, back up the hill and go forward down it but the weight is helpful anyway) Our neighbor did not have an FEL and instead had weights on the front of his tractor. The new owner of that property bought a smaller tractor with a belly mower which IMO is too narrow to be efficient, he can’t get the thing close enough to the trees he has with low branches and leaves three foot islands of tall grass around them. The. lovely mowed lawn that was our old neighbors pride and joy now gets furry and is also shrinking because it takes twice as long with the narrow belly mower.
Our bush hog and finish mower are 5’ and are a good width for our woods and terrain, though I envy the horse farms around here with 12’ batwings.

[Leather]

Agree with those who said to check out the local dealers/service places to see what brands they will support.

A big one for me would be transmission type. Right now we’ve got a gigantic 1965 International with a manual clutch/shift type transmission. It was what we could afford at the time that was big enough for our needs. There’s no way I can drive that thing, so I have to depend on Mr. L. Hopefully soon we can either get a tractor with a hydrostatic/automatic transmission or a skid loader so I can move round bales myself.

[4LeafCloverFarm]

If you are in a fairly rural/farm area, you might also want to check out auctions at farms. They often have great, well maintained equipment at good prices. These are often advertised well in advance, with a list of available equipment (some you can actually stop buy pre-auction and take a look at). That’s how my husband and I got our Mill Creek manure spreader.

We were fortunate when we bought our tractor years ago to have a good, reputable used tractor dealership in our county. Sadly, it doesn’t exist anymore. Nor do the other two used tractor places around. The generation that ran those places is disappearing.

[A3dayeventer2009]

Thanks for posting this. I am in the same scenario. A lot of good advice.

[kande04]

One of our most useful tractors is a little one with a york rake and no bucket that fits inside the stalls. It wouldn’t work for us as our only tractor because it’s too small, and doesn’t have a bucket, but it’s the handiest thing ever for getting into tight places with the york rake.

Another tractor I use a lot is a big heavy one with a big heavy york rake for scraping up larger quantities of manure faster.

One of the implements we got with the last tractor we bought is a grapple that goes on the front, which we use way more than we ever thought we would. We leave it on the tractor most of the time and use it to move round bales and manure piles that have enough hay in them so that it doesn’t fall through. We can also use the bottom of the grapple to push stuff around, and the tines to dig potatoes or scrape up the mats of wasted hay around the round bales.

Another splurge was a cab on one of the tractors, which not only has heat and air, but the tractor doesn’t need to be stored inside because the cab covers all the parts that need to be covered. Dh used to take the tractors in the woods so didn’t want a cab, but now that we’ve got more tractors and are getting older and softer, heat and air have become higher priorities!

[mdp9]

Thanks for your input! Seriously helpful.

After speaking with a couple dealers, I know I need ~35 hp. As much as I would love to find something gently used, I fear I may end up going new. Either way I will definitely go with a dealer because I have no business buying a tractor by myself off some random person or auction.

Question - I know that JD and Kubota are the high end brands. Yanmar, Kioti, Mahindra, others like that… Is it better to get the “name brand” or is it all the same?

[Guilherme]

@mdp9

Thanks for your input! Seriously helpful.

After speaking with a couple dealers, I know I need ~35 hp. As much as I would love to find something gently used, I fear I may end up going new. Either way I will definitely go with a dealer because I have no business buying a tractor by myself off some random person or auction.

Question - I know that JD and Kubota are the high end brands. Yanmar, Kioti, Mahindra, others like that… Is it better to get the “name brand” or is it all the same?

They most assuredly NOT all the same!

At the high end you get good ergonomics (designed for Western adult conformation, not Asian adult conformation). You also get good hydraulics, which are one of the more expensive components of the tractor. If you’re getting electronics you’ll get a more robust and reliable design and manufacture.

A number of the lower end tractors are copies of U.S. designs from years, or even decades, past. They will all have pretty good engines and transmissions but all the utilities and auxiliaries will be of a quality that will likely reflect the price.

Or, to coin a phrase, “you’ll get what you pay for!”

As noted above, pick a dealer that is nearby and use the brands that they sell and service, even if you don’t buy from them.

Tractor salesmen are cousins of car salesmen and have roughly the same moral and ethical view of the world. As long as you remember that you can tell they are lying when their llips are moving you’ll be OK!!!

Here is an interesting site with information on virtually every tractor brand and year sold in the U.S. It might be “TMI” but then you might benefit from the ability to review original specs, especially if you are looking at used tractors. http://www.tractordata.com/farm-tractors/index.html

Good luck in your search.

G.

[TMares]

You could not pry my John Deere 4052 out of my hands. We drove Mahindras, Kubotas, New Hollands, and a few others and fell into a great deal on a gently used JD. It’s more power than you need, but not by much, so I’ll tell you what I love about this tractor and the tools we use on it:

-hydrostatic transmission. Yes, I can drive a stick, I grew up driving them, love them. With that said, I LOVE not having a clutch on a tractor when you’re often doing a lot of close work (in a barn hall, around trees and such). It’s one pedal for forward, and the other pedal next to it for backward with your right foot. Three speeds (creep, move, and haul ass, technical terms) on a shifter with your left hand.LOVE LOVE LOVE.

• 4WD- for our mud and terrain, it’s a must. Not everyone needs it. Super easy to get into/out of.

• Easy to swap out implements- we use pallet forks for big squares, and the bucket for stalls, sand, brush, etc. I didn’t need an FEL (we have an excavator) but I think on this size tractor I’d be underpowered to do much with it, anyway. And of course a bush bog (a cheap Kioti).

Like G said- what do you NEED it to do? Start there

[Bluey]

If someone needs to lift big bales with some kind of spear or pallet points, remember that the lift capacity of a tractor is listed at the drawbar.
In front it is about half that.

Our tractor is rated for 3000# on the drawbar, but half that in front when we move big bales around.

Always remember to stay safe while working with a bucket or pallet points and carrying a weight in front.
Keep it low and straight and drive on as level ground as possible when loaded.