New tractors versus classics

gone said:
I was trying to buy a new tractor over the last few weeks, a neighbour wanted to buy my 12yr old MF6490 and I have to upgrade my plough, 14 yrs old.
The reasons I was looking at changing were, I wanted very new tech wheels and tyres (IF/VF 650/65/42's & %40/65/30's), I wanted auto guidance, I wanted a new lift (trusting a very heavy implement on a well used 12 yr old lift gets more and more an act of faith). I could have retrofitted all the above to the 12 yr old tractor and repaired to like new, but it would have cost close to €30,000.00+V and I would still have a 12 yr old tractor and still would be hoping nothing fails with the very heavy equipment on the lift.
I didn't end up buying new as the gap between new and the 12 yr old is too big for me to bridge even though I almost bought a NH, so ended up with 1 yr old.
For me what new tractors offer over 20 yr olds is as follows.
Properly integrated tech.
A choice of good 200hp tractors that are a manageable size, the only 20 yr old tractor anything like that was a JD7810 and it really wasn't supposed to be 200hp.
10 ton lift capacity and the reassurance that it is new.
Unfortunately the price is getting way beyond agriculture's pocket, as I said to the salesmen the problem is the price of our commodities, all farm produce would have made as much or more at some time in each of the last 5 decades. Our buying power is shrinking and we give that everyone else expects a living wage.
Not having a go at your thoughts @AYF for a stockman tractor very little has improved and a lot has disimproved, just my thoughts from a tillageman's point of view.
Click to expand...
Why would you go for 42? I thought high profile 38s would give you lower ground and tyre pressure?
 
gone said:
I was trying to buy a new tractor over the last few weeks, a neighbour wanted to buy my 12yr old MF6490 and I have to upgrade my plough, 14 yrs old.
The reasons I was looking at changing were, I wanted very new tech wheels and tyres (IF/VF 650/65/42's & %40/65/30's), I wanted auto guidance, I wanted a new lift (trusting a very heavy implement on a well used 12 yr old lift gets more and more an act of faith). I could have retrofitted all the above to the 12 yr old tractor and repaired to like new, but it would have cost close to €30,000.00+V and I would still have a 12 yr old tractor and still would be hoping nothing fails with the very heavy equipment on the lift.
I didn't end up buying new as the gap between new and the 12 yr old is too big for me to bridge even though I almost bought a NH, so ended up with 1 yr old.
For me what new tractors offer over 20 yr olds is as follows.
Properly integrated tech.
A choice of good 200hp tractors that are a manageable size, the only 20 yr old tractor anything like that was a JD7810 and it really wasn't supposed to be 200hp.
10 ton lift capacity and the reassurance that it is new.
Unfortunately the price is getting way beyond agriculture's pocket, as I said to the salesmen the problem is the price of our commodities, all farm produce would have made as much or more at some time in each of the last 5 decades. Our buying power is shrinking and we give that everyone else expects a living wage.
Not having a go at your thoughts @AYF for a stockman tractor very little has improved and a lot has disimproved, just my thoughts from a tillageman's point of view.
Click to expand...
What did u get @gone and pictures please....
 
@muckymanor I'm not going to bother repeating what others have said but if farmers really want their charges linked to diesel cost they could supply the diesel like is done in many other countries. If diesel goes up/down you take the hit or saving and the same for heavy cuts, long hauls etc.
 
Mike said:
Unhealthy is another important one
Its not good if your back is getting banjaxed from a bad seat mounted directly to the backend, also not good if you are coughing up dust and shite after a day on one of these, or your hearing is getting damaged.
Click to expand...
Cab and front suspension have done a lot for tractor comfort, any bit of work at speed whether it be field or road the operator has to be the better for it, seat suspensions have come a long way too from basic spring/ damper setups to adjustable damping and fore/aft suspension, rotation, seat pan adjustment, lumbar adjustment, armrest adjustment or armrest integrated controls, the cabs themselves have gotten roomier, a lot quieter and dust proof. a lot of this improvement couldn't have happened without removing the mechanical connections and replacing them with electrics.
 
Claas Grass said:
@muckymanor I'm not going to bother repeating what others have said but if farmers really want their charges linked to diesel cost they could supply the diesel like is done in many other countries. If diesel goes up/down you take the hit or saving and the same for heavy cuts, long hauls etc.
Click to expand...
A lot of the downside to that is farms not having big enough tanks to fill a silage fleet.

Plus you need to trust it hasnt sat for 6 months and full of bio gunk.


Remember we did that on one farm with a crew I carried with.
The farm had a small gravity fed pipe. Took over an hour to fill a few trailers, rake, buckrake and of course the harvester.
 
marco said:
Why would you go for 42? I thought high profile 38s would give you lower ground and tyre pressure?
Click to expand...
I get on very well with the Xeobibs, I find them excellent in both field and on the road, where as I find the 710/70/38's a bit wallowy o the road without upping the pressures and think the 650/75/38's would be even more so. While I would agree that the 650/75/38's are a better field tyre, I believe they would be poor on the road. I like the 650/65/42's as a good compromise between road and field, time will tell. these new IF/VF tyres can be run at 1 bar at pretty much any task.
 
gone said:
I went for a highish hours 191 MF7720S, I will be putting up small hours per year (400), so it will balance out if I am trading in 5-10years.
I will put up pics when it arrives, waiting on a few spec upgrades before I pick it up.
Click to expand...
Well wear with her, a good tractor, 1 mite come here as well but not for another couple of years anyway. Is she Dyna VT or Dyna 6.
 
gone said:
I went for a highish hours 191 MF7720S, I will be putting up small hours per year (400), so it will balance out if I am trading in 5-10years.
I will put up pics when it arrives, waiting on a few spec upgrades before I pick it up.
Click to expand...
well wear. friend of ours bought a 7720 there few weeks back. traded in his 6480 but they havent taken the 6480 off him yet. his dad told us its has been worked more these past few weeks than it has the past few years. would love to see it going on his jf900 and see how it compares to his 2 6485
 
johndeere6920s said:
There lies the answer a farmer should be worried about his own costs not a contractors profit margin.
If a contractor had the same concerns as you have and I'm not pointing a finger at you I'm just reiterating what you said.
Then the contractor would be charging more in years of good milk prices.
It's not the way it works.
years my customers do well from farming others they don't and I'm delighted for them the years they do well
The same can be said for myself.
Click to expand...

Claas Grass said:
@muckymanor I'm not going to bother repeating what others have said but if farmers really want their charges linked to diesel cost they could supply the diesel like is done in many other countries. If diesel goes up/down you take the hit or saving and the same for heavy cuts, long hauls etc.
Click to expand...

Its kinda double standards when your representative organisation justifies price rises to farmers due to diesel price increases but keeps its mouth closed when the price falls. And in this case the fall has been quite significant. :whistle:
 
have any of ye priced the t7S series from nh? even though they "basic" spec, i wouldnt mind 1. not overly fussed about not having 50k. there's still weight there for slurry tank and drawing silage. comfort wise, anythings an improvement over what we have. and in the market out there, there's not many about compared to the normal t7
 
muckymanor said:
Its kinda double standards when your representative organisation justifies price rises to farmers due to diesel price increases but keeps its mouth closed when the price falls. And in this case the fall has been quite significant. :whistle:
Click to expand...
Its a bit like when Gemma o Doherty starts spouting and says shes representing the irish public. They dont represent everyone
 
greenhorn said:
Its a bit like when Gemma o Doherty starts spouting and says shes representing the irish public. They dont represent everyone
Click to expand...
Not a member of FCI but they have costings on the various different operations and they are well above what is being charged in general, while the diesel cost is down since the costings were done no other cost has gone down, best case scenario is that prices may hold at last years levels.
 
Always an interesting read.

how much is it to build a wall? - lots of questions need to be asked, where is it? How high? How long? What Depth?What material? - all needs to be know before any self respecting tradesman will give you a price.

the contractor gets a call 2 days before the customer wants his silage clamped. He knows where the farm or fields are, no more questions are asked.

From what i’ve seen around east galway, one silage job can vary so much year to year (to year) one year the meadows are grazed tight by ewes and lambs before closing, another year they aren’t, one year slurry goes out, another year it doesn’t. Some years its wet, so you go with 3/4 loads, some years its fine and you can build loads 18” up over the backdoor. The contractor actually has no fair way of pricing the job in that respect.

i know a field about 3 miles from me that i carted out of for 16 years, every year, 14 of those with the same trailer. There are years where i’ll go around the first load the entire field, there are years i’ll go around 2/3 stands to reason there is more grass in it the year you can’t get around.

only fair way to do it would be to charge by the ton. Which i can just imagine, the farmer watching the clock every round saying to himself i used to get this cut for €3000 every year and now there is 925 tons in and they still have 8 acres to bring in at €3/ton this will end up costing me a fortune!

farming and contracting is like any business, some years are better than others
 
Seedsower said:
I thought hard about using a three point quick hitch a few years ago when.oce came out with it.as insayntje limitation is the load .
It's fine for a grassland farmers implements but for tillage/contractors work it's not strong enough and the increase in distance from the rear of the tractor is a problem for heavy kit too
A good theory and ideal for a decent tractor with reasonable implements
Click to expand...

Agreed. I think it's max load is around 2t but might be wrong on that. I use it for shaker, mower, double bale handler & yard scraper. I can pick up a trailer with it on. Big difference between these implements and ploughs and power harrows.
 
AYF said:
A lot of the downside to that is farms not having big enough tanks to fill a silage fleet.

Plus you need to trust it hasnt sat for 6 months and full of bio gunk.


Remember we did that on one farm with a crew I carried with.
The farm had a small gravity fed pipe. Took over an hour to fill a few trailers, rake, buckrake and of course the harvester.
Click to expand...

Deerehunter said:
Good idea in principle, I' just be worried about the quality of the diesel and the tanks storing it. Heard of a few EXPENSIVE lessons!.
Click to expand...
Know one contractor who had a diesel wagon arrive as they finished each job, he ordered it and it was billed out to the farmer.
Edit to say that's for silage work, other work would be providing diesel himself
 
  • Like
Reactions: AYF
slurryboy said:
Know one contractor who had a diesel wagon arrive as they finished each job, he ordered it and it was billed out to the farmer.
Edit to say that's for silage work, other work would be providing diesel himself
Click to expand...
I'd prefer to have my diesel settled in my tanks and fill at home through filters than have it sloshing around in a fuel delivery truck and straight into the machines .
 
Arthur said:
I'd prefer to have my diesel settled in my tanks and fill at home through filters than have it sloshing around in a fuel delivery truck and straight into the machines .
Click to expand...
Only a matter of time now where contractor will supply a full breakdown, print off exact time and diesel. Etc. Per job.. might also give the farmer incentive to open gates and so on. Might work out better for everyone
 
One of my baling customers has changed from a parlour to robots for milking.
I was there to make a handful of bales lately and there are fences everywhere which I had to open and close.
He rang me again today for another handful of bales to be made.
I wasn't smiling when I saw the name come up on the phone.
Tbf they make a lot of bales as main crop also but wont pay extra for small bits.
Can be under 10 bales.
Hard to stay quiet
 
Only one new or newish tractor here and it was 26 years before that since we last bought new. Everything else is mid 90's and down. Tbf we rarely get any breaks in anything because servicing is meticulous and parts are changed when needed. I will say you do need a reasonable set of tools and knowhow to run older kit but at least tools are all you need to fix older kit. The newer stuff is laptops and swearing to try find the issue.
 
diesel power said:
Only one new or newish tractor here and it was 26 years before that since we last bought new. Everything else is mid 90's and down. Tbf we rarely get any breaks in anything because servicing is meticulous and parts are changed when needed. I will say you do need a reasonable set of tools and knowhow to run older kit but at least tools are all you need to fix older kit. The newer stuff is laptops and swearing to try find the issue.
Click to expand...
but at least you can fix it yourself compared to a new tractor where theres a good chance its an electrical problem. unless you are a qualified electrician, be wheeling that tractor into the dealers workshop or waiting for the only man in the whole county that can fix any electrical issue to come by to your yard and fix it
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top