I am looking to look for a mid size tractor to do a good bit of landscaping and I want to do it with a loader and hoe. What amount of hours should one be fearful of? I hear 100 hours a year is about right but I don't personally know that. How do these Kubota's hold up if they have been used commercially? What should I be wary of in a tractor with a thousand or more hours?
Operating hours versus wear is an ongoing TBN debate. Most people figure that the larger Farm tractors are good for over 10,000 hours if basic maintenance is more or less regularly done. And even after that many hours they tend to decline slowly. We know more about big farm tractors because they accumulate a lot of annual hours. For compact tractors, your figure of 100 hrs/year seems to be about what we've found true on TBN for homeowner machines.
What we don't know yet - because they are still new and changing - is if that "hrs to wear" ratio for Ag tractors is true for compact tractors too. In compacts, manufacturers have leaned a little more toward high tech and tighter tolerances in place of heavy castings and the massive use of metal on old farm machines. From what we do know, there's no reason to think that compact tractors won't last the same amount of time. In fact, it looks like they will. But compacts just haven't been around long enough to draw conclusions based on data. So we are left with about 40 years of experience and a lot of speculation.
Personally, I've owned a lot of tractors. I like good used machines, in fact I prefer them.They have personality. I'll tell you what I think about hours, but keep in mind that every old tractor guy agrees that hours or years are not nearly as important as maintenance and condition. If I see a one-owner tractor kept undercover by a guy who cares for his machine and does all the maintenace on time .... then I frankly don't care how many hours or years it has on it. It could have 5000 hrs and up, and I'd still find it worthwhile. I've bought 30 year old tractors with thousands of hours on them and found them just as reliable and desirable as a brand new one.
It's a fact that tractors just don't change much due to internal wear, they age because of abuse. Used within their limits, we simply don't know how long a tractor will last. But it's a long, long time. If you try one out and it works for a couple of hours without a change then you can expect it will work about the same way for years.
I'd say anything under 500 hrs qualifies as being a low hour machine & no worries. And up to 1000 hrs I would still expect everything to be working as new but with sun-fading and some dents and knocks on it. Probably some hydraulic hoses replaced. But at 1000 hrs I wouldn't expect any change since new in the engine, electrics, hydraulics, transmission etc. I do always expect to see manuals, receipts, and maintenance records.
At about 2000/2500 hrs is when I want to go over a machine closely to look for external signs of wear. I'm still not expecting any internal wear at that many hours, but want to check it. I may even pay a dealer to double check it.
Things that will turn me off more than a few thousand hours are leaks, baling wire fixes, rust, torn seats, and any signs of bending or straining of a loader or backhoe. Grease is OK. Basically I want to see pride of ownership. Some wear is expected; that's what tractors do. But bending things like lift arms or buckets is not good. Bent moving parts are an indication that the person didn't understand the limits, possibly abused it in other ways too, and that will usually cause me to back off.
What I'm trying to say is that tractors last a long time. Hours are only one thing to look at - and not the most important thing either.
A clean & prideful machine is worth looking at regardless of hours.
good luck,
rScotty
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