buying from far away, machinery surveys???

[mf40diesel]

Hello All, First off thank you, hopefully someone will have some advice, so I am thanking ahead of time. I am looking to purchase a newer tractor... this will be my third, and I roughly go twenty years newer each time. I currently have a Massey Ferguson 40 industrial. I love the tractor (rebuilt the engine, runs mint) however being 2wd it's pretty much worthless in the woods.

I am looking for a John Deere 5200 mfwd.. I have found two, one that is in upstate New York, and another that is in Ohio. My question is two-fold: does anyone have experience buying remotely? The idea of paying lots of money for something site unseen seems like madness to me, is there such a thing as someone who will survey machinery?

I will have another post this evening, about the two tractors, as I need help.. but I would love any advice about buying machinery that is many many miles away. Thanks so much

 

[arnoldziffel]

I live in Central New York. Last summer a fellow from Kansas responded to my ad for a small tractor I had for sale.

We exchanged about 43 emails and several phone calls. I sent about 40 detailed photos of the machine.

This gentleman decided to make a leap of faith and buy it. We established an escrow account with my attorney and made arrangements to ship the machine via U-Ship.

I was paid in three "draws" against the escrow account: One third when the purchase terms were agreed to. One third when the machine was loaded by the U-Ship carrier. One third when the machine was unloaded in Kansas.

In my case, the many close-up photos did the trick. The buyer also interviewed my tractor dealer to confirm my fanatical service record with each of our tractors.

Long distance worked for me and got me a $1,000 more than I was prepared to take.

 

[jtygoku]

I live in Central New York. Last summer a fellow from Kansas responded to my ad for a small tractor I had for sale.

We exchanged about 43 emails and several phone calls. I sent about 40 detailed photos of the machine.

This gentleman decided to make a leap of faith and buy it. We established an escrow account with my attorney and made arrangements to ship the machine via U-Ship.

I was paid in three "draws" against the escrow account: One third when the purchase terms were agreed to. One third when the machine was loaded by the U-Ship carrier. One third when the machine was unloaded in Kansas.

In my case, the many close-up photos did the trick. The buyer also interviewed my tractor dealer to confirm my fanatical service record with each of our tractors.

Long distance worked for me and got me a $1,000 more than I was prepared to take.

"leap of faith" is the operative word there. I bought my new tractor long distance from a dealer in Texas. Much better price than anything locally so I convinced myself to take that leap of faith. Believe me though, the pucker factor was pretty high as I conjured up all sorts of bad scenarios in my mind. Did a bunch of due diligence on the dealer, got pictures and serial numbers but wiring that much money into a faraway bank account made me lose some sleep until the tractor finally showed up on a trailer. Lo and behold, it was exactly as we had agreed - you can trust people to deliver on their word, I guess.
Would I do it again? Only for the same sort of significant savings and only after I had structured the deal to lessen the risk as much as possible.

 

[mf40diesel]

Thanks for the advice... Not surprised that I got good advice . With regards to dealers, the tractor more in question has the power reverser tranny, which I want but is expensive to rebuild. It won't be available till May, would a dealer accept a down payment contingent that everything works when they receive it?

Then I'll deal with shipping, and such.

Again thanks

 

[rdbigfarmboy]

I have bought 3 tractors and other stuff from far away. Two were good and matched descriptions, one was from a liar. Seller rateings like ebay are best. Proxybid has a lot of stuff but no quality controls. tractor house auction time seems to have more room for video an description.
Its all about the ethics o the seller

 

[4310]

I bought one that I had found on tractor house from a dealer in northeast Ohio. Lots of pictures, emails and texts back and forth, phone calls etc. Dealer said it ran good blah blah blah.

It showed up on a Saturday morning before sunrise. A week after it was first supposed to be delivered I might add. They said they noticed something and had to order a part before they sent it.

Anyway, the driver hands me a box as soon as he gets out of the truck and says here's the old instrument cluster and tells me that the old one wasn't working. News to me I say. He takes the tractor off the trailer and I notice that the lights aren't on. I ask him about it and he says that it is unusual because their tractors are always in good working order. My gut is slowly turning.

I get on the tractor and start driving it around. I get about 25 feet down the drive, stop, hit the reverse pedal and it makes some gear grinding noise and quits moving. It's my first hydrostatic so I'm wondering if maybe I am doing something wrong. I look back at the driver and he's busier than a one armed paper hanger trying to put his chains away. I should have told him right then what he could do with the tractor but I was stunned and in disbelief. I also was still wondering if I was screwing something up.

I messed around on the tractor trying to figure it out as the sun came up and watched the truck pull away. I almost threw up. It was a lonely feeling. I called the dealer a while later with my, ehem, concerns and it went promptly to their voicemail. Yep, I've been had.

Cue the music

I get a call later that day from the dealer and explain the problem. I'm as polite as can be. Really I am. I figure there's no point cursing them at this point and maybe, just maybe they will help me from my despair. I'm waiting for the "as is" speech though but it never comes.

Instead he asks where the nearest JD dealer is and sets it up to have it shipped there and fixed on their dime then brought back to me. He apologizes and explains that it's embarrassing to sell a tractor in that condition and he did not know of the problems and on and on.

I make a list of the problems and a few weeks later they bring my tractor back in Working order. A nut had loosened up in the transmission and a gear had fell to the bottom of the pan and the lights weren't working because they didn't plug them in after changing the instrument cluster. They fixed a couple other things too but those were the biggies that I noticed immediately.

Now as for buying things sight unseen..... Never, ever, again. I'm sure there are thousands of good sales every day but this has taught me a lesson that I will not soon forget.

 

[Guesseral]

Where are you at in Ohio? I live in Pa and I bought my tractor in Ohio it was only a 45 minute drive but I basically bought it over the internet site unseen. Now it was brand new so it wasn't that bad and I did the pickup and hauling myself which is the only way I would have done it. I purchased an old Ford 841 on ebay a couple years back site unseen, it was in Michigan north of Detroit and I paid for it before I went to get it. When I got there it wasn't well lets say what I had expected. The pictures on the auction really didn't give a true picture of what I bought and there were some maintenance things done that were not real correct. I started complaining and the man told me that it had done exactly what he wanted it to do and he tried to do the maintenance as needed and that it had been a very good tractor he seemed hurt that I didn't like the tractor and said that I could back out and he would refund the money, but it was very clear that he really didn't try to hide anything on purpose but he really didn't know that much about tractors or maybe I knew way too much! I said no that was fine I had already towed a 12K equipment trailer to Michigan spent the night in a motel took a day off of work that I wasn't going to go home empty handed and I had already planned to restoring it anyway I just didn't think it was going to be as involved as it was going to be I also got to spend two days with my son and that is always a good thing.
So I have had two different kinds of out comes in my experiences buying site unseen buying but I always do the pickup which gives me a little more control of a situation than just having something shipped out.

 

[dpb800]

I purchased a 2010 Mahindra 3616 with 166 hours on it over craigslist last year. We are in central Iowa and the tractor was in Louisiana. It was over 900 miles each way. We had several e-mails, pictures and a few phone calls before we took the trip over the weekend. We showed up late Satruday night and looked the tractor over. Everything looked good and we payed them and loaded it up on our trailer. They even offered us a place to stay the night. Over all the experience was good. We love the tractor and got a good deal.

If we were to do it again I would make sure to check everything twice and be cautious with every step. The only way I would have made this purchase or any other like this in the future however is face to face and pay only after I was satisfied with the tractor.

 

[dave1949]

Welcome to TBN from Western Maine.

I know what you are up against in buying used equipment, most of the stuff you want is far away and the local pickings are slim.

I have thought about buying unseen, but I'm a chicken. I did ask about shipping, such as UShip, in a post a year or so ago and people have had generally good results with that part of it. I wouldn't worry about shipping equipment.

I guess it depends on the amount of dollars at risk but generally I would like to go see what I'm buying beforehand.

 

[arnoldziffel]

My original post (#2 above) was a quick, encouraging comment on a recent long distance sale experience I had last summer. Reading some of the comments on this thread this morning jogged my memory of another long distance transaction I was involved in back in 2002 as a purchaser:

I live on Lake Ontario in Central New York. I like boats as much as I like tractors. In December 2001 I found, in Indiana, an uncommon used boat that I felt I had to have. A boat dealer was brokering this sale for a private seller. I received photos and a couple of very positive condition reports from the dealer. I made the leap of faith and prepaid $8,200 for the boat, site unseen, with an understanding I would travel to pick-up the boat by May 1, 2002.

The boat had never been mated with a boat trailer, so I had the Indiana dealer coordinate the construction of a custom built, non-adjustable boat trailer that when done would only fit this model boat. I think I paid about $3,200 for the trailer.

In late April I drove the 9 plus hours to Indiana to pick-up the boat. By pre-arrangement the dealer had the boat in the water for my inspection and demonstration. After running it for 20 minutes and examining it carefully I drew the conclusion that the boat was not what I had hoped for condition wise. It needed $3,000 - $5,000 in repairs. I was in a fix.

I walked to a quiet spot of the marina property and evaluated my options. Suck it up, tow the boat home and try to make lemonade or share my concerns with the dealer. 95% of the time I would have just bit my tongue, hooked-up and headed out. THIS time I decided to have a friendly conversation with the dealer.

Within 10 minutes the dealer concluded that they had innocently missed certain repair needs and offered to issue me a full refund and let me head home. I still wrestled with my conscience for another 10 minutes as I've always taken responsibility for my mistakes and I felt that I should have hired a boat surveyor to provide an independent evaluation of the boat from the start. I felt I had contributed to the dilemma and compounded it by having the custom boat trailer built. I shared this with the dealer and he said that his offer stood and that the private boat seller he was representing would understand and that he, (the dealer), "just bought a trailer!" After a few more moments of consideration I thanked the dealer, accepted the refund, jumped in my truck and headed home.