I don't understand something.

[4570Man]

I think a lot of people are in the mindset that if they want a tool and can afford that tool then they buy that tool and use it as they see fit.

Everyones’ financial situations are different. For some, a tractor is a really expensive purchase that may take a significant chunk of their income. It may take a lot of justification on paper with pencil as to if it makes financial sense to buy or not. For others, it’s not such a financial burden and they change tractors like pants. I’d guess most fall towards the first example.

I don’t know why so many people worry about people buying tractors or $20k zero turn mowers or other equipment they probably don’t need. Nobody worries about people buying a high country trim truck, a sports car, a boat or RV. Well maybe they look in disapproval but it doesn’t spark the heated debates tractor’s do. Why are tractors so different?

 

[Pleease]

I bought a subcompact Kubota about 4 years ago to help me maintain the family lake property, which, like many such properties, is situated on a big**s hill out in the sticks. Mostly I mow with it, clear brush, and use the FEL for digging out around the dock (off-season, when the lake level is lowered) and whatever comes up, such as - right now - digging/flattening a spot for a shed.

It has, off the top of my head, like 140 hours on it. Go ahead and scoff at that low total, but it's been extremely helpful to have. I can't get there to cut grass every week, and thus it can get pretty high/thick, and previously I was always either pushing a mower/sweating my ***** off, or trying to mow the BA hill with a rider that was apparently designed for dead-level terrain, and seemed eager to kill me.

And I like it. It's fun to use, and I look forward to it - totally worth it.

 

[connaway]

OK, I don't understand a lot of things, but that's another thread.


My little squirt is approaching 4 years old (wow, has it really been that long?) and it approaching 500 hours, or around 125 hours a year.. I don't use it very much. It sits for weeks sometime between tasks if I don't have to mow.

But I keep seeing threads and posts about 20, 30, 40 year old tractors with hour readings that work out to 20 hours a year or less. Is it that they have more than one machine and each gets lesser use than if they only had one? How do you spend $20,000 or so on something you use so little?

Definitely depends on what you use them for. We operate a fairly large farm/ranch. Our big JD tractors don't get started as often but put on big hours because they pull plows/planters for long periods non stop at full throttle. On the other hand my 65 HP Kubota mainly lifts items and does some dirt work usually at low throttle. Even though it runs every week it only has less than 500 hrs at 10+ years.

 

[AcrossTheHoller]

Heres my kioti with my homemade grapple. Around here it gets so hot an humid, i dont know what i'd do without my tractor. It saves a ton of sweat! So for me, 200hrs a year, some of those hours are business use, but i have never regretted that purchase. Its my 3rd hand working arou d my 11 acres. In comparison, i never spent much more than 7k on a used mower that we put 500hrs on a year. Why destroy a 20k$ mower, when a 7k$ will do? Idk. Weird economics maybe.

 

[MossRoad]

I don’t know why so many people worry about people buying tractors or $20k zero turn mowers or other equipment they probably don’t need. Nobody worries about people buying a high country trim truck, a sports car, a boat or RV. Well maybe they look in disapproval but it doesn’t spark the heated debates tractor’s do. Why are tractors so different?

Haven’t you ever known someone who keeps buying/selling/trading toys and you wonder how/why they do that?

I think that’s the gist of the question the OP is asking.

 

[jgoodma1]

I typically put 30-40 hours per year on my Kubota L4060. I bought it with 170 hours on it and got a very good deal. I have an 800' long driveway that I maintain with it. Also, we have 11 heavily wooded acres and regularly have downfallen trees.....sometimes pretty big ones, and sometimes uprooted ones. I use my tractor to clean up my woods. I get out there with the chainsaw, cut them up, and use my motorized orange wheelbarrow to haul them out. Then I'll dig a hole with it and bury the stumps. And, as a bonus, I can move piles of dirt and gravel with it too! Needless to say, there's plenty of work I have to do off my tractor when doing these chores. I'm 67 and have heart issues, and doing physical work like this with my tractor is great exercise and keeps me out of the hospital...so in addition to being a motorized wheelbarrow, it's kind of an orange gym membership too (or so I fool myself into believing)! So, it's really a bargain!

 

[Skrizan]

After spending 24 years using a 48 inch snowblower mounted on a lawn tractor for my nearly 1/4 mile long driveway, I bought a used Kubota L3130 with cab and heat and front loader in 2017. I only have 124 hours on it, but they are worth every penny nice and warm instead of bundled of and wearing a snowmobile helmet on the lawn tractor. I added a back blade and can grade the driveway when needed, and I spread over a hundred yards of crushed asphalt I had delivered this summer. I bought some forks that attach to the bucket and with a pallet I can haul brush and tree trimmings, I used it to lift shingles to the garage roof I redid this spring also. I need to get a brush hog for a few areas around the perimeter of my yard and driveway. I got a good deal at $14700, but with what I know now I wish I had spent $25,000 20 years ago!

 

[cleo101]

Some people have more than one machine. My father's 2008 L2800 has >400 hours on it. I put that many on in two years. Yet when he bought it he also had 2 8Ns, a John Deere L, and his Ford 4400. He sold the L and one of the 8s, gave me the other because it needed quite a bit of work. Then he bought a nice running TO35 which he used for mowing and other chores.

Other people want a tractor but only use it for dedicated reasons. One person in town has an LS which he only uses for his garden. He's very frugal and intends to keep it for the rest of his life.

125 hours per year is quite a bit for a homeowner.

Funny that you say that 125 hrs a year is a lot for a home onwer I purchase a new virgin 20 acres pcs of land about 7 years ago and the very first week I also purchase a brand new B2620 Kubota with Loader, Backhoe and mower, for the next 4 years I spent every single spare time I had transforming this lot and end up putting over 2000 hours on this little machine without any issues at all.... I sold it last here for just a couple thousand less than what I had paid for it and I now have an LX3310 and it's been almost been one years since I finally got this new machine and I've already got 360 hours on it and if my new backhoe didn't come in 4 months later I probably would've had more hours yet..... I mow 18 acres a week with this thing and maintain some tree area and all other chores I do with this machine, love it and could not imaging myself just looking at it in the garage doing nothing

 

[royyme]

Have a L3400 with FEL that i bought new in 2008 and just turned over 200 hr. . Works out to about 1.2 hr. per month. Used most of the time on my .27 mile gravel road., garden work, or. moving dirt. If i were to do this work by hand it would eather take forever, not get done, or hired out. My wife does not like seeing it just sitting under it's carport but i sure do.

 

[Jstpssng]

I don’t know why so many people worry about people buying tractors or $20k zero turn mowers or other equipment they probably don’t need. Nobody worries about people buying a high country trim truck, a sports car, a boat or RV. Well maybe they look in disapproval but it doesn’t spark the heated debates tractor’s do. Why are tractors so different?

I see an awful lot of posts stating that you can't get a truck for under 80,000, yet never seem to have a problem finding them for half that. It all depends on how badly you "need" all of the bells and whistles.