Skip to main content

Buying a second hand tractor

I had been resisting buying a tractor for a while, it just seemed like extra hassle and lots of money, but when we moved to our property at Nanango, it became clear that we were going to need one.  We didn't know much about tractors, so we decided to just look for a cheap one secondhand and have a go.  Luckily for us we found one advertised in the local paper for $6000 (that's very cheap compared to a new one).  Its was a little Kubota 1500L.  We went and had a look at it and couldn't see anything wrong with it, so we bought it before someone else could snap up our good deal.  We had it delivered to our property on the back of a tow truck.



I wouldn't recommend a second-hand tractor to anyone who doesn't have at least a little knowledge of engines.  If you're someone who services your own car, you'll probably be ok with a tractor, otherwise, you may find yourself paying that much to get things fixed you should have just got a new one with a warranty.  Fortunately Pete does service his own car and used to race speedway cars, so he knows his way around an engine (as well as all the other important bits of the tractor).  This has been very useful as we have had a few problems with the little tractor.  Firstly it was leaking water and Pete was worried that the block was cracked (which means you may as well get a new one), but luckily a dose of "chemiweld" fixed that!  We've also had trouble buying spare parts.

The main problem is that the tractor is a "grey market" tractor.  That means its a second-hand imported refurbished tractor!  It would have been imported from Japan as a second-hand tractor and refurbished before being sold to the owner before us.  This means that its a model that's not usually sold new in Australia, so the Kubota dealers don't like to support it with spare parts.  Luckily my husband has been clever enough to find appropriate parts so far, and found that our Toyota Hilux fuel filter fits the tractor, very convenient!  But it is something to be aware of when buying second hand, as it may take some effort to find the right parts.

The tractor has been incredibly useful in clearing our property.  It came with a small slasher and front bucket, and Pete has spent hours slashing the paddocks (and using the bucket to push down wattle sapplings).  The bucket itself has been useful for moving things, from firewood to steer guts when the butcher was here!  Being a tradesman, my husband couldn't resist turning it into a kind of forklift by added bolt-on tynes to the bucket.  He uses this to lift the cattle crate onto the back of the ute.  We have even used the tractor to move a Chev motor from the back of the ute and into the shed, and to pull out large clumps of unwanted grass.

Even so, the tractor is a little small for our property.  As its a steep and rocky block, the short wheel base and 2-wheel drive can make for a rocky ride.  There's no power-steering, so sometimes the steering wheel just moves with the front wheels and it can be difficult to hold on, let alone steer the tractor (I only drive it at VERY slow pace).  Ideally we would like to get something slightly larger and with 4 wheel drive for better stability.  It was a good idea to start with the cheap tractor though, now we know more about how to drive it and what to look for in the next one, we feel like we've already got good value from it, so we're not too precious about it.  We should still get a decent price for this one when its time to resell it, and the work that its achieved has been good value.

For more about the bigger tractor that we bought for Cheslyn Rise, see here.

Read more about how we are improving our property here.

Have you bought a tractor for a small property?  Any advice?

Comments

  1. Handy that your husband is so mechanically minded!

    ReplyDelete
  2. absolutely right Emma! We couldn't do most of the things we do if he wasn't so good at welding etc!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Great advice, a tractor will be high on our list of must haves when we finally do move to our real farm!
    My hubby sounds alot like yours - very handy!
    -Emily

    ReplyDelete
  4. “I wouldn't recommend a second-hand tractor to anyone who doesn't have at least a little knowledge of engines.”--- And even if you’re planning to buy a brand new tractor, you have to make sure as well that you really know what type of tractor you need for your work. It’s important to determine the right machine that is best suited for on the kind of work that you do in your farm.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Tractors are the workhorses of modern agriculture. These powerful machines fill many roles on today's farms. If you you buying used or new tractor, then at one time or another you'll be in need of some tractor parts.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Great article! More people should be aware of the fact that buying second hand tractors can be much less of a hassle and much kinder on the wallet!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Thanks, I appreciate all your comments, suggestions and questions, but I don't always get time to reply right away. If you need me to reply personally to a question, please leave your email address in the comment or in your profile, or email me directly on eight.acres.liz at gmail.com

Popular posts from this blog

Chicken tractor guest post

Sign up for my weekly email updates here , you will find out more about chickens, soap and our farmlife, straight to your inbox, never miss a post!  New soap website and shop opening soon.... Tanya from Lovely Greens invited me to write a guest post on chicken tractors for her blog.  I can't believe how many page views I get for chicken tractors, they seem to be a real area of interest and I hope that the information on my blog has helped people.  I find that when I use something everyday, I forget the details that other people may not be aware of, so in this post for Tanya, I tried to just write everything I could think of that I haven't covered in previous posts.  I tried to explain everything we do and why, so that people in other locations and situations can figure out how best to use chicken tractors with their own chickens. The dogs like to hang out behind the chicken tractors and eat chicken poo.  Dogs are gross! If you want to read more about chicken tractor

The new Eight Acres website is live!

Very soon this blogspot address will automatically redirect to the new Eight Acres site, but in the meantime, you can check it out here .  You will find all my soaps, ebooks and beeswax/honey products there, as well as the blog (needs a tidy up, but its all there!).  I will be gradually updating all my social media links and updating and sharing blog posts over the next few months.  I'm very excited to share this new website with you!

Garden Update - July 2013

This month I'm joining the Garden Share Collective , which was started last month by Lizzie from Strayed from the Table , to allow vege gardeners to share their successes and failures and generally encourage everyone to grow more of their own food organically.  This first month, I'll give a detailed update on everything that's growing in my garden, for anyone who hasn't been following for long.  I'll do my normal farm update on Tuesday as well. If you've just joined me, welcome to my vege garden.  I recently wrote about gardening in our sub-tropical climate , so if you're wondering about the huge shade structure, that's for protecting the garden during our hot, humid summers.  At the moment though, the garden is full of brassicas, which grow best here in winter, and are suitably frost-proof.  The garden is about 12 m long by 5 m wide, and surrounded in chicken mesh to keep out the chickens and the bandicoots.  The garden has spilled out around the edg