Harvest Equipment
Kremlin, OK|Feb 24, 2025
I took my combine into the dealer to do a inspection. I'm still making payments on this piece of machinery and they are saying the parts it needs could be $15,000+. Of course I don't have to do all of the needed maintenance, but the machine is a 2012. I still have three years left of payments. There's an opportunity to buy a five-year-old machine that would raise my payments 8,000 a year. I'm wondering if it would be wiser to fix my machine and get it paid off or to go ahead and upgrade to a newer machine and stomach the higher payments? The machine I'm looking to trade has 900 hrs on it and mine has about 2500.
Answers (4):
Mar 02, 2025
In our farm peer group, we monitor labor, power machinery, and interestingly, enough repairs and maintenance does not seem to go down with newer equipment because the parts just seemed to cost more money. That being said every farm is unique and every piece of equipment has its own personality.
Feb 26, 2025
Asset management is a difficult choice buy new [ costly,] keep and fix?
Awsum.global has a product to help extend the life of your valuable asset. Most people are keeping equipment 3 times longer and choosing maintenance over replacement.
Feb 24, 2025
Around 2000-3000 hours can expect to put a good amount of money into a machine but if it’s well done can be good for long time and something about a machine that’s yours not the banks lol
Feb 24, 2025
Personally with the cost of interest, I would keep your current combine. If you have the space and ability to do some of the repairs yourself you could save some money that way, and there are many aftermarket parts that are as good or better than oem that can be purchased for less money. Yes, you will still have an older combine, but after your repairs it could potentially be more reliable than a newer one.