Share some of your shopping tips for experienced and new equipment shoppers
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- Hours
- Overall appearance
- Age
- Location
- Attachments/add ons
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Great list! What I’d expect from a Boilermaker! Boiler Up 
Pete
Check oil levels, odor of the oil, condition color.
Check lubrication areas to see if it was greased/maintained
Check air filters, coolant and oil filters for maintenance intervals
Look at radiator to see if it is kept clean
Cab interior condition
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Great checklist, thanks for sharing!
Pete
A log with maintenance items like oil change intervals and whether or not lubricants were synthetic or petroleum based. Oil analysis would also an excellent selling feature if synthetic were involved.Operation expenses like fuel consumption would also be useful.
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I like this list:
I would add tires to this list. I guess they could be an ‘add on’. I’ve seen tires create a $40,000 ? …
A few years ago, I drove up to Pennsylvania to look at a used John Deere 6620 Combine from a semi reputable used equipment dealer. My first combine. My farm buddy told me it sounded like a good deal since it had low hours. The dealer started it and when engaged, vibrated. No problem he tells me, its probably just trash and dirt in the cylinder. It should smooth out as soon as you clean out the cylinder. Well it didn’t. 2 weeks and two grand later, I smoothed out the combine. The original owner ran it until the counter shaft bearing blew out and tore up the right side of the shaft. A groove in the shaft where the bearing seized and a slight bend barely noticeable at the pulleys. The Farmer only replaced the bearing and tried a half a** fix. When they saw it had the vibration and needed additional repairs, he traded it in. Then along comes me…4 years later, I can now rebuild that entire combine. Now if I could only figure out how to stop splitting my soybeans in half. Moral of the story…take someone with you who is familiar with the machine you want to buy.
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