Grey Market tractors

[Tony Falotico]

I'm seriously considering a Mitsubishi 1650D 20 HP diesel tractor an acquaintance is selling. She's had it for a year and is selling for personal reasons (know that for a fact). It looks in great shape, runs smooth and quite, no visible leaks, and the hydraulics are good (raised bush hog and it held in place without slowly dropping). My neighbor (who knows more about this stuff than I do) says it's a steal for what she's asking.

Is there any reason I wouldn't want it because it's a 'grey market' unit ?? I noticed when searching previous threads that Terry Hatfield has a Yanmar, (I am lead to believe they are grey market) so please chime in if your out there Terry.

[Boyd Gathwright]

Hi Tony,

I don’t know what your neighbor calls a steal. I personally don’t know anything about Mitsubish 1650D but I would think that it would be Reasonable QUALITY. The only thing I would be hesitant of is replacement parts in a Gray Market. If that tractor was built on the other side of the world you may have a Big Problem getting the part numbers to match up. It would be nice to have the manual and parts book to go with it. You mentioned Yanmar, when they were sold here in this country NEW they where and still are an excellent tractor. I have a Yanmar Diesel engine in my JD tractor, Tough engine. If I recall correctly I think Terry has a Grass Hopper mower and if it’s a diesel it’s got a Kubota engine.

Hope this helps<O:p</O:p

Boyd

.<O:p</O:p


I'm seriously considering a Mitsubishi 1650D 20 HP diesel tractor an acquaintance is selling. She's had it for a year and is selling for personal reasons (know that for a fact). It looks in great shape, runs smooth and quite, no visible leaks, and the hydraulics are good (raised bush hog and it held in place without slowly dropping). My neighbor (who knows more about this stuff than I do) says it's a steal for what she's asking.

Is there any reason I wouldn't want it because it's a 'grey market' unit ?? I noticed when searching previous threads that Terry Hatfield has a Yanmar, (I am lead to believe they are grey market) so please chime in if your out there Terry.

[Matt Meiser]

Tony, You might want to visit TractorByNet.com to learn more. It is a compact tractor community, similare to here. Jim Becker recommended it to me before I bought a tractor last winter and I got a lot of useful information there. I believe there are specific forums for some of the grey market tractors.

[Jim Becker]

What Matt said--visit TBN. The big issue with grey-market tractors is parts, support and sometimes weirdness...some Japanese grey market machines turn the PTO in the opposite direction! BTW, Yanmar sold tractors in the USA for some time, so you cannot assume that they are grey...my dad owned one to maintain his property here in PA before he sold it and went full time in Florida. Rumor has it they are coming back into the US market, but in the mean time, they've been busy making CUTs for some "very well known brands"...

[Tony Falotico]

I spoke with Homestead Tractors in Apple Valley, CA (found him on the internet) yesterday and he said 99% of the parts for that machine 'he can get'. He thought the price was fair, no great deal, but he's on the other side of the country.

More research locally shows that price is right when compared to American tractors, but fair when compared to grey market's. It's a good deal, but not a steal. I might do a hundred or two better if I really looked, but not much more than that, and it would definitely be another grey market. Man, them things (tractors) are expensive, many in the trader are more than cars (trucks) cost!!

I spent some time in TractorByNet.com discussion group yesterday, those guys are as proud of their tractors as we are our wood tools. The particular model I'm looking at wasn't mentioned once.

Went to Farm Supply yesterday to see all the neat attachments I can get for it. Lot's of neat things, but then again, I've lived 52 (almost 53) years without them ......

Son in Law cleaned out the boathouse today so I can keep it under cover, no need to tell you how he feels about it!!

LOML has approved the purchase if I want it.

I wasn't in the market, this one just came along, a friend at work of LOML needs to part with it. Being a friend (and under the circumstances) I don't want to low ball her. I'm still undecided, she's going to hold it till Wednesday for me, Guess I'll see how I feel about it tomorrow!

Like always, thanks much for your frank & honest input, I know I can ALWAYS depend on you guys (and gals) to tell it like it is. I'll keep y'all posted on what I decide......

[Charles McKinley]

Hi Tony,

I'll throw my 2 cents here. Look at it compared to a New Holland if you have a NH dealer in you area. Want to talk sticker shock I priced out Tractor Loader Backhoes 4 years ago for my grandmothers farm then just a couple of weeks ago. One brand had gone up almost $12,000! Yep $32-45,000 for a 45+/- hp TLB.

The New Holland had the nicest features for the money.

My advice:
Sit on the tractor. Do the controls feel right? Can you reach them easily? I find the controls on a lot of the chineese tractors worse than the old Farmalls I grew up operating.

Operate the tractor. Is it easy to go from forward to reverse? Do the hydraulics work smoothly? Does the PTO engage smoothly or does it start with a BANG.

What attachments come with it??????? A tractor by itself if like a 20" Mini Max band saw without a blade. A great machine but you can't do much with it. And like every thing else the cost of attachments can dwarf the purchase price of the machine.

Where did the person buy it? Is it a local dealer with a good reputation? Go there and meet with them and trust your gut because these are going to be your first line of help if something goes wrong.

The dealer and it being the right size for my needs would be the deciding factor for me.

I hope this helps.

[Tony Falotico]

After lots a personal debate, my gut feeling is to walk away from this one. While the machine is in great shape, the brush hog is only one year old and looks like new, two issues keep coming up. (1) Parts are not locally available, it will break down (sooner or later), then I'm scurrying around (perhaps all over the country) trying to find parts and having them shipped in (2) it wasn't budgeted right now, I've put lots of $$ out this year on the shop and equipment and I really don't need to spend this much $$ right now.

LOML & I decided to wait till next summer, re evaluate and get something that will be easier to find parts (locally) and maintain.

Again, thanks for listening and responding, and giving me your honest opinions.