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Don Farr
09-26-2003, 10:19 AM
I have been looking for a small tractor to do some bush hogging and plowing food plots. There is Cub Cadet 7200D year 2000 going up on the auction block today. The motor is rated a 10 and the body a 7 on a 1 to 10 rating system. It is just the tractor. What should I bid on it for a good deal? I do not know a lot about tractors.

Brad Schafer
09-26-2003, 11:04 AM
I have been looking for a small tractor to do some bush hogging and plowing food plots. There is Cub Cadet 7200D year 2000 going up on the auction block today. The motor is rated a 10 and the body a 7 on a 1 to 10 rating system. It is just the tractor. What should I bid on it for a good deal? I do not know a lot about tractors.

Not sure where your ratings come from, but ...

Cub is an MTD mfgr'd unit. The unit to which you refer has a 20hp 3 cyl Mitsu engine - should be plenty of HP for non-farm work. I googled "cub cadet 7200" and the following link is the first hit I got:

http://www.tractorbynet.com/cgi-bin/reviews/reviews.pl/reviews/90

When buying used, ask 2 questions:

a) Has it been maintained well? (maint schedule available?)
b) Has it been beat hard? (e.g., any hydraulic leaks/seepage, or severe metal wear?)

If you know anything about the owner or the tractor's previous life, that helps. If the tractor is being sold along with its implements, look at the implements to see if they've been pounded on; if so, you can bet the tractor has been.

Good luck,


b

Brad Schafer
09-26-2003, 11:09 AM
BTW - if you're looking for an opinion, orange is a real nice color. :) I have a Kubota 3010 (with a loader and a small Woods hoe) and love it. Great machine,


b

Bill Grumbine
09-26-2003, 11:36 AM
Hi Don

I was in your spot a few years ago - twice as a matter of fact. In the first instance I bought a John Deere 400, which is pretty much a lawn mower on steroids. It is the largest garden tractor JD makes. It is a beater, but it works hard and 99% of the time I can still get parts, often in stock!

The bigger tractor, which is probably more suited to what you want to do, is a 1963 Fordson Super Dexta, built in England for export to the US. It is about the same size and shape as a Ford 9n or 8n, but has a 39 HP diesel engine, live PTO, six speed tranny (plus 2 reverse). It ain't pretty, but it has worked very hard at bush hogging, log splitting, post hole digging, and general hauling. I also got to drag a 2 bottom plow around a bit last year - fun that was way too short, and this year added a disc harrow to my stable of implements. What a blast plowing up the garden with that thing!

<img src= "http://www.enter.net/~ultradad/superdexta03.jpg">

I don't know about auctions. I would rather buy private where I can spend some time with the machine, check it out by operating it, and know a little bit about the seller (like where he lives). I got my Fordson from a very honest fellow close down the road. I see him once or twice a year around town and he always stops and asks me if the tractor is running okay. When I tell him yes, he is always visibly happy to hear that.

There are a lot of good deals to be had by looking around a bit, and the older machines were definitely built to last. Check out Yesterday's Tractors on the internet, and if you have some time with nothing better to do, you can go to my personal website and read about some of my adventures with my machine. If you have more questions, I will be glad to try and answer them, as long as you understand I'm not a farmer or tractor expert - I just play at it whenever I get the chance.

Bill

Jim Becker
09-26-2003, 12:11 PM
Don, you can learn a lot about compact and subcompact tractors at TractorByNet.com. Bill also recently posted a site that caters to older machines, but I don't recall what it is. It's in the thread about tires for an older Ford tractor.

I'm with Brad on this one...I really like (and own) Kubota. :D

Roger Fitzsimonds
09-26-2003, 1:09 PM
Don
If the auction does not pan out. Do you subscribe to the Georgia agriculture newspaper. They usually have 2 or 3 pages of used tractors for sale. This is the phone to order it. these are usually sold by the owners so you can see them and drive them and usually figure out how they have been used or abused. 1-800-282-5852

Good Luck

Roger
Dawsonville GA

Brad Schafer
09-26-2003, 10:03 PM
Don - what was the outcome of that auction?

BTW, after thinking about it ... I don't know how much acreage you intend to mow, or how you might intend to work ground for garden (or how much ground you intend to work).

If by "bush hogging" you mean heavy mowing of grass/weeds/small brush, then a 20hp unit might be a little light. And if you intend to pull a plow or run a tiller larger than 3' or so, 20hp might be light again.

We have 4 tractors - the Kubota (used only for hoe right now), a Deere 3020 (can pull a 7' mower & 4 bottoms easily, but it's a crop tractor), a Ferguson 35 (4 cyl gas) and a Massey 30 (3 cyl diesel). The latter two have been used as orchard/small implement tractors for many years. Both will pull 3 bottoms okay and will spin a 5' bush hog without working too hard. We use the Massey exclusively to mow fields, waterways and the orchard using the 5' hog. No problems.

However, the guy that owned the Massey used to try to pull a 6' hog with it (as a field mower) and dang near torched the thing. We had to rebuild the engine when we got it 20 years ago or so.

To use a 5' tiller, I'd want at least 30hp.

Anyway, hope this has helped.


b

Don Farr
09-29-2003, 10:25 AM
Don - what was the outcome of that auction?

BTW, after thinking about it ... I don't know how much acreage you intend to mow, or how you might intend to work ground for garden (or how much ground you intend to work).

If by "bush hogging" you mean heavy mowing of grass/weeds/small brush, then a 20hp unit might be a little light. And if you intend to pull a plow or run a tiller larger than 3' or so, 20hp might be light again.

We have 4 tractors - the Kubota (used only for hoe right now), a Deere 3020 (can pull a 7' mower & 4 bottoms easily, but it's a crop tractor), a Ferguson 35 (4 cyl gas) and a Massey 30 (3 cyl diesel). The latter two have been used as orchard/small implement tractors for many years. Both will pull 3 bottoms okay and will spin a 5' bush hog without working too hard. We use the Massey exclusively to mow fields, waterways and the orchard using the 5' hog. No problems.

However, the guy that owned the Massey used to try to pull a 6' hog with it (as a field mower) and dang near torched the thing. We had to rebuild the engine when we got it 20 years ago or so.

To use a 5' tiller, I'd want at least 30hp.

Anyway, hope this has helped.


b

I backed out and didn't go Brad. All the info I got here and on line I decided 20 hp was to small. My riding lawn mower is almost that big.
I agree with you on the hp should be at least 30. I need to pull a 5' bush hog and I don't think 20 hp will do that.
Thanks, I will keep looking.