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Nw Iowa | Moline, We have found same thing, pay now or pay later if you want to keep a under 1200 hr combine. After 1200 hrs than much cheaper but more downtime. We have a now 1600 hr second machine that I bought with 850 sep hrs. It has been a good machine but after all repairs, purchase cost, depreciation our cost per hr was much higher than what you would think. It also boils down to how many hrs you put on in a season and how much downtime you can deal with. If combine is broke down, how is affecting your labor and work flow. If you have 4 truck drivers and a cart driver and you are broke down 20miles from home, what is that really costing you per hr.? So yes new works for some, others not as concerned about downtime.
In the past it seems we can run 3 seasons on a combine ( close to a 1000 hrs) without too many issues but seems like when all said and done, we pay almost the same cost per acre or very close to it, or have in the past. That would include all repairs, preventative maintenance costs. We have not run new heads and that seems to work out okay. Up here where winter comes our window is pretty tight to get crop out in the 45 days that our normal fall run is. Our crops are all corn and soybeans so hrs are put on in a pretty short time period. With fall winds that we have had, seems like we always lose 4-5 bu on last corn harvested ( doesn’t matter what hybrid) because of a wind event so that just magnifies any downtime costs.
Edited by jdironman 8/6/2022 07:13
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Having a very hard time wrapping my head around machinery prices
