Montana/Farmtrac 545?

[Tim in New York]

My boss is looking for a tractor to use in his vineyard and found this at a local dealer. From what I can find, this is a r-ebadged Farmtrac, which is apparently really a Ford under the covers. Were these decent tractors? How is parts availability? This one only has 900 hrs on it and looks great in the pictures. And 8K seems reasonable for a tractor of this size. Would appreciate any help provided.

https://www.tractorhouse.com/listing/for-sale/216792703/montana-545-40-hp-to-99-hp-tractors

Thanks,
Tim

 

[Sean in PA]

They were not rebranded Fords. They were built by a company in India that copied a lot of the Ford designs, but I don't know how much compatibility there is between those tractors and Ford parts. They also made the Long brand tractors that look like old Fords.

 

[Tom in Mo.]

If you want to stay in the good graces of your boss, steer clear of it and recommend spending more money on a Kubota. You get what you pay for.
As Sean says the farmtracs were mostly made in India. Most Montanas were made in South Korea by LS. Most Long tractors were made in Romania.

 

[TomIn]

You might find the post from 2012 interesting. It discusses some of the ties between Long, Farmtrac, Montana, and LS and their connection to Ford. I have no knowledge other than what I have read.
2012 Post

 

[Destroked 450]

That Montana tractor is a rebadged Farmtrac
Farmtrac is owned by Escort Group of India
Escort Group built Ford tractors until Fiat dropped them, in 1998 Escort bought US based Long Agribusiness and began importing a modified version of the Ford tractor rebranded with the Farmtrac name.
Farmtrac US filed bankruptcy in 2008, They are still being built in India today
Montana who was owned largely by JB Hunt trucking purchased all of Farmtracs US facilities and inventory relabeling it with the Montana name. Montana also sold tractors built by LS of Korea which are the green Montana tractors you see, LS entered the US market in 2010 leaving Montana with no tractors to sell. Once the remaining Framtrac and LS inventory was sold Montana quit selling tractors

I own a Montana/Farmtrac 555, it's a handy little tractor with a lot of similarities to the Ford 3910, BUT there's as many parts that won't interchange was ones that do. Mine had 565 hrs with a bad engine so I picked it up cheap, the engine failure was more abuse and lack of maintinance than poor quality or design. The only parts of the engine that would interchange with Ford parts was the valve cover and water pump
Rather than try to repair the Farmtrac engine I swapped in a Ford 3930 engine using a 3000 flywheel and 2 stage clutch, also converted the hydraulic and power steering pumps to Ford, which is what the Farmtrac 60 used.

Personally that may be a good tractor but for that price I'd keep looking, I can get most parts from a source in Long Island, NY but delivery times vary of a week to over a month or more

 

[Tim in New York]

Thanks for all the info. I have passed it on.

Tim