The hunt for a "new" tractor

[FlyingGCattleCo]

I am currently looking for a new tractor. We have always owned green equipment and we tend to stick with it. I recently had a 2940 that I sold and then bought a 4030. I enjoyed that tractor but wanted to upgrade so I sold it and am now looking for a larger newer machine. We take care of about 650 acres of land and I've got about 100 acres in row crop tillage that I'd like to start farming myself rather than leasing out. We handle hay so a loader is a must. We run a 15' shredder and an 8' shredder to clean up around our places.

I've been looking hard at early 80's model 4440's and like them. I've always liked the quad range better than the powershift. I looked at a real clean well kept 4440 this past week and the owner had spent $10k to have the powershift trans gone through at the local dealer. Well they had only done the front half of the trans in an effort to save money and that night he called to let me know it was going back to the shop because it was doing the same thing (coming out of gear, stops moving). Is there another good model out there I should be looking for besides a 4440 that would suite my needs? I don't own any tillage equipment besides a 14' disc but want to run 18'- 20' tools behind whatever I get.

Thank you for any tips or advice.

 

[Richard in Bee]

4440s are generally perceived as one of the very best tractors ever built. Perhaps telling us the price range you are looking at would help us offer suggestions on other models.

 

[FlyingGCattleCo]

I'd like to stay below $40k on a used machine so I can keep a little rainy day fund aside for when repairs are needed.
The 4440's I've been looking at with loaders were in the low to mid $20's

 

[Tom OConnor]

I am retiring from farming at the end of this year and have a 1988 model 4850 for sale that I could let go now but I would think that it is more tractor than you would want. It has MFWD, three SCV's, 840
Loader with high cube bucket, pallet forks, 18.4Rx42 duals and only 2605 actual hours. I will send you a couple of pictures of it but as I said it is probably more tractor than you would want. Also all 4850's
were power shifts. Tom

 

[FlyingGCattleCo]

Tom if you don't mind email me some specifics on your machine and where your located. Is it a 16spd powershift?

[email protected]

 

[jturbo10]

I would highly recommend looking for a good lower hour John Deere 4450. It has all the bell and whistles needed for haying and row crop usage and they are highly reliable. I have a 1983 JD 4450 quad shift that now has about 8K hours and doesn't use a drop of oil, great SG cab, cold A/C, radio, GPS, etc. I prefer 2wd for my needs but you might want to look at the 4wd model if you use the loader a lot for manure etc. I have a 158 loader on mine but I would recommend a newer model with the self leveling feature. You can find a lot of good 4450s in the mid to high 20s. If you need more horsepower you can look at 4650 or 4850s.

 

[FlyingGCattleCo]

Thank you. I will definitely look at those 50 series machines. There are not many for sale around me at this time but I'll keep an eye out for them.