tractor hours

[powerrabbit]

I am not farmiliar with the digital hour meters on tractors as I have only been used to the cable drive type. I know that on D.B tractors, 'cause I've farmed with them for ever, the clocked hours are proportional to the revs. Not all the models clocked a proportional hour at the same revs as the clock on the smaller models were calibrated different from the bigger ones. I do remember that the 9 series, 990 to 996 clocked an hour (real time) at 1412 revs. The only 2 things that would cause the hour meter to fail was, the cable breaking one end or the other, which was the more common, or the plastic primary gear cog on the didgit barrel loosing its teeth as it was driven through a brass worm drive and they are almost impossible to repair.

[rich.new holland]

im not sure what ive done this year but i have added 100hours on the case from using the tanker (in my topic) and using the land leveler  \

[Powerstarâ„¢]

When I got my JD 6520 last May it had 400 hours on now it's on 1150.

[Kiwi6920]

I tend to do a avarage of 800 machine hours a year, i have put 100 hrs on the case in 6 weeks. all we are doing is feeding out,  hate to think how many hours i will do when i start dirt work

[james f]

Our main tractor, a Valtra 6650 has put up 4400 hrs since spring 2001, so its heading into its eigth year having put up about 630 hrs per year. I heard a rumour that the digital clocks run at a certain rate up to a cetain engine speed, then switch to a higher rate above that speed. Not sure if that's true though \

[ford 8830]

My jd x740 ride on mower has done 864 hrs since last may when it was new. (24hp)

Thats a lot of boring grass cutting sat out in the open ??? ??? ???

[rich.new holland]

thats about the same amount of hours on our new manitou  and that was new in may and its done the clamp ,carted bales and feeding since then  so you must be on it day in day out 

[Powerstarâ„¢]

Maybe he's a CCF part 2  :D

[batcher]

Some interesting variations in hours  

The most I have come across was a Massey 8160 delivered new on August 1st 1996. By Dec 20th it had 930 hours on.

I drove an 8150 which arrived the previous year on August 18th, and had 520 hours on Oct 31st.  That was through the busiest period though!

1200 in six months is a bit extreme and if its had the same driver all the time, I would venture to suggest someone may need to be a bit careful re. 'Working Time Regulations' !!!!

Are there any in farming  Boss man drove her for a day when i was off but the weather has been good for trimming never stopped up till chistmas 

[Gav836]

Are there any in farming  Boss man drove her for a day when i was off but the weather has been good for trimming never stopped up till chistmas 

Not yet, still exempt from them as far as I'm aware :D

[Kiwi6920]

Not yet, still exempt from them as far as I'm aware :D

Lucky for some gav, They are trying to enforce driving hour restrictions on tractors in nz now, they are trying to make them the same as a truck

[batcher]

Not yet, still exempt from them as far as I'm aware :D

Yet   will soon have two cowmen milkin cuz they get up so early  

[Gav836]

Some seem to think so, but Agriculture IS NOT an NEVER HAS BEEN exempt from the Working Time Regs:

What agriculture does have is an opt out from the 48 hour maximum working week, but you must sign a seperate document to request this opt out (a clause in your contract of employment has no legal relevence here - your signature on a contract is merely so that your employer can prove that you have been shown it within the required time from the start of the employment). The opt out only applies to the 48 hour week.  The rest of the regs still apply:

The Law is that you must have a daily rest period of not less than 11 consecutive hours

In addition you must have a weekly rest period of not less than 24 consecutive hours

You are also entitled to a half hour rest break during your shift (but this must not be at the beginning or end of your shift).

There is also flexibility built into the Regs that allow the rest periods to be reduced or carried forward where there is, and I quote "a foreseeable peak in the workload".  The word peak is very important here - it may stretch over a few days ( in practice it can stretch over the harvest period), but a period of  several weeks or months is not a peak.

The weekly rest periods can be carried over for up to 8 weeks I think.

It is worth pointing out that the Working Time Regulations come under the umbrella of 'Health and Safety Regulations', and breaches would be regarded more seriously than breaches of other employment laws. 

There is a lot more to it than that, but the above is the main points.  In practice, most people will get away with breaking the rules, until they have an accident - HSE will check up on timesheets etc.

Bit of a heavy post, I know, but important nonetheless.

Whats one of them? :D

In the 5 years I worked for my last boss I never even saw a contract of employment :D

Definately worth knowing all of the above though

[batcher]

When i worked for hanson as a premix batcher i had to sign .Mainly because we were on a 55 hr week thats the only way around it

So when i spend over 30 hrs asleep over the wheel (like i did last august) somthing wrong then 

[David Brown 1410 power!]

My uncels are contractors and use all David Brown and case tractor's in there buissness! one DB 1200 has completed over 40.000 hours and gets a rebuild every 6,000 or that not a full one but just the likes of gaskets been replaced and things like that!

one DB 1690 4wd has over 30.000 hours also! and most of the tractors are over 10.000 at least.

[rabh7840]

i know a boy that has put a ford 7840 dual power round the clock twice! now about 20000 hours!!!

talk about value for money!

[Deere-est]

I have been using a case mxu 135 pro for 3 months now there was 350 hours on the clock when i started i have just clocked up 1210 hours does this seem a lot of hours or is this normal for this time of year i have been the only driver and with the wet weather at least 1 month she hasent really been used much 

Seems just a tad on the high side to me but by your Posts on the Forum as a whole you sound like a busy bloke!! I wouldn't have thought any of those hours were wasted as such. You travel a lot between jobs though too don't you? I expect that bumps the time up a bit.

[KIWINZ]

i think its alot of hours as our jd does 1500 hrs a year and our nh does 700 hrs a year!!!!

[Deeredriver]

when we were contracting running the umbilical cord all winter we put 10,000 hrs on a 8340 in 3 years then she got traded for 8150 valmet

[batcher]

Seems just a tad on the high side to me but by your Posts on the Forum as a whole you sound like a busy bloke!! I wouldn't have thought any of those hours were wasted as such. You travel a lot between jobs though too don't you? I expect that bumps the time up a bit.

just done a three day job 8 hours plus getting there and back 55 mile round trip times three 

[james f]

I used to use a Ford 7600 Power Plus on an 'S' plate that had been round twice. It had a new engine at about 12000 (the usual porous block trouble killed it), but had needed little else in the way of repairs other than normal wear and tear.  It had been on the farm for 21 years when they got rid of it, the last 8 on the hedgetrimmer. It had done about 21000 hours I think. 

No bother to a 7600!! Most round my way (including ours) don't have working clocks though, so there's no way of telling how many hours they have put up \

[batcher]

Just a little update Mainly because of the reliability of the mxu since the last post i have been drilling elephant grass/mowing/raking tedding and a lot of round bales about 8800 so far  But i did have one major prob leaking a lot of backend  oil but 10ps worth of o ring put her right  ::)Just done the 3000 hr service .When i dropped the engine oil i had a sudden thought i never needed too add any oil since the last service .Then thought i have never added any water in 14 months of using her (prehaps i'm not using her anough)

[pudding]

my ole mans MTX125 seems to do about 800 hours a year, the old L75DT it replaced did 5700 before sold.......but 95% is loader work and pulling wagons, he usually has a small 2wd tractor that will do 300hours a year on a baler, and utility work........was a 165, now its a 390

contractors round here seem to put 2000hours a year on machine, depending what machine etc

back when i was a kid, i remeber the ole mans iseki 7000 doing 1800hours a year, when he was contracting,

wise man can figure out from how many hours he doing a year, whether is better to buy or lease a tractor,

i think tractor drive hours get thrown out the window in any country..........don't matter where you are........our mx270's in the US were leased with a 600hour per year cap, but each one did about 800 a year, we had 4 of them, 3 were the planter machines, 1 was in tillage, with the quadtrac, 9400, 9180, and what ever we could find that run............o yeah, a jd4850, 4960,4440, ferd9600 ha ha!......jcb185, farmed 16000 acres........we brought 5 2388 and a 8010 for the harvest, the 12 row ready 2388's both did 800 hours a season, the smaller 2388 did 400-500hours each, the 8010.........well that thing was junk

ya right about the older ones spinning faster ha ha!...........the iseki sx75 with the analog clock and electric feed clicked over with the ignition on, the older iseki T7000 stopped spinning at 5700 and started again for no apparent reason 3 years later

ya going to pay so much for a new machine, ya gotta use it, the depreciation will only make you cry other wise..........eh marky

which ever way you figure depreciation........straight line method.....residual value........tractors seem to loose there value fast in the first few years, i guess when market value reflects resale value, then they seem to hit a certain point where the resale value plateaus, but the depreciation soldiers on.......and it then becomes adjusted on your business books, and you pay depreciation recovery or similar, depending on the country laws.........some people keep utlity tractors like this, that are worth nothing on the farm books, and have a strong market value, cause if they sell it, the gotta pay the gov a depreciation recovery fee, and basically for the farmer to replace it will cost them a lot more then what they have invested now

seems to be that when the pressure comes on financially in ag, tractor owners operators, keep a late model machine, as a primary tool, about the size they need, run hours on it, and keep turning them over, and the utility tractors just get kept and run into the ground....in comfortable financial times, they buy tractors of equal size, using big tractors when small ones would do.......

[rich.new holland]

same in my farm as almost all the tractors have been bought brand new ,give or take one or two  and when they come here they dont go , untill on a lorry to the scrap heap  the only machine that has been sold was the matbro which was part exd for the manitou 

[nashmach]

The last tractor that we sold was over 10 years ago and we shouldn't have sold her then - she was here over 40 years

My father was making it out one night and he remembers every tractor that we have had since the early 40's - only 4 were sold since then - we have had our 3000 since the early 70's the 3600 since 1990/1 and the 4610 nearly 4 years now! Still want a bigger tractor though but would be a tough decision to trade any