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SDman
04-14-2000 23:36:31
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Re: hydro's in reply to Gord , 04-14-2000 06:40:52
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Gord, I've got several dozen IH hydro tractors still serving their customers faithfully after 30some years of service. As I've said on here before, a properly maintained Hydro can be one of the cheapest tractors to maintain throughout its lifetime while a neglected one can be one of the most expensive tractors you will ever own. Some around here have 12-15,000 hours on them with a minimum of maintenance. When looking for one, I advise customers to try & find out the history of the machine they are looking at. If the previous owner had the attitude of, "oil & filters are cheap compared to repair costs", chances are you won't have a problem; if, on the other hand, the attitude was,"as long as it moves, run it", then I would have my doubts. Yes, their 2 biggest problems were : 1)lack of drawbar HP efficincy & 2) poor fuel efficiency; however, a lot of guys find them to be more convenient to operate than some of today's fancy, high$$$$ powershifts, so they aren't too bad for a 30-some year-old design(older than me, by the way). We've got 544, 656, 666, Hydro 70 & 86s, 1026, 9 & 1066 Hydros, Hydro 100s, Hydro 186, 3488 Hydros all around here. A 3488 Hydro MFD brings a premium price around here. Too bad IH's marketing people couldn't have done a better job marketing these. Too often they got a bad reputation trying to do something they weren't designed to do. Hope this helps.
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