Perfect Tractor Attributes

I have a friend who is honestly just that, a true friend. The guy is a mechanic by trade and really smart and is like me in that he cobbles a lot of things together. He is also a John Deere Bulldozer owner and when he heard that I had to sell my bulldozer to pay my property taxes, he hit me with a question I did not have the answer too.

"Did I ever consider building a homemade tractor to replace my bulldozer?"

Now I have thought a lot about this lately. The truth is, there is no perfect tractor made today. With tracks, pto, and 3 point hitch, my dozer had some good attributes, but yet could use some refinement. My Kubota definitely has some shortcomings. So my question is:

What would the perfect tractor have for your application?

I won't weigh in too heavily just yet, but for example my Kubota would be 100 times more practical if it had a decelerator pedal instead of an accelerator pedal.

 

Hate to hear you had to sell your dozer ! But you did what you had to do!

YIKES!!! Yall must have some steep property taxes up there!!!

 

The perfect tractor for me would be a Kubota M62 with a factory installed cab which they don't offer, and tier III emissions.

 

Why would you want emissions stuff on the tractor ?

 

tier III is nothing. Tier IV what we have now.

 

Yea i knew we had 4 now with Def, but was thinking there was something restrictive for 3...or why would it be tier 3?

My loggers atill have chippers that have no emissions on them. The one i was watching yesterday is close to 700hp

 

Tier III on most tractors is just a cleaner burning engine. Most were mechanical injection. Some had an EGR.

 

I like a tractor or equiprment that smells like diesel, not like the exhaust on these new machines.

 

I heard a woman down in North Carolina talking about how high her property taxes were and she said they were "almost $600." I said, I hope that is a month!

Between what Katie and I pay in Maine and New Hampshire, it is over $10,000 a year. It boils down to almost $200 a week, or in terms of lambs, would require 2 sheep profit wise going to slaughter every week, all year just to pay for property taxes!!

 

I always said that if I was president, I would require all engine makers to paint emissions stuff...anything that could be ripped off the engine and still allow the engine to run...a lavender color or something. Something noticeable so that when a guy is broke down on the side of the road he could chunk those parts and get home!

LodgedTree for President!

 

Uh yea thats high!!! i was thinking, he must have something around that can pay those off and keep his dozer that he uses for work!!. Thinking why dont he sell a few sheep or that old chainsaw and all the boxes of saw parts he must have in the shop?

My taxes on my 3000sqft brick home on the 1 acre lot i live in in a small small country town are $800 @ year. My farm property that i dont live on several counties away is 130 acres and has a small older wooden house about 1200sqft. Most of the property is wooded. I dont lie there ao its like 10% higher or something? But there agian just under $800 a year!!

Man no wonder everyone is moving south. How can a retired person pay that!!! Not saying your retired but thinking of those that want to

 

No I am retired, but it is the one thing I did not really factor in enough. I am not making excuses, I am just being brutally honest.

Maine has the highest taxes per capita in the USA from what I understand. In New Hampshire the town we own that other house in (our 3rd) has the highest taxes in the State of New Hampshire. A house on a 1/4 acre in town is more there, then what we spend here in Maine for (2) houses, and several hundred acres, but New Hampshire has no sales tax or income taxes like here, which is why Maine is higher in overall taxes. Vermont has to be right up there as well.

A lot of it comes down to them balancing the State Budget's by trimming costs and putting the burden onto property taxes and individual towns.

In New Hampshire, the town has only 1100 people and is 3 square miles in size, yet has its own police department with (4) full time officers. It is insane. I say scrap the police department, but I am not a resident there so have little say. I would slash the school budget as well, but that is in both places, not just in New Hampshire.

 

Yes Vermont's are high, own my home and rental properties. No politics so I

 

I knew you retired from welding but didnt know you call yourself retired cause of all the logging you do. But i know your situation put a hold on even the logging in the short term i would guess.

 

NH property taxes vary a lot by town. Most towns are high but some are low...couple that with zero income and zero sales tax and if you're in one of those towns you can pay very little.

We're on 38 acres with a nice 2400 sq ft house and pay about $2800/year. Higher than a lot of other states I'm sure but again...zero income or sales, so we come out ahead in the end.

 

Perfect tractor, one that will do everything I need done without ME having to do it.

 

Thats not bad at all

 

I always dreamed CAT would put their TSK cab , blade , tranny and power plant on a KMC Kootenay high arch cable skidder chassis. Now that wood be a heck of a woods machine

 

For me, my homemade tractor list goes something like this:

Tracks
Hydraulic reverser
Loader with 4 in 1 bucket
(2) transmissions (1) being an automatic transmission
PTO
3 point hitch
Decelerator pedal
Glass cab
Heater
Radio
(2) hydraulic remotes
Counter rotation

 

New Jersey

1500 square feet. 3 bed 1 bath. 2/3 of an acre.
5500 in taxes.

I have no kids and 70% goes to schools. Talk about getting bent over. You people with kids get tax deductions yet I'm not costing the system anything. Shouldn't I be the one getting a tax break? I'm not using the services.

I've been on a few tractors and backhoes. If I'm going to be outside a climate controlled cabin would be nice.