Ahhhhhh yessssssssss…….
The John Deere 4455, designed from 1988-1992 (we think it’s a 92, we painted over the serial number 🙂 and I’m not going back out in the cold to confirm… Claiming to be around 160-ish horsepower, these 4000 series tractors are not only nostalgic, but still heavily desired! Brand new in 1992 that tractor was around $60k. Honestly, we probably bought it 30 years ago with 4000hrs for around $25k. Today, as it sits, we could list it for $50k with 10,000hrs and probably get it…
Why you ask??? Look at the damn thing!!! No seriously, look at it. You’ve followed the restoration of it, you’ve seen the sides off, you’ve seen the hood off, you’ve seen the tires off. It’s basic…Â A farmer can actually work on this piece of equipment. That’s huge in today’s day and age when it costs $500 for John Deere to even venture to you farm to diagnose a new tractor. The new tractors with DEF (Diesel Exhaust Fluid) are made to run full throttle whenever in use (lack of change, the engine knows what it needs/wants). When the throttle is constantly up and down, then you start running into issues, demand for DEF (too much causes crystallization, too little NOx faults) temperature of the exhaust, the throttle changes faster than what it can keep up with. Not to mention, this tractor new with this amount of horsepower, you’re looking at $160k.
Drive around the farm and the newest tractor we have is a 2012 John Deere 5101E, pre-emissions. That was around $40k then, and we could almost sell it for $40k today, with 3000hrs on it. Being able to work on a tractor yourself saves you a pile of money when things can add up rather quickly, just like owning a vehicle… Except we have to maintain a dozen of these things, and in typical cherry season fashion, we will be down to one of them come end of the harvest. I remember attending a conference at MSU and the presenter saying that he had five tractors they were able to connect to his corn planter. When one broke down, he would move it out of the way and hook it to the next diesel dinosaur and keep going because time is off the essence, especially in farming.
Almost all of the tractors we have can hook to one of the five-ish (because those are always broke as well) orchard sprayers we have now. The new to us 5525N will certainly be put to use for us this summer… 8khrs and counting. Maintain what you own and it might last your lifetime, worst case scenario here, we have a parade tractor.
Till next time
Rob
