I saw an ad in the local paper for a Jinma 25HP, 4 wheel drive for $13,500. Then below it a 28 HP unit for $15,900. Anyone had any experience with these small backhoes. Are they China's best? What about Kioti backhoes? Are they good quality? Phil
The Jinma's are great, providing, you have good mechanical skills to keep them running and somewhere to obtain parts. As far as their hoe's, they're great too, for installing prize winning tulip patches and not much more,.
id take a kioti over a jinma.nortrax. or whatever name they put on it. the chinese tractors are getting popular overhere but mostly due to price and not durability. chinese rubber on hoses and belts is junk. you get what you pay for. and dont forget resale value if your looking for the last tractor you will ever buy it wont be a jinma unless your 90 years old. the extra 8,000 grand is worth it for a kubota or deer cause you will always get a 75% return as long as you dont beat the thing to death.:usa
"As far as their hoe's, they're great too, for installing prize winning tulip patches and not much more,." That made my day............:notworthy :usa
"the last tractor you will ever buy it wont be a jinma unless your 90 years old". I like that line. Describes it in a nutshell. So much is made in China now..do they make a metal detector to detect this stuff ? Phil
Only one thing worse than a cheap hoe, that's a dirty hoe !!!! www.GrimeBustersPressureWashing.com
With a lot more focus on environmental issues, I'm getting nervous about pressure washing a hoe off. Someone said you can't do it out behind the shop anymore. Maybe it's like painting and sandblasting, supposed to be done in a booth. Phil
washing equipment Phil, I had the same issue with the local enviroment people, They wanted us to dig a pit and line it with conrete walls and make a sludge pit. I got around it by pouring a concrete pad, with 3 sides raised about 6 inches and the open end had a 12"x24" stone buffer to collect any sludge, We also but those oil soaker booms around it when we steam. Most of the grease collects on the concrete pad and when it drys up we shovel it off. They could not find a reason to shut us down for steaming equipment then. The thing they wanted us to build cost about $75.000 to $85,000. Our system cost about$3,500. We will see how long ours satisfies them before big brother gets involved. Their regulations are crazy, It is not like we are putting hazardous waste into the ground or water. The sun evaporates the water and we dispose of the grease with our waste oil and anti-freeze products through a recycler. Good luck Billy:Banghead
After talking to a friend about it up here, I haven't got the pressure washer out for some time. Not that it works very well anyway. The mud will have to stay until it rains. Phil
Phil, I bought a new Kioti LB1914 a year ago (this model is not available now). These Korean machines are relatively inexpensive new, and the word is they are reliable and well built. Mine has over 200 hrs on it with no problems. The main thing I don't like is that the backhoe hangs off the back of the tractor, and has poor ground clearance. That may be true of all the small TLBs. The front end loader is underpowered in my estimation. It's a small tractor and you have to cut it some slack. If I have a tangled mess to move, I use the backhoe to break it up, before using the FEL. There are some bigger models, but I have no experience of them. The hoe is pretty good: I have been using a 2' bucket without problems except in the hardest dirt. One thing I don't like is that the boom swings wildly laterally even when I try to feather it (the throttle is out of reach). It's fine if I am using 2 motions at once. My tractor is unstable on mild and loose side slopes; this may partly be partly because I put industrial instead of ag tires on it. I level a route in such circumstances. My usage is fairly light, and rapidity is not an issue, so I'm pretty satisfied so far, given the price; for heavy use you might want something larger/more powerful. I agree that having a good dealer/shop is almost as important as a good tractor, unless you are a good mechanic. (I don't, and I'm not; fingers crossed). You could look on this forum which has subforums for Kioti and other small tractors/TLBs for more opinions. http://www.tractorbynet.com/ Good luck with your choice. C
Thank you for the reply cgraham. I'm really enjoying that link, lots of good reading. I was curious about all the mini backhoes out there and which one was the best. Kubota seems to be a favourite. Which one would be a good seller and is built well, should have been my original question. Phil
I would expect Kubota to be the EASIEST seller, because they are much better known, and there are a lot more dealerships. I read somewhere that resale values on compacts are poor; if so, the difference may not be so significant between brands. But I don't see many used compacts on the market - so I don't understand why low resale value unless people just hold on to them. Maybe someone else can expand on this. C
Unless you can afford down time, I would find out about the parts delivery network of the brand you are considering. I found out the hard way about some of the low cost imported brands, I've waited a minimum of 5 days for parts and up to 2 weeks for some. When you compare that to the overnight delivery of many domestic brands, the lost revenue from extended down time can quickly compensate and then some for the initial cost difference.
Welcome to Heavy Equipment Forums cgraham! :drinkup
Thanks Countryboy. I will have a cold one with you, as I solved a problem today, thanks to the good guys here! :drinkup **************** Agreed, Steve: I don't know how many times I have read that the dealer support is almost as important as the tractor. But the dealers have no control over parts availability, and I know low-demand Kioti parts can be backordered for months. It's a trade-off against price I chose to take. Long-out-of-production imports are surely worse. C
I made sure I called it parts delivery network because it is a joint effort between the dealer and manufacturer. If it's something that you can tolerate, then by all means save yourself some money in the purchase. It's just something to consider that a lot of people overlook, and it can be very costly.
This seems like a good forum Just doing my three posts I hope I can start new ones soon!
Me too Dean
Every single part for the Jinma is available here in the USA. There are a couple of places that stock everything for every size Jinma. With that being said, I’ll take my lumps like a man for buying one of these in 2006. As I was just starting out on my Almond farm and I needed something quick to dig stumps. It is a Jinma 284 TLB. As of this date it has 14 hours on the clock. JS850SL stated that the hoe is good for installing prize winning tulip patches. I disagree, The hoe is good for raking leafs or weed eated grass into piles, Digging tulip patches causes the hydraulic fluid to heat up and foam then it sprays all over the rear of the tractor out of the breather tube. And that is one of many reasons this ***** of **** is parked with 14 hours on it. I know that there are several people out there that are proud of there Chinese tractor purchase, but I just don’t have the time to work on it and wait for parts because I work three jobs and don’t have the time or patents for down time. Want more? Google CTOA I replaced this unit with a Case 580SE which is an anvil and never had a problem with and you can find these American made machines used cheaper than those other machines.
buy a name brand used, I looked at and drove some used (and new) chinese brands and always went with the name brand over them. Just spent more time looking for a good deal on a good brand.