Hey i was wondering if any of you guys back here in the midwestern part of the country can tell me how much per hr for a farm tractor with 4 wheel drive and a couple 17yd scrapers im talking like a john deer 9630 or a case stx 450, cat mt900 if you owned these could or would you operate them for 125.00 to 130.00 per hr i dont own any of these just comparing things i guess my twin engines are to expensive
fiat41b, You could work any of those farm tractors and pans for $130.00 per hour, if you wanted to go BROKE in a few weeks. cheers Leroy
fiat - im running 9520's w 1 - 18 yrd. $ 190 hr and w/ 2 - 18 yds $ 225 hr. depending on work type and customer. once you add fuel wear parts and operators cost these prices dont leave much profit margin , not including a breakdown or repair. These prices seem good but you have to expect the machines to sit not running as well , but the notes are still costing you. If you have a few ran days and then a little time for drying out before starting agian you have a lot of money to catch back up before and profits come into play agian.
Aussie Leroy is totally correct. You will be BROKE in a few weeks. Around here a D8K with a N0. 80 Cat pan went out for $200.00 an hour last year. A D7G got $175.00. A D3 dozer brought $130.00 an hour. If I had not been selling off equipment here and getting out I know rates would have been raised for 2013 but don't know how much. You need to sit down and put together a detailed estimated operating cost for all of the fixed and variable costs to start. Then track your costs every day for an extended period of time to get a good accurate cost basis. I have told this to many guys who use the old excuse of I don't like to do book work so they never knew where they were right up to the day they went broke. Oh ya, then there are the ones that claim if they try to charge as much as I do they will get no work.
I dont use farm tractors and wont, just asking cause thats what the others are using and charging i have twin engine scrapers and haul trucks and big dozers i dont mess around with that farm crap unless its a quad for soft ground i will rent one. i just sold off last 2 d8 and pans last year they were just tractors no blades they did ok but my twin engines went threw more mud than the d8's and were faster all around the d8's and pans did not like to turn very good in the mud pulling large loads. I just cant think how someone is running tractors and pans for 125-130 per hr. We dont have a chance with our prices.
I don't know if your union or not but if you are you are eating up half that with just the operator. If that is not including operator then yes it can be done at a very small margin. Just wondering what company you are talking about that is runing at those cost?
Sounds like someone knocking the bottom out of the market, and probably not even realizing how fast they are going broke. Maybe they got started by reading the "facts" as presented by the sales folks selling tractors and pans.
I was once on the tractor and pan band wagon. When they are running it's ok, but usually they are broke. By the time you put enough horsepower in front a Pan to pull it right, it usually pulls apart. We ran them on quad trac's, and they did well, until your tractor is sittin on blocks waiting for new rollers or new tracks to come in. Last job we stripped 150 acres 6" with dozers, and off road trucks. Around Louisiana 200/hr is an average number I believe, unless you come across a farmer trying to get into the dirt business, then it's cheaper.
Those AG tractors are fine for topsoil . Why do you see 657' s getting PUSHED .It takes tractive effort and torque to move dirt .That dirt has been there a long time . Virgin dirt win's the battle everytime . Even tag teams need a push with 4 engines and 4 driving axles . The dirt wins everytime Hand's down .
ag tractors can move alot of dirt in the right setting! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YX0atjrV5dw very hard shale but they did it! And for alot less then hoe and trucks or twin engines
As Vapor stated - ag tractors will outperform conventional equipment on many conditions. But , some jobs they are not to be used on , but the right conditions and they cannt be beat.
If that's the best they can do, I would leave them parked. It was taking over 2 minutes to load in the video you posted. Seems there was no support in the cut. A rip cat in the cut and some pushcats loading some real scrapers would have killed the pans in production. I agree there are places for the pull pans, but the posted video does not impress me as being one of them. On the other hand, if that is what they own, I can see them being used on jobs they are less than ideal for, but it will come at a high price.
very busy field but oh so slow loading.The tractor manufacturer is making money, same as the fuel,tyres suppliers but I doubt a lot was made by the contractor
You would actually be very surprised at how much money they actually made, not needing a cut assist tractor and only one D6 to knock down the fill. And rubber tired machines would have a harder time loading that if it was ripped, they have no traction at all, plus that was the last 2 feet of hard shale before you hit the shelf rock that had to be shoot 11 631's were off to the right loading the more rocky material. You can kinda tell by this photo That was the very end of the job, all the top soil and heavy clay had been moved. It was either let the deere help the 31's and get the last few feet of dirt off or let 15 pieces of iron sit and lay them all off.
And the deere with 3 pans, if the back pan on the deere is hauling 5 yards and getting 20 loads a day it is covering the cost of fuel
I have hired them as subs but wouldn't own them. They have their place in certain projects.
It's a good thing that they have a long cut. A couple 27's would have made 2 rounds in the time those tractors made 1. I'm sure that cost per yard is competitive is some scenarios, perhaps much of the midwest, but certainly not when they are out of their element.
Seems around the mid west thats all people run is tractor and pans. As for the video posted yeah the 631's would smoke them but the only problem is we had every 631 running we had so we added the John Deere to the cut. 631's hauled a pretty good chunk more a day over the deere. That why you will never replace the big iron with farm tractors. There's always a place for everything.
Maybe they should add push blocks and bails to the front of the Deeres?
Hancock manufacturing built pto driven elevating pull type scrapers years ago designed for farm tractors www.machinerytrader.com/listingsdetail/detail.aspx?OHID=8969145 It would be interesting to compare loading , cycle times & fuel burn rate between a farm tractor pulling an open bowl scraper vs. the same tractor pulling an elevating scraper in a days work . I see Miskin makes a elevating scaper in 12 and 18 yards www.miskin.com/Elevator.htm
The farm tractors look impressive but add 10 years of age to them and see witch one is still hauling dirt the conventional will still be going in 20 plus. But that being said they all have there place.
You are very right, the deere are done around 5000 hrs if that, but there resale value is very good. A few outfits around here will buy the deere run them to 4k-5k hours and sell them.
All the big coal mines around here are switching to the ag tractors and pans. Ill try to get some pics very soon. It is a mixture of Deere, Case, and Cat. Mixtures of both wheel and tracks. Mixtures of 1, 2, and 3 pans behind the units.
There's a story about farm pans. A conventional scraper contractor won a contract for the site work on a huge big box store in the Midwest. He hauled in his stuff and went to work. Dirt flew in all directions, as motor scrapers can really bulk dirt bar none. Meantime, the second low bidder showed up with a fleet of ag tractors and pans. Parked them and just waited, day after day. Finally, the first guy bailed, and the pan guy went to work, finishing the job. I got this from a Deere dealer I know quite well, and I figure it's pretty straight up info he picked up at a dealer conference. I fooled with some ag tractor pans on a federal road job. The aren't worth the pot I **** in daily insofar as work and craftsmanship go. But they will skin a conventional scraper operation nine different ways on simple site work. Buy them new with new pans, run to 3,000+ hours and sell the entire POS at auction. The cutting must be as long as the distance between the rear tires, outside edge to outside edge, and only two rear tires. Any other configuration and they won't hold a slope and you will work your *** to death keeping cuts and the fill in order on a road job.
I believe there must be more to this story than conventional scrapers vs. ag tractors/pans.