Narrowed my choices to a case 450ct or Bobcat t300or t350. Any info or problems to look at in them would be appreciated. Reason for these three is they seem simple easy to work on and in my budget. Don’t need anything fancy and would like to skip the emissions issues of the new ones. Main use is clearing and dirt moving on the farm.
Nothing about a CTL is easy to work on! All that stuff crammed into a tiny space makes it difficult to work on, in my opinion. But, like you said, without the emissions issues it will be less of a headache. I don't have any direct experience with those models, but maybe someone else will chime in.
My son in law had a Case 445CTL taken in on trade I had looked to purchase for the $18.5K they allowed for trade that had a non functioning air conditioner. This was about 3.5 year ago. It had a Cummins engine but not a 3.8ltr but IIRC a 4.2ltr. It was not going to be any kind of easy to get to the parts as the compressor had come apart internally and the system was filled with trash. There were a couple of hydraulic leaks in the coupler, needed a front door, and two switches in the cabin were inoperable. I passed on the machine citing how much I'd have in it and the machine sold to a contractor of which expended a lot more $$$ repairing the air conditioner than he ever dreamed of. I don't know what all was done but talked to him about a year ago and he was over $30K into the machine with purchase and repairs in just a year.
I have a Case 440CT, with 89 hp. I don't run the engine at full speed unless it's on the brush cutter. They ride ruff unless you are in dirt, then they are fun. I have run a track off a couple of times so there are some videos on getting them back on.
The 450CT is a beast. The 450 is a fast functioning machine, combined with the power and weight, pretty tough to match its productivity. Moving the 450CT which probably doesn't much matter to you if your on farm is a bit of a pain. They are wide and in most cases requires a trailer that is over the tire design. They updated the drives on these. I am not sure what VIN numbers indicate that but they were at some point. If you get one like the other machines on your list, keep the drive oil in the drives fresh. There was a lot of learning being done by Rexroth and other drive OEMs during these years and they got a lot better. The drives are the biggest issue of machines of this era and they are expensive. Of your list, the 450 is by far more productive, the cab on the Series 1 machine is not great and BC has a better cab of that era. The Series 3 CASE cabs are much better and they had pilot controls. Finding a series 3 machine is tough. They came out during the 2008 downturn, very few new machines were sold of any color so not a lot of those around, but if you can find one in good shape, it would be one to buy.
Thank you for the reply i definitely want to be able to work on it myself as we do our own maintenance so being able to get in there and pull stuff off is a must
Thank you for the reply I definitely like the specs and everything and the fact they’re half the price of cat which is what I’ve looked at
I'm mostly around New Holland machines myself. The way the cabin tilts up on the new ones exposes a lot of the machine. Still not the easiest thing to work on, but much easier than a fixed cab machine.
The cab tilts up on the CASE 400 series. There is no CAT short of a 299 that can out work that 450.
Yeah that’s all I need. Nothing too fancy just able to do the job. So I’m happy to hear they’re a workhorse