Aside from a few select pieces of equipment almost everything I buy is used, either from auctions or private sales. Certainly saves a lot of money! No dealer, no depreciation off the lot..... But there is always a risk.... no warranty, no return policy, and sometimes no machine history.
If you are buying used please do your research! Watch YouTube videos, join an online forum, ask questions on a Facebook group.... get the information you need BEFORE you buy! A few months ago I bought a John Deere 420 from a friend. I knew this 420 was either going to be a really good project or a fair parts machine. The later was the ultimate fate of the machine. Not a big deal to me, I’m equipped to deal with things like this, I didn’t need to rely on day in day out, I didn’t pay too much for it, and I knew 95% of what I was expecting.
In the end it boiled down to this issue, a cracked frame.... which was worse than I initially thought. The rear frame axle support fell off when I loosened the axle bolts. This frame had been repaired before so there was no reasonable fix for this. Based on some other evidence this frame had been like this for some time.
Imagine if this was someone who needed this machine all the time?
Over the next few months I will try to pull together some of the more interesting pictures and stories about machines I have owned. Hopefully the readers education cost will be less than my education cost!