Viewer Submitted Question
Hey, Neil. A question regarding my 2501. I just recently purchased it. I did not do a lot of research prior to buying my tractor. It was my first tractor. Kind of got some advice from family members and went with the tractor that they had recommended for me. But one of the things after doing research later, what I noticed is, is I have a different loader than most L2501s. I'm not sure on the reason on this. And when I try to do research online about it, I have not found a lot of information on it. I have a feeling that the dealer does this to cut corners maybe. I hope not, but unfortunately that's what I'm guessing.
But just wondering if you could give me any insight on that, that would be great. The only other thing is, is I did notice when I asked for my third function, my third function looks a little different than everybody's I've seen. I'm not sure if it's just a manual third function versus electronic third function, or is a diverter. Usually, the hydraulic hoses are run down and zip tied down the bucket or the loader, but unfortunately I took it loader off when I was doing some work and the tractor's really dirty for working out there. But once again, I do love the tractor. I just was curious on it, and see what happened. And by the way, I love the video about the adjustment on the seat. Thanks again, and have a great one.
Neil's Response
Looking at this tractor, you're going to notice a couple of things about it. And the first thing is that the loader that's on it doesn't look like the traditional loader that usually goes onto a standard L series tractor. The labeling and stuff is kind of a stand out there. You see the model number on the side, and the complete lack of vendor markings. What you're seeing there is a loader from Ansung, it's a south Korean company. Ansung actually seems to be a growing company. You're going to find a lot of their implements on a lot of imported and particularly South Korean equipment. They're going to show up on kind of that lower tier of tractors out there.
They don't make terrible implements from my impression. When I've been by them side-by-side, walking by and, say, knocking on the loader boom, you're going to find that the steel that's used and there is lighter than what's used on a lot of kind of your OEM or Kubota type loaders. We don't sell Ansung products. We have looked at them in the past before. And the reason why we have chosen not to use them comes down to performance matching. The biggest concern for me when going off-brand for a loader is that performance matching. There's a lot that goes into mounting a loader to a tractor than just simply slapping on a boom and a couple of hydraulic cylinders, right? You have considerations for the geometry of the loader and how it moves and having proper rollback angles, and respecting the capacity of your front axles. It's a lot of that kind of stuff that goes into these loaders.
And oftentimes when you look at OEM loaders, you're going to find that one model tractor has one model loader for the most part, because their performance matched and made for that particular tractor. Loaders like Ansung, what they're doing there is going through and making one loader boom, and then more than likely fitting that loader boom up to dozens of different tractors by having different mounting kits to go between the tractor and the loader. We would have sold some of this in the past from Woods. Woods is now out of the loader business, but had been our go-to company when we couldn't get OEM loaders. Now, we never sold those loaders in the place of an OEM one for that performance matching reason, but there is a good place from some of these aftermarket companies to be able to pick up loaders where the OEM no longer supplies them anymore. Having that gap from Woods is significant from us. We now, if we go to a 30-year-old tractor and can't get an OEM loader anymore, have very few options to be able to find those kinds of things.
Ansung is doing a little bit of that, and they might be a good option for some of you with older tractors. But as far as newer equipment goes, we would never generally encourage that. Primary reason why these brands are used does come down to price. You're probably going to save a little bit of money, probably only up two, 300 bucks or so if I had to guess between using an OEM loader and an aftermarket loader. Now, in the case of this tractor that we're looking at here, this dealership actually took that a step further by using a different third function kit. Most of the time, the third function kit's going to be a electronic valve body that sits off the side up here with two buttons up here on the loader stick. That is convenient because as you're operating that loader, if you would like to operate your third function valve, your hand is right here and you very simply push a button.
This kit, though, is a lot more expensive than a valve body, which has been slapped onto the side of this loader with a couple of different hoses going to it, right? Generally, these are kits that are in the $850 range or so. In the case of what you're looking at there, you've got an old mechanical valve body, which is probably 125 bucks and a couple of hoses in order to put it all together to make it work. So this is definitely a tractor where the dealer had gone to some lengths in order to try to strip off some of these things in order to hold the pricing down. Now, this isn't necessarily all bad, right? Dealers of premium tractors can be more competitive with some of the less expensive brands that are out there by going these routes, right? This is the stuff that's often ending up on these less expensive tractors anyway, but you as a consumer and as a buyer of a piece of equipment need to be educated enough about what you're looking at to know if these kinds of, we'll call them tricks, are being played.
I care a lot more about going through and equipping a tractor properly for the person who's buying it and for the task that they have at hand, rather than just pick from every little place that we can to drive to a low, low price. The grapple that's on this tractor right here is a good example of what happens when you kind of go down this road. This particular tractor here is a reposession. We buy these periodically and resell them. It wasn't equipped by us. It was equipped by another dealer and came through the repo auction into like this. The grapple that's on the front of this tractor is a Terra Force grapple. It's actually a sub-brand of the same, Ansung company that we're talking about and has been fitted up to this machine. Now, more than likely, it's a very inexpensive grapple, right? It's an imported piece from South Korea.
This grapple, though, when it's set on this tractor, 60 inches wide like we normally would expect for this kind of machine. This thing comes in at 450 pounds. The [inaudible 00:07:45] equivalent that would generally be specked for this unit comes in at 250 pounds. That's a whole 200 pounds of excess steel hanging out here on the end of the loader that's taken away from your ability to lift and manipulate materials and stuff because it's all tied up in an ill-fitting attachment that is not properly perform its match to the tractor that it's on. There are two other telltale places to watch for when things are being equipped in a way to really push that pricing down. One of those is going to be in your tire selections. These are both the same chassis tractor right here beside me, but one is equipped with R4s and one is equipped with an ag tread tire.
Now, there are applications where ag tread tires are appropriate and you should be buying them. But for our dealership, this is maybe about 2% of our sales. Most everybody's going to end up in some kind of R4 turf or R14 type more hybrid-oriented tire than a tire that's really made strictly for tractive applications, right? Because most of you are on some kind of turf at some point or one a little bit heavier sidewall tire than what these are going to offer. Now, outside of the application consideration, there's some significant cost differences here as well. You can see how much less rubber is in an ag tire. And you can have a four or $500 difference just in your tire selection here. And going with a tire that's not right for your application just to save a couple of bucks isn't necessarily a smart idea.
The second place to watch for is going to be on your front loader. We're going to treat at skid steer quick couplers on your front loader, that ability to pull those two handles and swap your buckets for pallet forks or other attachments. Here at Messick's, it's basically standard equipment. We're going to order a skid steer coupler on every tractor that we sell. However, selling a machine with a pin-on bucket is able to save 350, $400 off the cost of that loader. But in the flexibility that you're giving up over the long haul, in no way is that generally worth it. So what I see here in watching this video is a tractor that was set up to really drive to that bottom dollar. Now, in the case that you save that money or that's what you wanted, maybe that's good, right?
We all like to have a little bit more of that in our wallet at the end of the day and that's a positive. But we want to watch out for this kind of stuff when it starts to impact the performance of the machine that we're buying, either in those agronomic considerations of the buttons on the loader stick versus having to reach down and operate that odd mechanical valve, or in stripping off certain features that might be important for the application that you have, be it the wrong tires or a grapple it's just too heavy for the tractor that it's going on.
If you have a question for Neil. Shoot a short video and email it to youtube@messicks.com.
