333d with high hours. Bad Idea?

[jsw development]

Hello All,

Seriously looking at a 333d with 3400 hours. Seems to have been taken care of. Tracks and undercarriage are in good shape. Pins are bushings are decent, drive motors are strong. What are your thoughts? Price is pretty good at 24k.

 

[jsw development]

Please help!

From what I can determine, drive motors seem to be the biggest deal. Anything I’m missing here?

 

[KSSS]

That is what I was going to say, the drives are expensive and a definite wear item. I don't have any personal experience with Deere, but at the those hours you can about plan on seeing drive motor replacement before you hit 5K hours. Depending on who does the work, and where you get the parts I think you could plan on $7500 give or take per side maybe more. If it were me, I would pay more for a lower houred machine. My experience is I get out of a tracked machine at around 2k hours. Other than a set of tracks, I don't see any maintenance issues in that time, but after that, they get progressively more expensive to own. I don't care to do any extensive repairs myself and I am down time adverse, so for me this rule of thumb works.

 

[jsw development]

Thanks for the reply KSSS.

That’s my dilemma, I’ve had track machines in the past but it seems like the game is changing. I’m hesitant to buy a newer machine with emissions as my tractor has them and it’s a constant struggle

 

[KSSS]

That is a legit issue. If you can get by with less hp, you can get about the same lift capacity without DEF. CASE released the TV370 recently which is a large frame machine, 75 hp and can be counterweighted to a 4K ROC. CAT has the 289D which is also around 75 hp with a decent ROC. I am sure there are others, as there is becoming a big demand for large frame, nonSCR machines. This might be a good option if you don't need a 100 hp machine. Also you can look at the warranties on the DEF systems, CASE is 5 years and I am sure most everyone is similar. I think the OEM's are trying to remove some of the risk in these machines. However they are more complex and of course more things to go wrong. My SCR experience has been good, zero DEF issues. Generally if you run them hard and keep the idle higher in cold weather, they seem to run as designed.

 

[jsw development]

Well KSSS, I made a purchase you would probably approve of. I ended up with a TR320 with 1800 hours, and an enclosed cab. This will be my first cab machine and I'm excited to mow without getting a bunch of crap up my nose.

It does have the dreaded JOYNU message. Runs and operates fine, just have to jiggle the right joystick to get it to unlock. May require some attention, but our dealer here is really responsive.

Thanks for your help