JAPANESE TRACTORS

Being mostly compact in size, however some models do come in horsepower ranges up to 40 horsepower or more occasionally. The size of many of the Japanese tractors will be more compact in nature, even though they may be larger in horsepower than they look. Another consideration to look at, is the wheels and tires will usually be smaller since these tractors were predominately used in rice-patties for small-specific jobs. We have had customers come in and tell us that some of the new tractor dealers were offering a tractor with 20-25 horsepower, but looked the size of one of the older 40-50 horsepower tractors.

The problem with this, as they claim, is that when you add a 5-6 foot bushog or similar attachment to this tractor to match the larger size and stature of it, not to mention the heavier weight of the tractor because of its size, you end up with a low-speeded operation similar to and overload situation, whereby their neighbor could take on these smaller tractors with maybe the same horsepower matched to the proper say 4 foot bushog and walk circles around the other tractor, even though it was a bigger looking machine. In the last few years, more and more homebuilders, contractors, construction co.'s & landscape companies have been buying the smaller compact tractors, due not only to the ease of being able to load and haul with ease, but the maneuverability and capability to do 3-times the different jobs that a larger tractor was capable of performing. If a person was to be trying to bushog or farm a 50-acre field, usually a 40 horsepower or so is needed, but seldom if ever, is much row-crop-farming going on nowadays.

The average consumer we sell to owns from a 1-5 acre estate that he is tired of wearing out riding mowers on, and decides that the small compact diesel will usually cut his time from 1/2 to 1/4 the mowing time with a finishing mower behind it, as well as give him the diversibilty to garden in tight spots, get through barnyard gates maybe where his larger tractor won't fit and do other job-specific tasks around his place where as the larger tractors are too bulky and cumbersome. The other consumer usually has between 10-30 acres on average and needs no more than about 30 horsepower to maintain it. Having visited Japan several times and noticed that all that these compact tractors were used for was tilling rice; it's easy to see why we never hardly have any repairs or complaints, as these units in many cases are hardly broken in when we receive them. We try and hand pick what we buy almost always. There are dealers who try and buy nothing but the salvage and piece together 2-3 tractors to make one running unit; as you will usually notice that they have many rough units on their yard and a dozen men trying to piece things together. The problem with this is if you buy nothing but parts or salvage tractors and someone is attempting to bring it back to original condition, many of the gears and other hard-parts do not have the same wear, causing problems down the road. It's like painting an 85 model car, it looks as good as the 98, but is it? In other words, we try to deal only in the Grade-A units, even if they cost us and the consumer a few hundred dollars more; although sometimes we can sell as low or lower than our competitors, according to the quantity purchased at the time or season or how the foreign currency is fluctuating.

We are told that the Japanese Minister of Agriculture offers money for newer tractors to the Japanese well before the units need any consideration for replacement, hence having one of the most productive agricultural operations in the world. These tractors only till rice-patties generally once or twice a year, therefore, putting very little wear on the tractors.

Since about the early 80s, most tractors have been made in Japan. Kubota is probably the most popular Japanese brand tractor by name as being Japanese built but sold in America. If you will notice many of the others are built in Japan as well; New-Holland bought out Ford, New-Holland is owned by Fiat-Allis out of Italy, Shibaura in Japan has been building most of the compacts under 4O-horsepower for Ford/New-Holland for many years. Many of the John Deeres have Yanmar Engines and have serial plates stating made in Japan. Hinomoto & Iseki we are told made some of the compacts for Massey Furgeson. The lists go on and on. We've seen various models of John Deeres and Fords that were differently designed coming out of Canada & Mexico in the last few years. Most all tractors predominately for many years have been made in the European-Block Countries or Asian Countries. To make a long story short most of the Japanese brand tractors as well as the European brand tractors that we know of are generally more advanced in quality and parts availability. Some of the Chinese, Russian, Yugoslavian, Romanian and other third world countries that have manufactured tractors in the past have had problems supplying parts; and some of the quality, we are told, is many years behind the U.S and Japanese technology and standards.

One reason that the Japanese tractors we are told have such remarkable dependability is the machine-workings are built with very close-tolerances. Some of the Japanese names you will hear are: KUBOTA, YANMAR, MITSUBISHI, ISEKI, SHIBAURA, SATOH, HINOMOTO, ETC.