Vehicle Upgrading

Once you have attained a profitable footing on your farm and have purchased one or two additional fields your thoughts will naturally turn to upgrading the kit (mostly vehicles) on your farm in order to improve the basic efficiency of your farming operation.

The reasons for that include the most obvious - that being that you want to lower the daily maintenance costs while at the same time increasing the effectiveness of your fleet.

The reason that this is possible has everything to do with the fact that, as you start out, you have been given (so you own) farm equipment that rightly is two and even three generations behind in terms of its technology and its performance and efficiency.

Tractors: A Mini-Case-Study

When you start a new farm you are given four Tractors - two each of the Hurlimann Model H 488 and Deutz Fahr Agrostar 6.61 (that cost brand new $37K and $51K each respectively). What you may not know is that those two tractors represent 1980s technology!

Their power plant efficiency and power output levels in terms of kW and ho are well below that of similar sized but more modern Tractors.

Look at the expense of owning and operating them as a very good example of this:

As you can see while these are cheap to buy they are very expensive to maintain, and their power output (for their size) is nowhere close to that of modern kit.

The Hurlimann H 488

This will likely be the first model we want to replace, and specifically the one that is assigned to pull the Tipper as that would be the ideal candidate to double as a front-loader... So let's take a look at the possible (read that preferable) replacements and compare them...

Any replacement muse offer at least as much power and performance as the Hurlimann, but should also provide lower cost in terms of maintenance and preferably some sort of improvement in its use.

Of the choices available the Steyr Multi 4115 is an obvious pick for a couple of reasons. First, it comes in two versions, one standard, and one with armored cover on the cab. Since it is also front-loader capable the armored cab cover makes sense -and we NEED a front-loaded capable tractor if we are going to handle Wood Chips and eventually larger hay bales, so the choice pretty much makes itself.

While the Multi 4115 is not cheap - Sticker Price is $105K - it makes up for that in lower daily costs and improved efficiency and capabilities!

You can apply the same basic comparison model to the other kit that is available to you. Obviously your needs are going to be what dictates the sort of kit you buy, but if you are going to spend the money you may as well get the best return on your investment as you can!

When we buy the Steyr Multi 4115 it also makes sense to purchase a Universal Bucket Loader (Sticker Price $900) and at the same time a larger Tipper...

The Tipper we start with is a Brantner Model E 8041 which has a capacity of just 8,500 L (which is roughly two full loads from our Harvester, which can contain 4,200 L per load).

That means that we can only accept two full unloads from the Harvester before we either must dump to the silo or sell the load.

The next choice up is the Kroger Agroliner Model HKD 302, which will take a massive 21,000 L of crops before it has to be emptied. That is FIVE (5) full loads from our Harvester! Now that means that even for our largest field we can keep the Tipper on site without having to remove it to unload until AFTER the field is fully processed.

So the HKD 302 is a good choice - but having said that, unlike as was the case with the Tractor, we should RETAIN the E 8041 as a secondary Tipper on our Farm so that we can load and sell smaller loads of crop rather than having to use the larger Tipper as the default load hauler.

The daily Maintenance costs for the 8041 are just $10, the same amount for the HKD 302. As that really is nothing at all generally speaking, retaining the 8041 is a good idea.

Another bonus factor to consider is that with the HKD 302 has a hitch receiver built-in, which means when your operation grows really big you can add a second HKD 302 to the first, for a Tipper Train! Now how cool is that?

Replacing the second H 488

Thanks to its very high Maintenance costs, we are also going to want to replace the other Hurlimann H 488 - that is the one we are using for our Sprayer (and its counterweight).

We do not need to buy another Steyr Multi 4115 since we do not need the front-loader capability for that. What we want is a comparable capability at lower daily cost - so something that can do 90 hp or better.

The Lindner Geotrac 94 looks like a good replacement choice - but so does the Hurlimann XM 130 T4I. The difference in price between the two though is pretty significant - $56K - and as the Lindner will do the job nicely, that is the one we chose.

Other Kit

Eventually - and particularly if you are following the walkthrough - you will end up branching out into the other types of crops and activities, which means that you will have need of additional kit.

For example when you star Sheep Farming you will need the front loader, cattle farming will also require it as well as other specialized kit and so on.

With that in mind whenever you are upgrading you should try to predict the usefulness of the kit you buy as it applies to the other future activities. That way you get more bang for your buck and are not forced to buy additional kit later when you could have chosen kit hat optimized the capabilities now.