Tractors

Compact, utility and 4×4 farm tractors, and the crawler kind:

the first thing that separates them is what the tractor has to pull. Compact tractors with a hydrostatic drive suit a highland vegetable plot or a large property that needs mowing. Rear-wheel-drive utility tractors are the workhorses of cattle country: they run a rotary mower over the pastures, haul a trailer of bales or fence posts and turn a post-hole auger. Four-wheel-drive models are what grain growers buy, because the driven front axle keeps a tractor pulling through wet clay with a disc harrow behind it. Any of them can also spin a PTO generator that has no engine of its own. Plenty of people here also call a crawler bulldozer a tractor, the Caterpillar D-series kind with tracks and a blade. That is an earthmoving machine, judged on its undercarriage the way an excavator is, not on a hitch.

Matching the tractor to the offset harrow or the rotary mower:

buy for the heaviest implement you will hitch to it. Mechanised rice in Chiriquí, Coclé and Veraguas and the maize and sorghum of Los Santos are mostly opened with a heavy offset disc harrow, and pulling one through clay takes a big 4×4 carrying ballast; a small tractor on that job spins its wheels and burns its clutch. A rotary mower asks far less, and a mid-size rear-wheel-drive tractor handles it, as long as the PTO and three-point hitch match the implement. Check the hydraulic outlets at the back too: a trailed offset harrow or a front loader needs remote valves, and a tractor without them needs a kit before it can work. Older mechanical Ford, Massey Ferguson and John Deere tractors still earn their place on many farms because a mechanic in almost any town in the interior can fix them, while newer electronic models need the dealer’s diagnostic tools.

What a ten-year-old 4×4 asks against a new one:

a new 4×4 of around 90 horsepower from one of the big brands costs roughly $45,000 to $60,000 at a dealer, before any implements. A ten-year-old one with under two thousand hours, kept on one farm, asks somewhere around $25,000 to $30,000. Where a used tractor lands depends on what it needs next: a pair of rear tyres alone runs into the low thousands, and a 4×4 whose front axle no longer engages is a two-wheel-drive tractor at a four-wheel-drive price.

Smoke from the breather and a hitch that sinks:

ask the seller not to start the tractor before you arrive, so you see it start cold. Once it is warm, take off the oil filler cap: a steady push of smoke there is blow-by from worn rings, and an engine overhaul is the biggest bill a tractor can hand you. Raise an implement on the three-point hitch and leave it up while you look round; if it creeps down, the lift seals are going. Run the PTO under load and engage the front drive on loose ground to feel it pull. Milky oil on the transmission dipstick means water got in, which happens to tractors that worked flooded paddies. Then set the hour meter against the pedals, seat and steering wheel, since meters on older tractors stop or get replaced.

A tractor listed with its mower and its harrow:

buyers in the interior search by brand, model and whether it is four-wheel drive, so put all three in the title. Photograph the serial plate, the hour meter, the tread on each rear tyre and the three-point hitch. Say what work it did and on what ground, when the oil and filters were last changed, and which implements are included. Film a cold start and a short run with the PTO turning. When a grower in Tonosí or Montijo moves up to a heavier 4×4 for the offset harrow, the smaller tractor usually goes, mower and all, to someone running cattle, and that buyer will want to see the two hitched together and cutting grass before he arranges a truck.