farmtrac

I"m looking at a 545 Montana/Farmtrac that is a 2007 with no hours.Reviews on these things don"t really sound too good.I have other tractors so it wouldn"t be used heavily, but I don"t want a white elephant either. Does anyone like them or have a good one?

It's just a small Ford. 45HP. Long bought the tooling and moved it to India when Ford quit building them. Montana (who is 1/3 owned by J B Hunt) bought the remains of Long when they went under. About as reliable as the Fords were. Had a 535, handy little machine.

The Montana/Farmtrac has been several different tractors over the years. The older models had a four digit model number that the last part of was the horsepower. I don't think that a 545 is a 2007 it would have to be newer. The 545 is a renamed Farmtrac tractor. Farmtrac went out into bankruptcy in 2008. They had some models built in India and Korea. So I would say it is a 2009 or newer. Now it could be an old inventory Farmtrac. I think Montana bought the old inventory to resell.

Now they are not even selling new tractors. Here is what the web site has posted now:

Thank you to all of our customers and dealers!

Effective January 1, 2011 Montana Tractors, LLC transitioned from a tractor and implement distributor to a parts, service and warranty company.

I would RUN RUN away from it if it was me. Down the road parts will be an issue and resale will be next to nothing, it is not very high right now. The tractor itself is not a bad machine but you will have a white elephant in just a few years with no parts support. Plus the company has a confusing ownership trail. So it is unlikely that anyone will buy the whole thing to start manufacturing them again. If it is someone that was a dealer then I would take everything he says with a BIG grain of salt. He stuck with the thing and is trying to sell it before it looses anymore value. The company is dead and does not look to be coming back.

If I was buying this type of tractor I would go with Mihindra. They seem to be a fair tractor and the company seems stable.

Myself I would rather spend that amount of money on a used main brand tractor even if it has more hours. I look at a tractor from a mechanics view. I want to be able to get parts to keep it running. I also want those parts to be readily available. I have seen the trouble guys around me have gone through on Long, Hesston, and Belarus just to name a few. None of these are bad tractors but I have seen them set for YEARS waiting for some part to be found so they could be repaired. That is not for me. Its your call but I think buying one of these is just throwing your money away sometime in the future.

I bought a Farmtrac 80 back in 2004. It had Longagribusiness on the decal along with farmtrac. later when Farmtrac bought out Long tractor the number changed on my model tractor to 675 Farmtrac and the Long name wasn't used again. Can't remember the year that changed but thinking 2006 perhaps. Montana picked 3 models of the Long tractors and put the Montana name on those after that buyout.

The 545 was 45 back in 2004 so it changed also. My dealer sold hundreds of these tractors and see them along the highway being used pretty much every day. They are good tractors and like any other name brand, you can always get one and have problems with it.

I just traded my FT 80 in and it had just shy of 2,000 hours on it. Has a loader on it and was used for loading spreaders with chicken litter and wood ash.Also used it for haying. The 80/ 675 has a perkins engine and I was very pleased with that tractor. All the models under that 80/675 had the old style Ford engine that was used in Europe. Most Ford parts will fit.

So far as parts, they are available online and in my area the dealers still sell parts for them. Farmtrac is still alive and well in India. They just bankrupt Farmtrac American company in Tarboro and walked away with millions of dollars and closed it down. The ones responsible for that won't come back here to be prosecuted and India won't hand them over.

I traded my 80 in on a Stoll loader,forks,bucket, and a root grapple and several other items. I sold my beef herd because of health problems and only need one tractor now. If I hadn't sold the cows I'd still be running the Farmtrac.

I bought a few parts online when my dealer was out and was just as easy to order them online. Here's the link for the parts and they have parts manuals to download for free too. Or they did last year.
Farmtrac parts

WELL SAID.. I SEE SOMEONE EVERDAY TRYING TO GET RID OF A MONTANA. I like you thought the 545 was the latter korean built by (LS) tractor that had nothing to do with long /farmtrac/ford. Like you said not a bad tractor but what if you need a radiator next year or even a fuel cap, good luck. The Mahindra made a run around here but most that signed on as dealers go away after about a year (free floor plan and 5% discount) goes away. I am still watching to see which way agco goes with Massey. True dealers around here are mad Agco has let a chain caled Rural King start selling Massey with no service so dealers are really P...>

(quoted from post at 08:26:24 07/04/12) It's just a small Ford. 45HP. Long bought the tooling and moved it to India when Ford quit building them. Montana (who is 1/3 owned by J B Hunt) bought the remains of Long when they went under. About as reliable as the Fords were. Had a 535, handy little machine.

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Tooling was already in India. It was a licensed factory for the S/SE Asian market. Escort bought it when Ford dumped it.

My dad has a 60/555, most is straight up Ford, other things like fuel filters are proprietary. Easy enough to fit a CAV filter/base on them.

Thanks guys. Guess I"ll just let sleeping dogs lie!The John Deere dealer has a nice 5055E on their lot ,they are 15 miles from me and I don"t think parts will ever be an issue nor will resale.

(quoted from post at 08:15:11 07/05/12) I don"t think parts will ever be an issue

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Really? Where do you suppose it was made?(HINT,same country as the Farmtrac)

At least the Farmtrac is a copy of a popular tractor.