Having bought a massey 6490 new 2 years ago,I have been obliged to have it serviced by the dealer in order for the 2year/1200 warranty to be valid.I can now see how Massey can afford to offer a 5 year warranty!!! The total service costs to date have come to £2526 excluding Vat-thats a 50 hour service,400,800 and 1200-the last one at a massive £1450! That works out at £2.10 servicing costs alone for every hour worked. Included in the bills is the price of 2 air filters-£124.75;3 fuel filters-£69 and 151.75 for 2 back-end oil filters(suction strainer and high pressure filter) Am I the only one that thinks that we are being totally ripped off by the tractor manufacturers as these filters would only cost pence to make? I have tried sourcing these filters from other suppliers but they are difficult to get hold of for newer models,and when you can,they are not much cheaper! Is it Massey alone charging these exhorbitant prices or are all manufacturers similar? Does anybody know the cost of servicing one of these tractors if you had the full 5 year warranty( I know Massey offer a fixed price Manager option for this) Perhaps Farmers Weekly could run a feature comparing servicing costs for all the different brands. Be interested to hear your thoughts.   P.S. am generally pleased with the tractor

this is a story across all brands, manufacturers now cant make a genuine profit through only selling the machines, rather like car manufacturers, they are able to make money through discusting price mark ups on all parts, horrendous hourly work rates, as well as the dreaded electronic nieche, which only they can fix because they designed it

modern manufacturers in all fields now develop computerised and electronic items on the tractor, which limits the ability for anybody to fix them, usually whats needed is a normal computer, with the correct software, but the software is developed specifically for the manufacturers exclusive use, this forces out general agricultural firms,who are not linked to a large manufacturing network,  more and more these smaller general agricultural firms are unable to fix problems on tractors built in the last 10 years, because they are locked by the manufacturers

when manufacturers build a new machine, they can now factur into their calculations the money they will also make fixing the machines they build, or perhaps more importantly the servicing

ie. a new tractor might cost 40k, the dealer now can guarentee they will develop a further 4k through servicing and fixing problems, they have an average figure for this.

 Dealerships only now make money through selling new machines, and servicing the ones they have just sold, this is the only way they make money.

my personal recent experience includes,  i have had hydraulic problems with my tractor, so i went to my local engineers and borrowed a spool fitting gauge pressure tester, it proved low pressure.  BUT i wasnt sure, so i called my local new large dealership, thay were happy and came out straigh away, the guy took a pressure tester out of the van and put it in my spools, it was the same as the one i borrowed, it read the same thing, and the guy said my pump was definatly nackered, he was here approx 15  mins, and said it was great coming here because he comes past every day at 5pm on his way home, so it was really handy for him

i had a bill for 1 hours work 65 quid, and call out fee 35 quid,     and i was no more wise than i was before

the furture:   Modern tractors have Ad blue, this requires a filter which could be in the region of 200 quid perhaps once every 2 years, also the ad blue itself needs changing all the time, and its not cheap!!!!!,  also, tractors will stop when service intervals are needed, an alarm will sound, that means the guy from your dealership needs to come and put his computer on the tractor as well as changing the fuel filter, to tell the tractor it has been serviced, and it can run again, if you dont use the dealership the tractor wont start again   and look out for the bill  100 quid for computer servicing reset tool.

when you buy new, you need to get a fixed price for all service costs for the warranty period. then you can compare tractors properly