Are you looking for a cheap and reliable tractor?
Then don’t buy yourself a Foton, as it will cost you more money to have the tractor repaired yourself, as national machinery traders will not honour their parts and labour warranty.
they proudly and prominently advertise We also offer a three year written warranty on all tractors, again beware of the the old "parts only warranty" this can and will end up costing a fortune in the long run if something goes wrong!
well, as it turns out the joke is on the customers as national machinery will not bother to fix your tractor should something go wrong, and i know i have been waiting for over 5 months to have my “brand new” tractor repaired!
The other thing the don’t tell you is that the parts and labour warranty is only for 12 months, not for 3, after 12 months it reverts to a parts only warranty.
It also took them over 3 months to send me the warranty papers, with a note saying if you don’t fill this in your tractor will not be covered by warranty.
The tractor that i received was riddled with faults from day one.
What are the defects that occur with this tractor?
Seat wont lock in (you slide backwards and forwards as you are driving around and is very dangerous)
Brakes grind/ don’t work (from new) they will only stop you if you are travelling at walking pace.
Power steering reservoir leaks oil from new
hydraulic ram arm for the bucket leaks (from new)
Bucket bolts loose and cannot be tightened.
Bucket frame cracked welds
Cracking and vibrating sound when driving
Engine has developed a distinctive sound
Stripped plastic dipstick for hydraulic oil reservoir (reservoir probably has pieces of plastic now floating around in it)
Grease nipples were rounded and cross threaded from new
Grease nipples are all different sizes (even ones next to each other)
Aircon doesn’t work from new
No compliance plate on bucket frame
Pto grinds when it engaged
Hard to get the tractor in gear
Broken pins grader blade
The strut on the door keeps falling off, even when retightened properly.
I ordered and paid for a 6” Grader blade from national machinery, and when i checked the invoice just before the tractor was paid for, i noticed that the grader blade was not on there, i notified national machinery of that fact and was promptly assure, “oh that is an old invoice, i have let the guys in the machinery shop know and they have it under control”
Well what happened when the tractor arrived? it turned out that they sent me a 5” grader blade! when i contacted them to let them know that the grader blade was the wrong size, i got “ oh we can swap it for the correct size. or we can offer you a set of slasher blades, or a genuine Foton oil change kit” (when the tractor arrived at night, the driver rang me up a short time later to see if i had “accidentally received 2 posthole diggers instead of one,i went to check and there was only one posthole diggers.i told the driver to which the reply came, some one is not going to be happy, he was expecting his posthole digger as that was the only thing he ordered and it was not there)
So anyway i decided to take the slasher blades as i was not sure that i would see my correct grader blade delivered.(5 months later i am yet to see the slasher blades either)
I thought i would do a bit of work to my driveway, hooked up the blade, put it in its furthest setting so i could clean out the gutters, wee i reckon i was lucky if i got 50 mtrs before the pin holding the grader blade broke! all it is is 2 normal link pins welded to a piece of metal, the other side of the pin was cracked as well, and without the pins the blade is useless, so again 5 months later after notifying them, the blade is sitting there doing nothing, unless i buy a replacement myself.
The tractors themselves are very poor quality, and i would reckon even with light hobby farm use, you would be lucky to get 5 years out of it before it dies and by that time parts would probably be obsolete or it would cost you a fortune to have it repaired..
