What Happens to Your Tractor?
Every day, hundreds of farm tractors, combines, and other equipment are retired from service throughout the country. The reasons are many. Sometimes the tractor is just too old to do the job required. Sometimes a collision, fire or other accident damages the unit to the point where it is not cost effective to repair it. Many times, a major component, such as an engine or transmission breaks, and the repair bill becomes more expensive than the overall value of the tractor. Sometimes, as we see more and more frequently, the farmer retires and the tractor he’s farmed with for decades retires with him.
What happens to all of these tractors and combines?
Some of them end up in a fencerow where they sit rusting away for years. Some are hauled away to the scrap metal recycling plant and eventually melted down and made into other products.
We think the lucky ones end up in an All States Ag Parts salvage yard where each and every component of a tractor is recycled for its greatest good.
“Once a tractor, combine or other piece of ag equipment is delivered to one of our salvage yards, it hits the teardown shop. The first step is to remove all the critical parts from the machinery. These parts are then inspected by our skilled mechanics. Once the part passes inspection, it’s cleaned up, labeled, and stored inside of our warehouses until a farmer or repair shop needs it”, explains John Dyke, CEO of All States Ag Parts.
“Our inspection process is very important. We want all of our parts to work when the farmer gets them installed. For those rare occasions when an inspected part does fail, we offer a 1-year replacement warranty on all of our used parts,” says Dyke.
“Some of the components, such as SCV’s, hydraulic pumps and transmission components fail the initial inspection and are sent to one of our rebuild shops,” says Dyke. “In the rebuild shop, our mechanics completely tear down the part and replace the seals, worn gears, cracked housings and any other worn or broken components. Once we’re done rebuilding a part, it will meet or exceed the original OEM specs.”
That's just the beginning
Even after the parts are stripped off the tractor there’s a lot of recycling yet to be done. The shells of the tractors and combines are moved to the salvage yard where they remain until being sent to a metal recycling plant. All the unused metal parts end up being recycled into other products.
Fluids, such as oil and anti-freeze, are drained from the equipment when the unit arrives to prevent the chances for ground contamination. These fluids are stored in environmentally safe containers until they can be delivered to a recycling plant.
Let's talk tires
Recycling of the tractor tires can take many different directions.
“Often times, the tires from a damaged tractor are in really good shape,” says Dyke. “We sell hundreds of quality used tires every year. Good treaded tires are often one of the first things to sell because we are able to sell tires at significantly less money than new tires.”
The worn-out tires are sent to a recycling plant where they are chopped up and turned into playground material and other recycled materials.
