There is no free lunch but you can make strategic choices that fit your needs. We ran an 85ish John Deere grader for years because it worked great for the kinds of jobs we did. It would break down but we usually had downtime between road jobs where we would do other work and fix the grader on the side. Turned out to be our best value piece of equipment in terms of dollars+labor in vs. dollars out.
We had a 70s Kenworth truck tractor that had been converted to a dump with a 12 yard box. It was practically invulnerable and while it lacked many modern bells/whistles it met all our needs. Paying for new equipment would've been paying for features we did not need.
Our main backhoe however was always new. This was for various reasons. At the time there was a lot of innovation happening with small backhoes and that included features we used. Often we were using our backhoe for residential work wherein new equipment makes a big impression. Also, a backhoe failure can be much harder to fix onsite it made sense to have low hour equipment.
IMO, this is how equipment purchasers should make buying decisions. Match the purchase to your need.
We had a 70s Kenworth truck tractor that had been converted to a dump with a 12 yard box. It was practically invulnerable and while it lacked many modern bells/whistles it met all our needs. Paying for new equipment would've been paying for features we did not need.
Our main backhoe however was always new. This was for various reasons. At the time there was a lot of innovation happening with small backhoes and that included features we used. Often we were using our backhoe for residential work wherein new equipment makes a big impression. Also, a backhoe failure can be much harder to fix onsite it made sense to have low hour equipment.
IMO, this is how equipment purchasers should make buying decisions. Match the purchase to your need.