Start with Hours and Service History
Combine listings invite comparison by year, hours and header width, but none of those figures alone tells you whether the machine will harvest your acreage reliably. Ask for engine and separator hours separately, service history, storage conditions, prior crop types and a list of recent major repairs. A machine that has spent years harvesting maize or high-yield crops may have a different wear profile from one used mainly in lighter conditions.
Inspect the Crop and Grain Systems Under Load
Inspect the feeder house, chains, augers, elevators, sieves, concaves, drum or rotor, straw walkers where fitted, chopper, belts and bearings. Check for cracks, improvised welding, uneven wear and oil or grain dust around hot components. Test the cab controls, monitors, sensors, air conditioning, lights and reversing aids. Ask to see the header working or arrange a field demonstration; run it under load if possible. A static start-up is not a meaningful harvest test.
Price Parts Support and Harvest Downtime
Parts and downtime matter as much as purchase price. Confirm that consumables and model-specific components are available locally, and ask the dealer what support is available during harvest. Teagasc reported in 2026 that a dealer placed a typical combine purchase in the €250,000–€300,000 range; this is market context from that report, not a current valuation for any particular used machine. Read Teagasc’s machinery-sharing analysis before deciding whether ownership is justified for your workload.
Compare the purchase, finance, insurance, storage, repairs and expected annual use against contractor rates. Include the cost of an unexpected breakdown during a narrow weather window. A specialist inspection and a written estimate of immediate repairs are usually more useful than bargaining from the advertised price alone. See our separate guide to owning, hiring or sharing farm machinery.
