Anything can last forever in RL, but with increased maintenance costs. FS is indeed doing that. Maintenance decay increases with engine hour increase, maxing at 50 hours from what I read. A highly used machine needs to be repaired more often, and I believe those repairs are also more expensive for the same maintenance %, than a brand new machine. It should be replaced when maintenance costs surpass the loan cost of buying a new one. I don't yet know that mark, but I sold my first light tractor with 120 hours on it as maintenance was getting stupidly high. I replaced it with a similar model I found on used sales with only 20 hours, the swap cost $30k...and my maintenance costs dropped it seemed by 90%. At 40 hours, they are getting much higher, but I do believe I made the right decision. The longer I kept it, the lower its trade in value due to age, which I believe is capped at 100 months IIRC.DirectCedar wrote: ↑Wed Jan 12, 2022 9:36 pm It kind of sort of doesn't factor the same in Farm Sim because your equipment never actually becomes worn out, so even if its resale value eventually approaches zero, you can continue using it indefinitely in the game and it really never needs to be replaced.
As I have 8 tractors now, I don't put as much use on a single one, but the concept still applies. I think eventually they will all need to be replaced maybe at 100 hours.
If you retire the machine for light infrequent work on the farmyard and give it little use, with its highest asset being that's its always there if/when you need it, then its not really necessary to replace IMO.
I haven't tested any of this, its just observations in conjunction with a youtube post which described some detailed tests (including that harvesters lose yield from 0-40%, based on 70% maintenance or lower - an old harvester can certainly drop 30% on a large field that takes all day to complete). It should be easy to test yourself though, as there are console commands to set the age and hours of any piece of equipment.