Farm equipment breakdown cuts into profits. Knowing to spot problems, and quickly repairing equipment breakdowns, reduces downtime--and increases the time your equipment contributes to your profits.
Make sure your insurance is in order. Ask other farmers about the most common breakdowns they've had, and compare that with your experiences. Make sure your chosen insurance company covers farm equipment breakdown. The more equipment covered, the better. Get farm insurance that covers these breakdowns before you have a breakdown.
Assess your mechanical inclination. If you're not mechanically inclined, attend basic farm equipment repair classes. Make sure that you attend courses that teach repair for every farm equipment you operate. Get training if you order new farm equipment.
Grab the farm equipment's user manual and brows the trouble shooting section. The manual gives solutions to correcting commonly recurring breakdown. For example, if one of your tractor's lights go out, the user manual will help you see if it's more than just a burnt out bulb. If none of the trouble shooting works, call a repair shop.
Contact a repair shop. Ideally, you should have one repair shop that fixes your equipment. If you're a regular customer, the owners and you will have a close relationship. As a valuable repeat customer they won't engage in foul play and risk losing future business.
Have the repairman inspect your machine for repairability. Ask for a repair estimate. Many repair shops have towing services and will toe your equipment to their repair shop. Once they do the repairs, either pick it up, or have it delivered to you. Follow the repairman's advice if he recommends fixing another part of the equipment to save you two or more breakdowns in the future.
Listen to the diagnosis. The repairman will tell you what the problem was, and how it was repaired along with recommendations for future maintenance.
