Buying the SC372

After I decided to join my Dad in the business the first task was to buy some equipment. I had successfully purchased a 2004 Ram 2500 for a great deal! At the time, I had some covid stimulus money burning a hole in my pocket. I used most of it to buy my truck. The next task was to find me the right machine.

Weeks of searching had finally paid off when we spotted the right grinder for sale on forestry trader. A 2004 Vermeer SC372 for $11,000. The only problem was that it was pickup only… in Florida. Driving that far for an older used machine was pretty risky, but we weren’t going to pass up this opportunity. Within hours of finding it, we packed up and headed south.

My Dad and I drove from Muncie where I was living at the time to about as far south as you can get in Florida. A little place called Pompano Beach. Only a seventeen and a half hour drive. Upon arriving at the address, we pulled up on what seemed more like a junk yard than a used heavy equipment dealership. The owner met us around back and took us to the machine parked on its trailer. We looked it over and asked to start it and he said he’d need to go get a battery for it. Why he thought we wouldn’t want to hear it run is beyond me. After waiting and waiting, a mechanic brought out an old battery, hooked it up, and turned over the machine. It fired right up to our surprise.

He let us take it out and test it on a small stump he had. It worked as expected, despite me never grinding before. We haggled a little bit and managed to talk him down to just $9,000 including the ratty trailer it was parked on. The trailer had no title, and the machine was in decent shape besides a few odds and ends. By the way, in this industry, odds and ends will only cost you about $4,000. Despite all that, we managed to come home with a solid machine and a pretty good memory with my Dad to boot. That little machine gave me my start here in Indiana. I used it for two seasons before upgrading to my Dad’s much more powerful SC60TX.

​Trevor

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