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Background: grew up in farming communities, live in a farming community, almost everyone around us farms. Repairable tractors would be a huge boon. I wish to a
by petewailes 5y ago
Background: grew up in farming communities, live in a farming community, almost everyone around us farms.
Repairable tractors would be a huge boon. I wish to anyone listening that Deere, New Holland, Valtra, Fendt and co would produce properly repairable, open heavy hardware.
Deere is the worst in this, but the rest of the industry isn't anywhere near as good as it should be.
There's a reason you see old Defenders, Fourtraks, Rangers, Hiluxes and their ilk around so much on farms. They're mechanically simple, which means you can repair them and keep them going basically indefinitely. Compare that to a modern Deere 7 series for example, and whilst the Deere is more capable, if something goes wrong, you're basically screwed. I've no problem with the hardware getting more advanced, but that same maintainability needs to be baked in.
The problem is, no-one seems interested in shaking things up there, and the manufacturers aren't in any hurry to change. They're a conservative bunch who don't need to, and for whom it's directly more profitable to make machines which can't be repaired by anyone other than themselves and people they authorise.
- majjam 5y agoProbably a naive question, but arent new Kubota tractors more repairable than say, a John Deere? Or are they just as bad?
- petewailes 5y agoIt's a sliding scale. There's better and worse, but no-one's making open software systems which are generally available to be evaluated, updated and fixed, and the hardware side isn't much better. Sure, a Kubota, Belarus, or JCB is better than a Massey or John Deere, but none are as good as they should be.
- mikey_p 5y agoThey aren't comparable in technology (lots of farmers want GPS, auto steer, etc) and they definitely don't compete on size and power. Kubota tops out around 200 horsepower and Deere offers tractors up into the 600+ range.
- sumedh 5y agoWhat about Mahindra tractors, they are pretty big in India and they sell in US as well.
- petewailes 5y agoThey're not even vaguely comparable in terms of utility. I may be wrong, but I think their most powerful unit comes in at mid 70'shp, with a max of ~300Nm torque. Compare that to a midrange JCB Fastrac like a 4190, which has north of 200hp and what, 950Nm? The newer ones are approaching 1500Nm, and a John Deere 9 series can get you up beyond 600hp and getting on for 3kNm of torque? It's just not in the same league. They're very much light duty tractors.