Another let down by AGCO thread be Warned!

Courier said:

It's broken so either it was faulty of it was as the result of an accident.(it wasn't done on purpose was it).. Go back to your insurers and tell them to sort it or you will take your renewal elsewhere.

Click to expand...

Insurance fair enough, but just because it has broken doesn't mean it's agco's issue. Not on a tractor of a fair age

Clive said:

If it happens once it could be an accident / misuse

When you start finding out the same has happened to others then you have a trend / fault

If people lives are at risk the least you would expect is a serious response from manufacturer even if it was to determine that it was misuse ?

Click to expand...

Rob has just stated it was fault of the salesman, not purely down to the tractor though, so who takes blame then??

I think I've made this point on a similar thread a while back. In no way is it acceptable for manufacturers to deny responsibility for poor quality control,design faults or shoddy workmanship. If tractors have been serviced at the appropriate intervals and gearboxes/axles/headgaskets/turbos etc are going caput at 1000-3000 hours that is not what I would call acceptable wear or tear. In our locality MF and Claas have a reputation for gearbox troubles at low hours obviously because it's basically the same Gima unit. I also think it adds insult to injury when people are presented with £5000 repair bills while they're still paying finance on the tractor. If the manufacturers can't get the reliability issues sorted at the silly prices we're expected to pay then they need to be offering a heavily subsidised extended warranty.

If additional side rails are the norm for front linkage then surely they should be the norm for a factory fitted loader ? Perhaps they were and the bolts had not been kept tight..

BSH said:

In this instance the tombstone casting holding the axle to the tractor split. The tractor had a factory fitted front linkage and loader. I can only think that for a cast block to split that it must be a faulty part. The consequence of the split was the tractor collapsing onto the drive shaft causing the tractor to come to an immediate stop nearly upending the tractor. the driver was fortunately only slightly bruised and the incedent took place on a farm track not a public highway where the ramifications could have been very serious. If the part is not faulty and it is considered normal wear and tear then there should be explicit warnings that this might happen which there aren't. The part number has changed and has been modified. The tractor has done some 2750 hours. I have been offered a minor discount by the main dealer but have had no communication from either the main dealer or AGCO. The local dealer has been told not to bother AGCO. The tractor was bought from AGCO finance. I have heard of one other instance of a similar part failure with a similar model from the same year of delivery ( 2010) and know that there was a recall of the same part on a different series ( 64 series). I will have to take AGCO finance to the small claims court not the dealer as legally I bought the tractor from them.

Click to expand...

in other words some one has being going around with the loader and something heavy on the linkage,as in moving press with loader weights on linkage and plough on back,at a guess?agco don't cause all the trouble a lot are dealer caused,when I drove 6490s they recalled loads because a French man hadn't put 1 bolt in the gear boxes right just dropped them out and fitted new ones,516 fendt got loads of new parts fitted because a muppet with a laptop didn't no what he was doing cost agco thousands and it still isn't right

BSH said:

Because it means the product was not fit for purpose.

Click to expand...

It's taken 6 years to break, think of the stress and strain it's taken in those 6 years.

BSH said:

Because it means the product was not fit for purpose.

Click to expand...

Did it have the side rails fitted and did you have it from new ?

BAC said:

It's taken 6 years to break, think of the stress and strain it's taken in those 6 years.

Click to expand...

A casting does not break progressively like an RSJ. It is a once and for all failure if it goes.

BSH said:

Because it means the product was not fit for purpose.

Click to expand...

It obviously doesn't wash in court though, my example with JD engines would have a much higher failure rate and has anyone ever taken on JD?

There's so many variables on how the tractor could have been misused over 6 years and hours used. Your word against a global corporation. Good luck.

Clive said:

If it happens once it could be an accident / misuse

When you start finding out the same has happened to others then you have a trend / fault

If people lives are at risk the least you would expect is a serious response from manufacturer even if it was to determine that it was misuse ?

Click to expand...

I chased up a non supplied instruction book for a new AGCO supplied machine. Sh1t hit the fan when i called finance to tell them i was witholding DD after no joy with dealer.
H and S makes them wake up smartish!

Been Fendt since 94. Had 2 Fendts with chocolate Deutz engines go bang, dealer serviced but not even worth talking to AGCO about them. Luckily now the hardest work they do is pull a gain trailer. Anything new is with extended warranty. Shame as they are the only tractor I'm happy to sit in, tried most of the others. Quality went down hill when accountants were preparing Fendt to be sold to AGCO, not been same since IMO.

Is there any similarity in age of the 2 tractors mentioned in this thread? If so you would think it would be quite easy to look for flaw in the casting, if it is a possibility, by finding random machines of the same age and having the casts xrayed, and an inspectors report.

llamedos said:

Is there any similarity in age of the 2 tractors mentioned in this thread? If so you would think it would be quite easy to look for flaw in the casting, if it is a possibility, by finding random machines of the same age and having the casts xrayed, and an inspectors report.

Click to expand...

Might not be any flaws, they may just be too thin to take the load.

Two Tone said:

Who do you buy the tractor from? The manufacturer or the dealer?

Click to expand...

The clue is in the word "buy". It is the owners tractor, his operating and repair costs. His decision to purchase a tool to do a job.
His decision as to whether the product and backup is good enough.

His prerogative to either buy the same brand again or change for something that, in his eyes, might present a cheaper running cost.
It is not the dealer's problem, although I'm sure they will do their best to mitigate any inconvenience. It is not even AGCO who manufactured the axle, as these things are bought off the shelf from a third party.

At the end of the day though, and even if there is some 'goodwill' gesture, the buck stops with the owner of the machine. Precious little chance of much goodwill when lawyers get involved though.

Having said that, nobody wants this stuff in Court or the bad publicity. Yet a line has to be drawn somewhere.

It is my honest opinion that some manufacturers have been too keen to retain customers and too generous with their goodwill in the past. Unfortunately, with some people you give an inch and they will take a square mile and the surrounding area, if you get my drift. Its a balancing act. But at the end of the day it takes goodwill from both sides, not just one.

For the record, I have always found MF to be more than fair with individual customers even when it was obviously the customers fault. I remember two cases in particular. One where the farmer had boiled his tractor and wrecked the engine due to having about 4" of solid shite in front of the radiator. He had a new engine and then ran that for over 2000 hours until it seized. When inspected he insisted that it has plenty of oil, which it had and the area around the filler cap was shiny clean to show that he had just topped it up. This engine again was totally wrecked, but since he was a regular customer that bought a lot of MF machinery, some concession was given towards the cost.
The second one was where a 390T was seized while grubbing a hedge on a very steep hill. The oil was low and the engine seized up. The farmer insisted on a new replacement tractor, not a repair or a new engine, which he should obviously had to pay for. MF offered a genuine large goodwill contribution towards any new MF tractor, but farmer wasn't having it and was totally unreasonable and would not take responsibility for his negligence at all. He was let go with pleasure to John Deere with a fair wind behind him and no goodwill.

4440 said:

I had a problem with an in warranty MF, I was sent a bill for some warranty work, I did not think I should pay it. I talked to my sales man and he could not help me, I talked to the workshop manager, he could not help me, I talked to one of the patners, he said there was no way any one was going to help me. I went to LAMMA and found the MF area manager and he said he would look in to it. 4 weeks later, I was told I did not have to pay it.
I have found in the past I have always given my dealer a chance to sort things out, but I always end up talking to some one at MF to get it sorted.

Click to expand...

The issue is that the dealer might have been told fairly sternly at some point not to take such issues to their service manager. So going direct is the only sensible way to get a result. What was it I previously said about management attitude? At the end of the day though, they are only human, [well most of them, the rest are lizard people] and they respond to polite firmness and reasonable issues.