Fendt or Fastrac

Matt L

Member
Trade
Location
Suffolk
There’s a 4220 on an 8000l not too far from you so if you want road speed and comfort I’d suggest the jcb. Operator gets on with it very well.
 

Banana Bar

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Bury St Edmunds
You really know how to wind the forum up don’t you?! Guess you have made your decision on trailed. Looking forward to your next thread on make of trailed to go for [emoji6]

I’m close to deciding the direction I’m going. I know of 2 trailed on Fastracs locally.

Know what you mean about winding people up, seems as though mentioning new kit is about as popular as a french kiss at your grannies birthday party!
 

Farmer Fin

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Aberdeenshire
I’m close to deciding the direction I’m going. I know of 2 trailed on Fastracs locally.

Know what you mean about winding people up, seems as though mentioning new kit is about as popular as a french kiss at your grannies birthday party!
Well never driven either. There are quite a few 4220s around and many on sprayers. Seems to be drivers love them but owners not so much. Running costs appears high and questionable reliability which is not really what you want on a sprayer tractor for your size of enterprise.
 

Andrew

Never Forgotten
Honorary Member
Location
Huntingdon, UK
Personally I love my 4220, but it’s all down to taste, and the last Fendt I drove was a 93 something 11 years ago in Slovakia.

The 4220s have their problems but mine’s just been traded in for another identical one.

The last Fendt we had on the farm was brought back off us by the dealer as was costing too much in warranty, although that was a long while ago.
 

Chae1

Member
Location
Aberdeenshire
Personally I love my 4220, but it’s all down to taste, and the last Fendt I drove was a 93 something 11 years ago in Slovakia.

The 4220s have their problems but mine’s just been traded in for another identical one.

The last Fendt we had on the farm was brought back off us by the dealer as was costing too much in warranty, although that was a long while ago.
You don't really keep them long or run them to high hours though?

I think the 7-10k hours period sorts out the men from the boys.
 
My biggest concern after reading about Fastracs was the reliability. Got a 5 year warranty on ours given these concerns. Problem is if it goes down at a critical time we don't have another tractor that could pull the sprayer instead just like that, although given ISOBUS it could be done with some new hydraulic fittings. Have 1000 hr service coming up and a slight grumble in the diff with 4WD which I need to check (might be something I'm doing).

Never driven Fendt, so can't comment on their comfort, but can certainly say that the 4220 is just in another league compared to the Masseys we had. If you're thinking about a Horsch, one of the key strengths is stability at speed, and you need a comfortable tractor to make that doable from an operator's point of view. I had a sore back before and now it's gone despite having spent 750 hours in it this year. I almost wouldn't drive anything else now. 4WS does mean a bit of extra complexity and button pressing to swap between the two modes (Topcon doesn't steer in 4WS very well so use this at either end of the field). However, I find backing the sprayer into corners a LOT easier with 4WS as you can pretty much put the boom where you want it (almost easier than a SP now I've got used to it).

Only thing to think about with the trailed sprayers (especially a GS with a long wheel base) on 36m is that it's so long that you don't have much room to switch boom off and turn except in perfectly square headlands (this is again exacerbated with Topcon because at the moment I'm struggling to get it to model a steered trailed implement, but have been told of a trick to improve this which I need to try).
 

Andrew

Never Forgotten
Honorary Member
Location
Huntingdon, UK
You don't really keep them long or run them to high hours though?

I think the 7-10k hours period sorts out the men from the boys.

Nope, we try and keep the frontline tractors in their 5yr warranty period. There is a contractor near here that puts 3000hrs a year on them and they love them too. If you’re doing high hours they’re more attractive due to the comfort.
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

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Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

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As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
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