New Tractor - Which has best build quality / reliability?

New Tractor Build Quality - which is best?

  • Case

    Votes: 13 7.6%
  • New Holland

    Votes: 18 10.6%
  • Deutz

    Votes: 9 5.3%
  • Fendt

    Votes: 28 16.5%
  • John Deere

    Votes: 51 30.0%
  • Massey Ferguson

    Votes: 17 10.0%
  • Valtra

    Votes: 18 10.6%
  • Landini

    Votes: 1 0.6%
  • McCormick

    Votes: 3 1.8%
  • Zetor

    Votes: 8 4.7%
  • JCB

    Votes: 4 2.4%

  • Total voters
    170

Spanish

Member
I have JD, I don't know if it will be the best, but certainly not the worst. They seem very reliable to me. In addition I buy them used, use them and resell them (some for a higher price than the purchase) I almost always have a tractor advertised even though I don't really want to sell it, but if a good sale opportunity appears I take advantage.
This with another brand I think does not happen
 

Chae1

Member
Location
Aberdeenshire
why did you got to ford or new holland was price a lot to do with it ?
Because of unreliability of JD and lack of dealer support. With hindsight the tractor that broke the camels back so to speak was chipped and putting out too much power for tractor. So don't blame them.

No wasn't based on price. Just they'd a good engine. Good local dealers also. Still got the 1 that 7530 went away for its a t7050, done 8.5k hours now. Been a reliable tractor apart from clutch plates going about 6k hours.
 

Spud

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
YO62
Sisu vt MF's have served us very well, with very little bother. 06 7480 was tier 2 Perkins, but vt box - 12600hrs from new, cost under 50p/hr in repairs. S/h 06 7495 here from 2700 to 6000hrs every bit as good. Two 7620's & a 7618 here now have 15000hrs between them, no transmission ailments in either of them. Bought a 10,000hr 7490 last spring as an extra/replacement for a hire tractor on the strength of it's predecessors.
Addblue issues plague the newer ones, usually get brake accumulators expiring between 5&7000hrs. Hub seals & high low cable on sprayer tractor. Gearbox wiring loom on two older ones.

Compared to Dyna 6 tractors - north of £30k in repairs between two tractors with only 11000hrs between them.

Perkins tier 3 injectors £290 each. Sisu are £90 each - never needed to fit any Sisu ones though!!
 

Blue.

Member
Livestock Farmer
Not sure about fendt, but on JD and NH they cost a fortune. We decided we'd be better putting the money in a bank account and keeping it for when/if it broke down instead.

Going on what will says above jd don't charge you anyway. Even for old ones.

It cost me £947.60 to add another 12months warranty on my 720 in February this year.
 

Blue.

Member
Livestock Farmer
I meant how many hours does the 12 months warranty cover? I'll have to check nh and jd quotes to see what they were per hour. Thats how they sold it.

It was capped at 4000hrs think tractor had 2500hrs when I extended.
 
This business of a good dealer being the key? When I bought the first fendt with 7500 hours, thought I was set up for life.. Then quickly found out that the engine/transmission/brakes and everything else fails just like the zetor crystal.. only with the fendt, parts were eyewatering and very labour intensive to work on so paying someone to fit them was out.. The supposedly excellent dealer I used seemed to sell everything at full retail and it almost finished us trying to run that tractor. After a while another dealer agreed that the parts were far to dear and offered a decent discount for my older machines.. So it's all very well praising the guys that sort your kit straight away, but it will be built into the price somewhere along the line and not everybody can afford main dealers workshop rates at £60-70 an hour..

Do you still use Fendt and how do you rate them?
 
Where's Kubota? 5000 hour / 5 year warranty helps!

Unfortunately they don’t make anything bigger than 170HP, I recon they would be a good reliable tractor otherwise. We run New Holland here and have an excellent run with them and if you’re running CVT then I believe CNH have the best transmission in the business probably closely followed by Fendt, some of the others cvt's will send you broke, we have really good New Holland dealers in our area, the quality of the dealer in the area generally determines the brand of tractor in that area or district not necessarily the quality or reliability of the tractor.
 

icanshootwell

Member
Location
Ross-on-wye
I know of 4 contractors who went to fendt and have all gone back to cheaper brands . They weren't use to the big repair bills.
It,s just not the repair bills, its the service cost as well. Some use the dealer to service and it get,s very expensive. If your paying for warranty you will have to use a dealer. There are a lot that don,t budget for this and get a shock when the bill arrives.
 

Wellytrack

Member
92 days til Christmas Day from tomorrow @Speedstar

You could give us a 77 series Massey Major Maladies Advent calendar each day and still have over a week spare for some more problems by then.

Go on then let us have it before the six wise men spoil it for us...
 

Speedstar

Member
Location
Scottish Borders
92 days til Christmas Day from tomorrow @Speedstar

You could give us a 77 series Massey Major Maladies Advent calendar each day and still have over a week spare for some more problems by then.

Go on then let us have it before the six wise men spoil it for us...
They are not the 6 wise men , probably the 6 best MF technical spanner men there is
It is not my job to State the problems MF have
 

MF 168

Member
Location
Laois, Ireland
Had a Valtra T160 here last year that blew up first gear ploughing. It wasn't been dogged or having the crap driven out of it. I'm the plough man and usually tip away nice and easy. I was disgusted when we opened up the tractor and saw a car gearbox as far as I'm concerned. It got a good 2nd hand gear to fix her up and was kicked down the road for a new T174. There's no comparing the 2 I have to say. The new lady is light years ahead of the old bus for comfort, power and fuel efficiency. Very light on ad-blue too. I love the smart touch system. A child could figure it out. The dealer is on top of their game as well. Had a warranty issue and it was fixed no quibble whatsoever and a follow up call to check if the issue was gone.
Truthfully if the local MF dealer wasn't such an utter (insert suitable word) we would have gone MF instead but he was an arse so that was that.
So to answer the topic in hand, in my opinion the brand is only as important as how much you like it. A good dealer is paramount regardless of brand preferences.
 
Tags
cvt

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

  • 0 %

    Votes: 79 42.2%
  • Up to 25%

    Votes: 65 34.8%
  • 25-50%

    Votes: 30 16.0%
  • 50-75%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 75-100%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 100% I’ve had enough of farming!

    Votes: 7 3.7%

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

  • 1,289
  • 1
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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