Good and bads for 9895

[FarmerBoy9870]

Im looking at an 08' 9895 with 450 thashing hours at a dealer and i was wondering what people have thought about them?? The Goods, the bads, and the uglys
Thanks.

[northernfarmer]

Originally Posted by FarmerBoy9870

Im looking at an 08' 9895 with 450 thashing hours at a dealer and i was wondering what people have thought about them?? The Goods, the bads, and the uglys
Thanks.

ask me this time next year... I just bought one before Christmas.. Looked at all the other makes... Deere's high cost of keeping it in the field, Case's problems with air filters, Cat's lack of interest.. made me decide to stick with Massey.. at least for one more combine.

[711bert]

our neighbour had one he traded it on the newer one,
as far as I can tell he was happy with it.
and as far as capacity and sample goes both seen he did a pretty good job.
that's all I know, i wouldn't be scared to buy one if you have the dealer support to drive 1.

[neil86]

make sure it has the air cleaner update, as well as there is an update on the front beater i believe? don't quote me on the second one. We like our 9895 so far after running it for a year. pretty good capacity, very good sample, and it is hard to make it throw grain out the back. Don't set it by what the book says....get some settings from the dealer. yield and moisture are a joke and don't work. You dealing through caouettes or dennills?

[dave04]

Done two seasons with a 9895, underestimated combine in my opinion! Easy to set and operate. Big capacity, any grain on the ground comes off the header only! Yield and moisture meter works just fine. We take a load to the elevator from time to time to get a comparison.
It likes its diesel, but then you get more done in a day! Smoked two belts in two seasons, both operator error, other than that no downtime.

[jonnd]

I think that was the first year of production for them. Make sure all the updates have been done to the machine. I know one of the big complaints when new was the air conditioning in the cab, it was a big job to install the update.

The air intake update is a must, did it to my 9790 and had no air filter problems last year.

[farmingsk]

I think it's a decent machine. Some problems from memory:

- there was some problem with the key being too weak in the front beater shaft, dealer fixed it for us. I'm not sure if all the machines got the fix.

- fatigue problem with the mounting of the cooling fan. We had a neighbor who had the fan go through the rad. It was fixed on warranty but that caused him downtime. I believe all machines were retrofitted with a different mounting design.

- on some machines there has been a fatigue problem with the mounting of the shoe shake arms. I haven't seen it myself but supposedly you should be able to spot cracks forming near where the arms mount to the body of the machine.

- seems like a number of machines have had wiring issues, usually the connections under the cab. On our machine there was a large terminal that was not making good connection and that was causing weird problems (fix was simple, just tighten nut). The 2009 machine uses a very different electronics system (Vansco CANBUS modules) and some of the power wiring has given trouble due to poor connections (loose, corroded).

- we have never been able to calibrate the sieve position sensor. We end up adjusting the sieve from the back, measuring the opening by hand.

- the unloading system is well designed (although noisy) but we've plugged it at the start of the year (heavy wheat, before everything was polished up). Unplugging it was a bitch.

- the computer system is okay but there are lots of user interface things that could be better designed. On the 2009 machines they did away with gauges in the corner post and I think that was a big mistake. That GTA screen is too crowded.

- the moisture monitor is not accurate unless frequently calibrated

- it uses too much fuel. Probably a combination on the emission controls and the hydrostatic rotor drive.


Good things:

- the overall design of the machine is very good. The pan under the rotor and the front cascade pan is superior to the Case and Deere design, IMHO. Using augers causes the MOG to mix with the grain whereas the pan helps stratify material. It's got a long and big rotor so we very rarely have separation problems. The shoe is large and the cleaning fan is well designed so you can a large and even airflow if required.

- the machine feeds really well. The front beater seems to be the bottleneck so that's what usually pugs first for us (usually on big oat swaths or canola swaths). We almost never have trouble with the feeder house.

- the rotor reverse works as it should (although we very rarely plug the rotor)

- drives are pretty simple and we rarely have trouble with belts. We blew off the hydro belt once. Also blew off the beater belt on one machine (previous owner must have abused it after plugging the beater). Changing the beater belt takes a long time but I think if you don't abuse it then it should very rarely give trouble. We've replaced the MAV chopper belt twice. Both times it failed when harvesting really tough cereal, probably shouldn't have be running.

- the engine enclosure must be well designed for airflow, we periodically blow of our machines but the engine never really as much dust and chaff on it. After having some fires on other machines that's comforting.

- the yield monitor is amazingly accurate. It needs to be calibrated and I think some people get confused when doing so. It's fundamentally a mass-flow sensor and so you need to be careful about bushel weight.