Swather Decision

[kenworth]

Looking at new swathers and I have narrowed it down to 3 choices
- 35' M155 Macdon
- 36' Massey WR9740
- 36' JD A400 with HB header

Just looking at opinions of swather performance, reliablility, problem areas, and options you need. We swath 95% canola, odd bit of cereals (barley mainly).

Not much new on the Macdon just the cab and motor. The Massey tractor unit is all new but the header is same as before just with Schumacher knife. Some neat features on the new Massey, Reversible fan, new cab.
The JD is the same but HB has totally worked over the header from hydraulics, rollers, cutter bar angle.

I run FD70 40' on my JD9870s and am quite happy. No real issues. I sold my old Macdon with a 972 and was quite happy with it. We also have a JD 4895 with 36' HB and it works ok now but took 3 years of tinkering with to get it set up correctly.

What would you buy or not buy?

[imgreen]

I'd go with the Macdon M155

[mark 1056]

Originally Posted by imgreen

I'd go with the Macdon M155

agreed with above macdon we have had a m 100 for 2 saeson apart from little end of season fixes all warantie stuf been great better than the 2009 cat challanger we had couldnt run a day with out breaking down and the swather was new so stay away from agco

[Duane H]

I ordered a M155 it came in at xmas time looks very nice cant wait to try it out. Our farm has always been green but didnt hear good things about the swathers that came right from my dealer he wouldnt even price me one said go with the MacDon.

[Don Boles]

Originally Posted by Duane H

I ordered a M155 it came in at xmas time looks very nice cant wait to try it out. Our farm has always been green but didnt hear good things about the swathers that came right from my dealer he wouldnt even price me one said go with the MacDon.

Yes, and what with the recent Deere/MacDon agreement that looks really smart.
In fact, maybe he couldn't even order a Deere. Hmm...

[sprayheli]

Our MacDon's were a real disappointment.

[mack3393]

Originally Posted by sprayheli

Our MacDon's were a real disappointment.

How can you say that with out explaining your issues? Most have been very happy with them so to make a blanket statement like that should require more explanation.

Mack

[dwh039]

Macdon worked awesome in canola, but didn't lay a perfect swath in barley. But could have been the speed that we were travelling. Just because it will cut at 8.5-9 mph, doesn't mean you should go that fast. It did lay a perfect canola swath at any speed.

[Roslin01]

Our new Challenger last year worked real good. We try to straight cut all of our cereals and last year straight combined most of our canola for the first time and it went so good that with any luck this fall the swather will stay in the shed and we will straight combine everything.

[sprayheli]

The list of problems was so long the factory took them back to fix them up as soon as we finished harvest. If MacDon wasn't trying so hard to please us they would have been traded as soon as harvest was done. The only thing that was not disappointing on them was the engine.