[7720turbo]

Hi

Out of curosity, do you guys/girls feel that John Deere is falling behind with their combines? In my opnion, I think Deere is starting to fall behind with their combines. I mean here they have the 9760STS and 9860STS which basically have the same capacity as one another. The only major change between the two is the engine horsepower out put. We now have CAT with the 590R combine, Case IH with the AFX 8010 ( which from what I hear, things are really starting to improve with it) and now with Massey and Gleaner planning to bring out a monster combine next year. Plus we have the CR 970. Do you think we will ever see a bigger Deere combine in the future, that features more cleaning and thrashing capacity, other then just increased hp. My opnion is that if Deere does not do something soon, they will be over took by the other makes. Take Care Jason B

 

[combiness]

Deere is most definitely going to lose a huge market share if they don't fix their engine problem--fast!

This is not new, either. They had it bad just 5 years ago, shortly after their 50 Series were introduced. They solved that apparently, but I'm hearing a lot of horror stories about the 60 Series now.

It's going to cost Deere a bundle on recalls, but it will only make them stronger if they learn a lesson from it, too.

One thing I'm particularly aggravated by, is the fact that new STS's [I don't know about the conventionals] are almost shot after only 2,000 hours! Now, this is not just another Deere slam. I was told this by the same custom harvester who lauds their Titans with their 10-12K hour life expectancy and the old 00 Series with every bit of a 5-7K life. I would especially expect a 260 some-grand combine to last like a 260-grand machine, period! If they don't, custom harvesters, farmers and even us consumers, are getting ripped-off, big time!

 

[jacobb]

I totally agree Combiness, as for the issue if deere is going to fall behind in size or capacity, I don't think they will have that big of a problem, either bring a new machine out, or beef up the 60 series some more. I bet they are doing a lot of testing already. No brand wants to go through what the early 8010's went through or the Gleaner N series, in my opinion, I don't really think Deere will ever be far behind.

Jacob

 

[combiness]

I think Deere was good to avoid the problems of the early rotary Gleaners. You are too young to remember an equally big problem with the first 2 full years of the new Model L and Model M Gleaners. It was not their engineers' fault, either. Honestly, I think all radically new designs have latent "bugs" to work out, but I also know some companies will just work better with their buyers than others. Another factor, is simply that some designs and constructions are easier to work out their problems than others.

This engine issue can quickly be resolved. Deere did not get to be our No.1 combine by falling flat on its face every time it entered the field or by butchering farmers' crops!

What I demand of Deere at this point, is to simply improve their combines' longevity. I really believe they are okay on capacity and size. I watched a 9750 shell right at 5,000 bushels/hour at 5.5 MPH and in 235 or so bpa corn. She also wore a 12-row head and looked still looked 2 more rows hungry! Capacity and productivity like that is purely staggering!

By the way, that was 4 years ago, too, to give you a technological time frame.

 

[buckwheat]

Bigger combines??? Will they have to have a 60 foot platform to keep them full?
I think that for the average farmer, not custom cutters, what is out now is large enough. In our area we have to deal with gate openings and bridge bannisters. We hear more complaints of JD dropping the 9400 and farmers having to move up to a 9560. I imagine Deere looks at the amount of units sold for each size. If they thought that they need a class 9 or 10 machine they will build it.
Different parts of the country have different needs as far as equipment goes.

Crank problems are being worked on. High HP applications are being replaced. Lower HP ones look to be a Fix-as-fail PIP. Too large of a oil passage hole in the journal weakened the crank.

 

[jus]

Although the STS are apparently junkier then the older conventionals, I think their present relative performance is currently superior then the relative performance that the 9600 and 9610 had in its hayday, when basically everybody else had a combine with greater capacity. Now that the 9860 will apparently have 425 horsepower in western canada they should be in a better position in then usual in the capacity races, as far as throughput, whether it has enough cleaning capacity to keep up will be another question.

In southern manitoba with the high volume of straw and high humidity, not to mention a lot of swathing usually horsepower is the limiting factor with rotaries and walker loss with conventionals, espeacially Deeres.

Reliability on the other hand, is lacking with the Sts and from the stories I hear should be Deeres top priority.

Sorry for rambling on abit

 

[casefarmer]

I know ive talked in the past about the bigger combine subject and how that would be nice....But......

I don't think id ever upgrade from a class 6 combine to one machine

I mean WhY???/ In our region a class 6 combine it big enuff considering our yields..

Also if you go to one combine and it breaks down your screwed....

running two.....you still have one and you can do alot with one combine


Right now we are running 2 2388's with 36ft macdon's around 4.5-5.0 mph

your telling me going out and getting a large cat....case...deere..with a 36-40ft head will out do my setup???

interesting....


Deere will be fine.....i actually hate to say this....but there going about this the right way

i bet only 20% of the market is needing that huge of a combine in the first place

 

[combiness]

Steve, I'm not overlooking the fact that today's Deere's are obviously bigger, faster and stronger than their predecessors of 20 plus years ago. Relatively speaking, the combines we are talking about, likewise have bigger engines, more Hp, better fuel efficiency and so on. That still does not overshadow the fact that Deere DID HAVE a run of faulty engines. Fortunately, they have resolved that issue, too.

However, the fact still remains that we are paying an all-time high for our combines, which DO harvest some 3-4x the grain per hour or day as their former models, but STILL NEED an improved life expectancy! We have the technology to keep building our combines with every ounce of integrity and durability as we did when 1,000 bushels an hour was considered really fast and efficient.

 

[Tom Turner]

Todays combines have bigger heads, run faster and combine more grain per hour then the older combines. They also will replace two combines for one and combine the same. So every auger, elevertor or chain is working two or three times more. But todays combine needs to have thicker metal to wear like the old ones But if it uses the same metal it will wear faster..

 

[brad62]

Great conversation!

Deere will probably never really lag behind in the size dept. They are careful to put out machines that are reliable and that takes time.

On the other hand maybe they see that the large machine war is only aimed at a small percentage of farmers anyway. I feel the meat of the market is the mid sized machines and maybe they are concentrating on this. Afterall Deere does have the lion share of combine sales. I found it interesting when I watched the new custom cutter DVD that the crews that they followed ran smaller class 6 and 7 machines and more of them.

These large machines have to cut a massive amount of acres to pay for themselves. Economics is what it comes down to. Your not winning unless there is money in the bank. I have tried to figure it out but in our neck of the woods(central Alberta Canada) I don't think you could cover enough acres in our short season to make it pay. So for ourselves we opt for good reliable older machines with good capacity and a few less acres.

I feel it is economics that will drive the size war. If you have a class 8,9 or larger can we be looking at pricetags of 250,300.....500 thousand. Can't see a market for a half a million dollar combine flying when commodities are valued as low as they are.

As a side note I seen some of your custom cutters up here I think I read Imperial NBR on the side of their 9760STS'. Looked like they were running 3 of them. We spied them on the way to the lake for some fall fishing.

 

[caseihmech]

How was the fish'in?

 

[brad62]

Not the best, but you know what they say about a bad day fish'n!!!!!

 

[ralf]

[quote author=combiness board=JD thread=1135897173 post=1160167746]
... likewise have bigger engines, more Hp, better fuel efficiency ...


Ever since the TIER II engines the fuel efficiency went bad. I am sorry to disappoint you there. We ran TIER I and TIER II combines side by side, that were ohterwise identical. The TIER II uses about 20% more fuel. The same applies to trucks and pickups.
I have heard similar increases in fuel consumption going to the TIER III engines. I would like to hear from people who did a side by side comparison this season.


John Deere falling behind? That takes a long time to drop from about 65% market share back to second place what is CNH with a guessed share of 18%.
These numbers were coming through the grape vine, because they are officially kept secret.

But how many of these class 8 combines are actually around. By the number of combines it is probably less than 10%. So it is not a big market to fight for. Claas came with the 480 Lexion to the U.S. in 1998. They are still at the bottom end of the market share scale in the U.S. Size is not everything. Break downs, parts supply, service availability and ability, dealer ships, all those factors play a big role in the outcome on the market share race. There are reasons why JD is the market leader around here and the size of their combines is only one small matter.

 

[larry]

The secret to Deere's success is, they build products of significant cost reduction (of lesser quality) at very low production costs (volume production) and market them as premium products through a large dealer network with technicians to keep things going feeding parts revenue.

If you don't believe me, structurally speaking, how long did an 8820 or 9600 last compared to current Deere combines? Will / are the 50 or 60 series models holding together as well as their combines of 10 + years ago?

 

[combiness]

Quote:Todays combines have bigger heads, run faster and combine more grain per hour then the older combines. They also will replace two combines for one and combine the same. So every auger, elevertor or chain is working two or three times more. But todays combine needs to have thicker metal to wear like the old ones But if it uses the same metal it will wear faster..

Exactly my point, Tom. I have just said how our combines [all makes] desparately need MORE structural strength and greater wearability. It's just wrong to have to pay well over a quarter of a million dollars for a single combine and only have it last only half as long as one did, back when they averaged only one third of that cost. No two or even three combines of the recent past ever had a combined cost of $300,000!

 

[combiness]

Ralf, I'm not saying our current engines actually get the best fuel efficiency. I'm simply saying what I believe to be decent fuel usage relative to [just as stated above] the new combines' enormous capacity and output. Correct me if I'm wrong here, but it does seem as though our combines are getting that much more crop in for the gallon burned, compared to 15 to 20 years ago.

 

[greenbine]

"I have heard similar increases in fuel consumption going to the TIER III engines. I would like to hear from people who did a side by side comparison this season."

We run three 9760's on our farm, of which one is a bullet that would have the tier III. From OUR experience the tier III does burn more fuel and was noticably weaker when it came to torque. We were cutting heavy lodged wheat so power was at a premium. Thankfully the new rotor design lends itself to that and field performance was similar to the old model STS's.

Deere is in the same boat as everybody else, they are going to struggle with the new gov regs when it comes to the engines.

As for people thinking Deere is falling behind I am not sure where they get that notion. Because they don't have a true class 8 or 9? I suppose you can look at it from that angle but as it as been mentioned that is not the bulk of the market share & combines are only one item on a long list of equipment that Deere or anybody else makes.

 

[ralf]

Quote:Ralf, I'm not saying our current engines actually get the best fuel efficiency. I'm simply saying what I believe to be decent fuel usage relative to [just as stated above] the new combines' enormous capacity and output. Correct me if I'm wrong here, but it does seem as though our combines are getting that much more crop in for the gallon burned, compared to 15 to 20 years ago.


Unfortunately the fuel consumption has been going up ever since engine manufacturers were forced to produce certain emission numbers.

In Europe the fuel consumption is given in g/kwh (=gramm per kilowatt hour). To translate that into SAE terms, the number tells us how much fuel the perticular engine needs to produce a fixed power for one hour. To measure this one just has to put the engine on a test stand and measure the fuel running in and the hp that is put out. With this number I can compare engines of various sizes and the application does not matter.

To what I said in the earlier post the productivity of the compared combines was the same. We had some 2000 model 9650s with TIER I and a couple of 2005 model 9660s with the TIER II. The rest of the combines was nearly identical. But the TIER II used around 20% more fuel.

And as the post above notes - torque is lost in the process. All truck drivers can wittness to this.

 

[casefarmer]

So these higher tier engines...that are so goverment regulated and fine tuned to death use more fuel??????

Now i didn't have a math degree and i only made it threw 2 weeks of algebra 2...but isn't that what our president calls

Fuzzy Math?

 

[greentech]

Slim chance Deere will ever fall behind. As said before, they wait until the right time to come out with a product, assuring that it has been sufficiently field tested. You won't see 8010 type issues from Deere. And if they do have problems, they are quick and efficient at addressing them with update programs.

About the combine size issue, most farmers around here (Southern Manitoba, Canada) are debating "9760 or 9860" not "is a 9860 big enough?". Header size is also a problem. 36 feet is borderline too big due to drainage ditches, roadways, etc so there is already trouble satisfying existing combines with enough crop. Most guys think something like the Cat 590 is too rediculously big. They don't even consider it.

The average farmer around here would have had two or three 9600/10s before the STS came out. Now that a number of STS's are out there the general comment is that an STS is twice the size of a maximizer. Yes they do wear out faster according to the hourmeter, but it was already said, there is far more bushels being harvested. If a 9750 burns 1.5 times more fuel than a 9610 but is doing twice the acres per hour, that is obviously less gallons per acre. And if additional things like manpower are considered, the cost per acre still pencils out to be the same or less than 10 years ago.

I can't think of one farmer who had an STS and traded to something else. The only reason they would is initial price. The non-green dealers around here lure in with cheaper prices. But the thing is any dealer will take a green on trade and give a good dollar. But once you own a yellow/red, you're married to it 'cause it ain't worth s#*t if you try and trade back to green. Know a few guys that got burnt like that . Never do it again.

No, Deere is definetely not falling behind. Oh ya, our local Case dealer just went bankrupt due to crap sales/ bad product. 8010 really hurt them.