[silver72man]

We have run Gleaners all of our lives, absolutley love these wonderful combines they have been a blessing to our family.
Looking to harvest, wondering if people are judgmental towards a guy with a Gleaner combine? We see many silver combines working in the fields from kansas and oklahoma on north, but we live in the panhandle of Texas where the colors are mainly green and red and a few silver ones here and there. Need some opinions on the subject. Experiences?

Thanks in advance.
silver72man

 

[customfarmer82]

No, not really. Gleaners aren't my cup of tea, but I respect the people that run them. Neighbor has one and loves it. I can't get over paying that much for a combine that hasn't been painted.

 

[silver72man]

Haha I can't see paying thousands more for a machine with paint. Thank you for the help it's greatly appreciated form me to you. God Bless

P.S. they do have paint on them since the mid ninties. lol
Would like to hear from everyone else

 

[medicineman]

Hi Silver72man
I remember when we were kids the neighbors used to run down the brand of tractor or combine that we used and most times it was nothing to do with the equipment, they were just negative toward everyone and they were feeling inferior about themselves. You know what? , some of those little kids grew up to be adults with inferiority complexes and guess what, they still try to run your stuff down because e.g. they "THINK" it isn't painted etc. Looking back on those old tractors that are now antiques- I love them "ALL" e.g. Oliver 60 +80's, the Minn "Z", IHC farmall M, 2 cyl JD ( I have 1 or more of each). Everyone of those old tractors had their good and bad points. Now when we look back, we marvel at the engineering that went into them, "AT THE TIME THEY WERE BUILT" e.g. the casting techniques and the way the manufacturer was able to stamp out the hoods and fenders. They were works of art in their own way.
Can you imagine if there were only Green machines or Red machines or God forbid only unpainted machines, nobody would be fighting to get your business and parts would be even harder to get. The reasons I like my Gleaners are:
-they are good on fuel
-they are simple to work on
-they give a good quality clean sample
and I can clean them up to a shiny new look with vinegar and water.
The reason I sometimes have trouble justifying owning a Gleaner in my area is lack of support from the local dealer network and poor parts inventory.

 

[silver72man]

I agree absolutely we drive 100 miles from our farm to get parts for our combines, but we continue to do so because we are in love with GLEANER combines. And they are everything that you mentioned above and more. We get run down by the other farmers, but at the same time we out cut them and are bringing in cleaner samples than the red or green combines. It dosn't make any since to me! Anyway we are loyal to Gleaner, because they have been the best and loyal combines to us ,and wouldn't even think about running a different brand. We get everything we need out of our combines and have pushed them to the test, still they are performing and bringing in the years income for us, with a few thousand dollars we save by investing in a GLEANER.

Thank you for your support medicineman God Bless you and good luck during your harvest this year.
Where are you from?

 

[mwhacker88]

Don't worry I live in a sea of green as well. It gets boring just seeing the same color all the time. I love Gleaner as well. Part of it I can't explain, but I do know that ours have always been dependable and quality machines. Most people I know that hate Gleaner around here have never run one. I bet that no one around me has even seen a new Gleaner. The newest Gleaner around is an R72. I would love to see AGCO come here and do demo's and stuff.

 

[silver72man]

Boy howdy I wish they would come out in our neck of the woods and Demo new AGCO equip. sure would be nice to see that. That's how they show everyone what they have. Agco really needs to work on that.

 

[silverhusker]

I guess unlike most of you guys im very fortunate to live in an area where there are just as many gleaners as there are red and green combines. At the moment i can think of 7 Gleaner R's that our neighbors run, on top of our 2 R's. There are also a handful of L's and M's still ran. I think the main reason that there are so many gleaners in this area is because we have great dealer support only 35 miles away. My family has ran gleaners for about 40 years and we too are very loyal to our Gleaner combines. Every now and then i get a little crap from a few red and green guys, but it doesnt happen very often because they know that our gleaners must be good since they know that we also run green equipment right beside our Gleaners, also one of our neighbors is completely red but they have two things that arent, and that is their R72 and L2 combines. If agco were to step up their dealer support i think all areas would have just as many gleaners as any other color.

(P.S. they started painting Gleaners in 1998!)

 

[cornerpost]

silverman-gleaner does have a good combine-not many here-few custom boys come in here with new ones and do excellent job.BUT-you run down green and red, have you ever tried one of them out?you might be suprised at the outcome.you might see the light as others have.

 

[ru4gleaner2]

silver72man,

Got some cousins that are 3rd generation custom harvesters that bleed Gleaner. Family started with A Gleaners. They actually start their run somewhere around Wichita Falls, TX. They never seem to have problem finding business. There could be a few farmers that may be partial to the color of machine on their ground but as a farmer that sure wouldn't be my main priority. I think it's more how you go about your operation. How you manage your business. Give me a harvester that you can trust is loyal, timely, competitive and I wouldn't care what color his machines are.

 

[silver72man]

Re: GLEANERS in teh harvest scene

Thank you all so much all of your posts have opened my eyes to your opinions. I agree with yall about what makes a good harvester. Color of combines shouldn't matter as long as you do the farmer good business and let him know that your word is gold.
Keep those posts coming I love hearing from yall.
God Bless everyone on their 2009 harvest season.

 

[silver72man]

Yes cornerpost we have run different colors of combines and none of them were as easy to maintain and operate as a GLEANER. We leased an 8820 and out cut it with a cleaner sample and never ever got the thing to quit heating and throwing grain out the back. and yes the JD dealer and a nother farmer set it for us, it was not a lack of setting the thing. We were discusted. We have also ran our R72 with a neighbors 9600 same dang problems, it tried to keep up but just planted it all right back. Guess that's why they were so expensive, the farmer got a planter and a combine.
Also leased a 1680 and ran it with a lease machine R62 and out cut it with less breakdowns and bought the machine with a cheaper price tag. So we stuck with GLEANER they have impressed us over the years when no one else could perform like they did with a better price.

Both JD, Case, NH make good machines, but I will argue my pride in our GLEANERs. We have experienced the rest and none compete.
Thank you, God Bless

 

[rburk]

I have read on the JD forum where it is routine to put $10.000 to $20,000 in repair on a 1000 sep hour STS. A gleaner will not need anything major till @ 2000 sep hrs.

 

[keystone]

We also Run Gleaners in an area where we are the minority, We have been pleased with the performance, sample and maintenence. This year was a n issue with some breakdowns but looking back it was some preventitive maintenence we decided would run 1 more year. (feeder chains) Our dealer is an hour away vs 20 - 30 mins for all other brands but they have been very good with parts in stock only 2 times since 1994 have they not had the part in stock, pretty good record, they are a large reason we still run the Gleaner, good machine good service and considerably cheaper to purchase than the other offers we have received. We do have some complaints, as stated on occasion a baling operation could come in handy afterewards, A better cut and evener straw spread, (sounds contradictory I know) and faster unloading. We had an oportunity to demo an A85 and it did not perform as expected, I am leary of this model because of this, I should not pass total judgement on it yet but first impressions were not great. I am told there is a new model "R" in the works, I hope so because some day we will be looking at a new machine and some of the other colors also have their strenghts, weaknesses as well but we will weight them all at that time, biggest thing in my opinion is to never get so color blind you don't even look @ other options, if you look and make the decision to stay with your previous color than at least you looked and made an informed decision that you felt right for your own operation and reasons.

 

[luuk]

I am having the same experience you are all having. I have a Gleaner R-72 and know of only one other farm in this area that has a Gleaner combine. Everyone else here has either John Deere or Case combines, and most will not even look at a Gleaner. We have been very pleased with our combine for reliability, not throwing grain out the back, capacity, and easy to get a clean sample. This fall parts availabilty was a little dissapointing as the dealer here is really pushing the Lexion combines. I just wish Gleaner would make a bigger R-series because we are at the limit for the amount of acres we can do with our combine. The A-85 is really just a Massey painted like a Gleaner and I think I prefer the natural flow processing.

 

[tx66man]

In our area their is not one Gleaner around within about a 30 or 40 mile radius. It all has to do with one thing, you can't get straw out of them. We live in an area were cattle and grain co habitat and as a result the conventional combine is still the king. But that is not to say that I would never own a Gleaner, I would. Last year a friend of ours had a guy come help him combine in canola with a R50, our friend has a 860 Massey. the two of them were pretty much equal, but the biggest thing is that they couldn't bale the straw behind the R50.

 

[tx66man]

We run a M2 and a 4420. The M2 is a lot easier to set and repair. The 4420 is a good machine but the M2 is better.

 

[ausfarmer]

In the custom harvesting side of things, sometimes I would run into a green or red bias. Farmers would only have green on the farm even advertising on the radio green only has been known. A fellow contractor that ran yellow switched to green and he found it easier to get work. I know it sounds silly but sometimes perception gets in the way of how a machine really operates. I know that we supprised a few new customers on the harvest run how well the Gleaners could harvest and they did not break down every day.

 

[silver72man]

Thanks guys for the comments, they have helped out tremendously in my hope to get some harvesting done this year. I hope all of you do the same. Keep rain in your prayers.
God Bless

 

[greenshorts]

We've harvested since 1955. My grandpa started with the baldwin pull type and we ran silver up until 2005. We switched for two main reasons, first we were cutting barley right beside jd combines for the same farmer with same conditions, yield and test weight. We were loosing 4-5 kernels in a square foot and we looked behind the jd's even harder than behind ours (silver pride) and could only find 0-1. Tried everything in our bag of tricks and finally called some guys at the factory and they told us that what we were doing was good enough. If number 2 was good enough for them that just wouldn't work. Second, we had to cut wet sunflowers 23 moisture and couldn't get our sample clean enough to dry. Rented a 9750STS jd and it was easy enough on them that the bin looked perfect. Lastly, we rode on an experimental machine and looked at the report book and the problems he had were the same ones we had 10 years earlier. Entirely too long to make a change.

Since we have went green I've found it much easier to not only find work but also help. Everyone around the world wants to drive a new jd it seems.

There are definatly things we miss about agco like the service and updates that were given free of charge that we have to pay for with jd.