Last spring I was watching a Weeks auction online, they had 25-30 new to low hour McCormick tractors on the sale, They came to a MC-115 with 186 hours on it (new tractor right?) I thought that would make a nice tractor to pull the planter with as my Agco rt-115 has over 8000 hours on it. So I bought it $31,000 (WOW new 115 horse tractor for 30K home run). Had it trucked the 1500 miles home and as soon as it got here I knew something was not right, bolt missing here and there, several bolts around engine where loose. Someone has had the tractor apart, but why? It was after planting time when it got here but we used it to side dress corn with and used it around the shop most of the summer all was good ran out nice. Last week while doing fall tillage my retired hired man that helps with harvest wanted to stay on another week or so to help with tillage. So I put a small 5 shank chisel plow on the McCormick thinking he could run around and get a few of those small 20 and 25 acre field we have around. Wanted to set everything up for him so I took the tractor out behind the shop put the plow in he ground and the first hard pull ever put on it she started blowing oil out the blow by, I headed to the shop less that 1/8 mile and by the time I got it inside and shut down I had oil coming out the exhaust out the blow by and she could hardly pull herself. First thought, well we pucked a cylinder, but it is a Perkins no big deal, we bought it right. So we go right at it pull the head #1 cyl is full to the top with oil, yup got it? We pulled the pan pushed #1 out cyl looks fine, rings look fine, bearing is hammered to heck. Take a look at turbo and it is shot.
#1 question would be why do I have so much oil in #1 but the rest of cyls are clean and dry?
#2 Why did they have it apart before?
#3 what would take that turbo out in 300 hours?
Now is when we get to the part that really upsets me about McCormick, I google McCormick and find the closest dealer 150 miles away. (no big deal UPS) I call him up give him ser# off tractor and engine tell him I need gaskets, rod bearing, and turbo. He calls me back two days later and says the # off engine does not come up in Perkins system. Tag is plain as day NH39872 only number on the tag, tag is clean and e-z to read. Two more days I call him back he tells me “sorry I can’t help you if you can’t get me the right # off engine” WTF. So I call next closest McCormick dealer a few days go by and basically the same story. So I go back online find McCormick USA, hey they have a link where you can e-mail customer service so I send the guy an e-mail tell him what I am up against ask if he can look up the “line sheet” when the tractor was built and tell me what engine I have so I can get parts. He sends me an e-mail right back saying “I have passed you info on, but McCormick does not keep those type of records you need to contact Perkins as this is their problem” WTF WTF.
So after getting the run around from 6 different Perkins distributors all telling me that # is no good, I go to my agco dealer, and get with the best parts guy I have ever known. We took part #s off every part on the engine we could find ie head gasket, pistons, bearings, turbo, rods, water pump…….. he spends 4-5 hours crossing these part numbers with engine serial #s until he finally came up with a match on all numbers so we would have a good number to use if we ever need any other parts. You would think McCormick could have done this for me or Perkins.
Sorry for the long story just venting I guess.
#1 question would be why do I have so much oil in #1 but the rest of cyls are clean and dry?
#2 Why did they have it apart before?
#3 what would take that turbo out in 300 hours?
Now is when we get to the part that really upsets me about McCormick, I google McCormick and find the closest dealer 150 miles away. (no big deal UPS) I call him up give him ser# off tractor and engine tell him I need gaskets, rod bearing, and turbo. He calls me back two days later and says the # off engine does not come up in Perkins system. Tag is plain as day NH39872 only number on the tag, tag is clean and e-z to read. Two more days I call him back he tells me “sorry I can’t help you if you can’t get me the right # off engine” WTF. So I call next closest McCormick dealer a few days go by and basically the same story. So I go back online find McCormick USA, hey they have a link where you can e-mail customer service so I send the guy an e-mail tell him what I am up against ask if he can look up the “line sheet” when the tractor was built and tell me what engine I have so I can get parts. He sends me an e-mail right back saying “I have passed you info on, but McCormick does not keep those type of records you need to contact Perkins as this is their problem” WTF WTF.
So after getting the run around from 6 different Perkins distributors all telling me that # is no good, I go to my agco dealer, and get with the best parts guy I have ever known. We took part #s off every part on the engine we could find ie head gasket, pistons, bearings, turbo, rods, water pump…….. he spends 4-5 hours crossing these part numbers with engine serial #s until he finally came up with a match on all numbers so we would have a good number to use if we ever need any other parts. You would think McCormick could have done this for me or Perkins.
Sorry for the long story just venting I guess.
