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| We have to replace our JD 6650 Forage Harvester.
We are looking for a New Holland FR9040, a JD 7350 or a Krone Big X 500.
Anyone has experience with this choppers?
thanks flow |
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NW Washington | The combine forum site has a section for forage harvester discussions which may be of interest to you. http://combineforums.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=forage
I am surprised that Claas is not on your list. They are popular choppers in some places. |
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| From what I see and hear I would not go with the Krone! (way too many bugs to work out yet) We run two Deere 7800's and they are pretty good but next time I buy I will lean towards a Claas. It seems like the Deere's just break down too easy... |
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| We had an older JD 5400, we now have 1 season a 9040 obviously nothing to compae to, but so far I am very happy with the NH 9040. One thing that really looked good to me was the fact that the small machine was built almost identical to the larger ones. I figure their is more chance of parts being in stock, and it should last longer with only half the power of the big ones. Dealer support is excellent for both colors over here, but I was quite tired of the chinese bearings on my deere baler last year, that probably influenced my decision some! |
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Good Ol' East Texas | We cut in front of choppers and they are mostly Claas just for the fact of service. From what I hear from those guys that Krone and Claas are at the top. Krone and Claas use the same engines. Haven't cut in front of a New Holland or seen one run. Cut in front of a couple of John Deeres I think one was a 7800 and the other one I can't remember but it seemed like they were always breaking down. That was probably due to the operators though. Every chopper has their problems. I know of a guy that burned up three or four brand new Claas choppers due to bad bearings in the kernel processor. Claas fixed the problem. Choppers are high maintenance and I would go with the one that has the better service in your area. |
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| If you are looking for an investment that will last a long time, the New Holland is the machine. The cutterhead, processor, accelerator and frame are just about identical on the four FR machines. The two bigger machines use a 9 ribbed belt for the main drive where the smaller machines use a 7. Take a look at what NH does with the processor and the location of the accelerator when the processor is removed. Takes about 4 minutes to remove the processor. New Holland offers two different style corn heads, the one with the big round disks is disigned for taller corn. Deere and Claas are both almost the same machine. Krone, don't know enough to comment. Its all about service and parts, if you don't have both, you don't have a machine. Let us know what you end up getting.
Edited by RICK NCMD 12/2/2009 07:17
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Embarrass WI | You are certainly entitled to your opinion, but I would prefer if you had your facts in line. The only way you could possibly think JD and Claas were almost the same machine is if you were looking at them in a field a mile away in the dark. Dealer, dealer, dealer. Parts and service. Support. If the chopper you want comes with those, it will be a good one. Don't know about the last couple years, but before that, NH corn heads were purchased from Claas. The chain-style and rotary heads were both Claas-built, you could get wear parts from either color dealer. |
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| Where does Deere get their cuterhead, feedroll and accelerator assys? New Holland has made a major commitment to the forage industry and will be around for a long time. |
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| if you have any Claas dealer support, look into an 850 or 870. They run the smaller 6 cyl. Mercedes engine that are more fuel efficient than anything on the market. Claas is hands down the best cutter out there as far as longevity and wear. We put numbers together a couple of yrs ago and the parts bill was just under half what a comprable sized Deere was for the same sized cutter that did similar work. This was a field comparison done with two cutters in the same operation doing similar work.
Most important thing in my opinion is dealership support, parts and service. I wouldn't own a Deere or a Krone, Krone is on the ropes in the central US and the Deere cutter is the only thing Deere makes that doesn't hold a resale value.
Just my 2 cents, take this and $.75 and you can get a cup of coffee. Good luck |
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Chilliwack BC | In the past 4 years or so, I think since the Green Eye series, the 870 had to go with a V-8 engine for emmisions control. The early ones were a 6.
And about the only thing a Claas and Deere have in common is the engine blocks for the larger Deere's are cast at the Claas foundry. |
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| Claas all the way. If you are looking for used look for a 492 series, they were the toughest simplest machines built and just keep going and going. The new 494's still have some bugs to work out of them but are still miles ahead of anything else out there.
If there is no Claas dealer support, my second choice would be a 50 series Deere like a 7350 or 7450. They are decent machines. |
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cental pa along the Susquehanna River | Rick who do you guys deal with on the chopper ? Messicks ? |
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Embarrass WI | So you are saying Deere has Claas manufacturing parts for them? If so, Claas must do it better or cheaper than other vendors. The JD cutterhead, feedroll and accelerator are definitely not the same parts used in Claas choppers. Designs are not even close. At least not the last time I looked, which was probably at least 2 years ago. I have a Kooima feedroll in our Claas. Does that make it the same as a Kooima chopper? I didn't/don't want this to be a JD/IH or Ford/Chevy color war BUT there are differences in the design of the different units. When you buy a brand, you are buying the design, not the specific part vendor. Everyone outsources to some extent. |
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| We also have to take into consideration that New Holland basically took everyone elses design and mixed them together and hopefuly developed something that works a little better. As for the cost of parts, anything that CNH has their fingers in won't be priced fairly. |
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| Ran a nhfx60,claas880,owned jd 5830,6750,7400 and 1 year on jd 7450, we do are share of custom work.
I've got good friends that own 1 of the big four, all have there issues,I have all four dealers within 15 min. of me.
I think it's dealer,dealer,dealer,service,service,service. and maybe the other way around!!!!!
It,s who can get you running on weekends, after hours, with a call. JD Midwest Machinery-central MN.
is secound to none.pesrsonal issues on jd, 5830 exc. machine just old school, 6750 electrical, 7400 exc machine run 2500hrs
on it-just kp brg issues, 500 hrs on 7450 new kp design, very good machine-0 issues.
We ran JD Kemper 686 heads,jd 645b hayhead, and jd 693 cornhead. |
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| Amen on service, dealer. |
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| Yes, Messicks has been an excellent dealer, in the last 10 years our harvester has never been out of service for more than 8 hours. Messicks will do just about anything to keep a machine moving. |
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forage harvester
