bob123 - 11/30/2023 20:55

I do combine mechanic work for others all winter and have worked on jd, case, and new holland. In my opinion new holland is the easiest of the 3 for a farmer to fix themselves, and will also cost the least per hour in parts. I will say though that case takes less man hours of maintenance per year then the new holland though but more money. New holland service manuals are very good as well and easily accessible in pdf form.

I also own a custom harvesting business and run a pair of cr's that have around 3000 sep hours each. My older combine has not seen a dealer for 12 years. They have been very good to me, I find they are very forgiving to set, do an excellent job, and I have averaged less then 3 hours of down time per year most years even with the high hours. The in field downside is the s3 rotor doesnt handle really wet green crop as well as a case will. The s2 rotor fixes this and is much better in green crop then a case, but I've heard is harder to set in corn but I dont harvest any so no personal experience there. Any case flagship heads fit. No rotor reverser but I've only plugged the rotor once in the last 1000 hours, due mainly to worn out rotor belt.