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bleedred

Posted 11/23/2017 19:06 (#6384450)
Subject: Challenger 1046 demo impressions.

East Central Ia

Dealer brought us a new Challenger 1046 (460 hp) to demo.

It’s setup with huge duals, 650’s on the front and 750’s on the rear I believe.

This is our first time operating any type of CVT, IVT, etc.

I was pulling our 17 shank chisel plow, a Great Plains Turbo chisel setup with all 2” straight points.

We normally pull it with our 855C Challenger (475 hp)

First impression sitting in my shop on a rainy day with my product specialist showing us the controls was “wow, this is complicated...”

But after about two minutes in the seat things feel pretty intuitive and easy.

I was very impressed with the ability to configure things to your liking.

My first thought was wow you can’t put just any steering wheel holder in this thing! But after running it I think this is the probably one of the best tractors to put a novice operator in. With a little guidance and an experienced operator getting things setup it’s literally just push a button and go.

I will admit it took me most of a day to get used to the low rpm this MAN engine operates at... I had the constant feeling that I was pulling the snot out of it. Sitting on the edge of my seat gritting my teeth, feeling like I need to throttle up or gear down quick before I kill the engine or kick it into neutral.

Once this feeling went away and I felt comfortable just letting the darn thing manage itself I was really impressed with its ability to pull! I’m not sure what it would take to actually stall this thing.

I was pulling it hard around 10” deep at 6ish mph. Max of 19 gallons per hour fuel use was impressive!

My dealer warned me that when new these tractors seem to be using an excessive amount of DEF. I would have to agree and hopefully this improves drastically after it break in as it burned a tank of DEF to half a tank of fuel!

The Cab is very comfortable, and feels like the controls are well organized. The fit and finish was very nice.

This is a very quiet comfortable tractor to operate. The ride was BY FAR the best I have felt in any wheeled machine. Independent front suspension, air ride cab, very nice air ride seat... a lots of rubber.

The steering was VERY difficult with these huge tires at really slow speeds, and impossible sitting still. I actually had some difficulty backing up to my implement to hook it up... I even had to pull ahead and get my implement straight a couple times while trying to back into my shop, the slow speed and concrete apron made this quit akwward.

My dealer also warned me about this and it’s not surprising with that much rubber on a fixed frame machine... but it’s definitely cumbersome. I didn’t notice any issues in the field other then the time I didn’t realize the differential lock was on and tried to turn lol... that didn’t go well.

The tractor sits up high and the hydraulic remotes in the rear are mounted shoulder/head high... I had to loosen some hydraulic hose hold down clamps on my tool to get enough hose to even reach the remotes!

My biggest complaint, and really the only issue that I don’t think you would get used too, were how the hydraulic functions work.

If you have a timer set for a hydraulic remote, you have virtually no manual control.

For instance, in every other tractor I have operated you move a hydraulic remote between the detents and have manual control. Clicking the remote activates the detent or set timer... then further clicking the remote puts it into float.

This tractor if you have a timer set you simply move the remote and it activates the timer. The remotes move VERY easily, and the click at the end of the travel is also very easy to do... but it does not activate a timer... it puts the remote into float.

While chiseling and coming up on a small waterway I was going to cross... normally I would just raise my implement manually out of the ground and then click it to activate the timer to lower it back down.

On this tractor I had to move the remote to raise it, then wiggle it a second time to deactivate the timer, and then move it a third time to activate the lower timer... it was pretty awkward.

It was also VERY easy to hit a bump while doing this and put it into float...

Not sure it’s a deal breaker definitely something that would take some getting used.

That’s about all I can think of at the moment.