land_Surfer
Guest
I don't condone AGCO combines, a little harsh at times yes, but only when they are being compared to the avant garde of combine technology. I am not a firm believer in time proven technology without significant updating, for fatigue and stagnation reasons (engineers need to explore new ideas to maintain product health - change is our friend). I do support the AGCO combines as being economical machines, with some performance limitations realized much sooner than typically reached with premium brands. When I say economical, I am also referring to quality. AGCO has never struck me as being an innovator or leader in product quality (Baldwin_Gleaner and original Massey sure did, but attrition has consumed them),which are both characteristics common to being economical. I won't aruge that a properly set AGCO combine won't perform competitively either. I do see some areas of improvement that would make them perform better (i.e. a belt driven rotor for the Massey and Challenger models, like some 9720's and the 8590 had),just going bigger won't help either. Size is a big misconception in the development of combines. You don't have to go bigger to gain productivity.
I agree with the last part of your last quote about needing to purchase the brand and style of machine to fit you and your business. I have not ran every brand out there, but I have ran several over the years and I have found the same you did, if the machine works for ya, dont care what color it is. However, if you were to do YOUR research on the inovation part, you'll find that most of the iventions the various companies are claiming as theirs, usually were bought or stolen from an unknown farmer or logger. As I see it, part of the reason our farm equipment technology has stagnated (in my opinion it has) is because so few farmers anymore do much shop work. I'm not concerned about the latest computer software driven devices that you cant fix in the field, I dont consider that technology an advancment in farming. In fact I consider it a step backwards. I dont know too much about AGCO as there is no local dealer here anymore. I do know that with all the merging and buy outs going on on a daily basis anymore, that the farmer is getting left out of the equation more and more. It used to be an equipment manufacturer made almost all of its money on the equipment it made. So the end user was very important when decisions were made. Now the farm equipment divisions of any particular company are just a small portion of the income to that corperation. A specific requirment of the end user is no longer important. There is no other choice available.