Combines New CR spotted on I 80

Don't have anything to talk about on the Cat page I see.

FarmBuddy why is that all the Cats that I see plus the second hand ones advertised all come on tyres here in Australia.It can't be the price as the Cats are already very expensive so a few more dollars would not matter.So far the cxs' around here are going well.john

Farmbuddy, let's not forget that tracks are slow on the road, vibrate the heck out of the machine, and tear up the ground when you turn. And, if Cat had wanted to do combine tracks right, why not do a full set like the Bi-rotor or the old ClaasIJ I've been told they were simply too cheap to go first class, and now they have tires on the back anyway. Can you even get large tires on the rear yetIJ last I looked you couldn't.

I find it very amazing how you've took the time and effort to poll the "Top Producers of the new century" to come up with your conclusion. Besides vibrating the hell out of the combine and tearing-up the headlands (especially on freshly seeded grassland),I see little merit in tracks unless you're in severe wet conditions. I think I'll remain with the "duals concept". As posted below, tracks HAVE NOT been all that popular so far, even on the "yellow Claas" combines with Cat engines.

I think the "Cat-lovers" are still "licking thier wounds" from the Cat_AGCO deal, and I don't blame them. I, too, would feel pretty insecure if I owned a Cat combine right now, especially with Claas's track record of stability in North America. Not to be misunderstood, I hope Claas pulls it off this time around with marketing the lexions, but to date they haven't been too successful.

I hesitate to reply under this post, but felt that obliged to add some helpful updated information for 2002 that you (and mklove) should be familar with.

You are right, there are just a few tracked combines in Australia.

Old Thinking : Claas

When I mentioned the full-length tracks, I was assuming an air-suspended boggie system similar to the large frame Challengers. We run the rigid system on a VFS-50 and the berming and skidding when you turn is even worse than with our Challengers. I don't doubt that the lexion tracks have "evolved significantly" since 1998, but with the price of grain since 1998, farmers can't afford to be your test facility. Perhaps you would like to explian why the 36" tracks that came on our 65E darn near shook the thing to pieces and the WE had to pay to replace them with redesigned 30" belts that berm worse and wear out quickerIJ

Farm Buddy in our area it is mainly heavy black clay soils and a fair amount of irrigation so there are a lot of Cat tractors here because of their ability to float on the soil.We also do a lot of contract harvesting (custom cutting) which can mean many hundreds of miles on the road,70% to 80% are walked so how would the belts stand up to this workIJ Also when the harvest here is on it not unusual to get 2 to3 inches of rain in a single fall so I know about mud work.I'm not knocking your passion for tracks just trying to see how they could be justified when at the moment every dollar counts when up till now tyres (english spelling,the Queen is still our Head of State.) have worked well.Overloading of the tyres are a problem but i can also remember being told years ago that our MF750s' were overloading their 23.1 30s'john