# Claas Variant balers



## mgilbert61 (Nov 2, 2012)

Bought a 2009 Claas Variant 380 out of TX last spring. Didn't get to use much. Only first cutting really. About 600 bales. Anyone have any views on Claas balers. It's OK. I probably would go to NH if I had to do over.


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## foz682 (Jan 10, 2013)

We have a '96 Claas Rollant 46rc, bought it new and it's been pretty good to us. Makes nice, even, soft core bales and has the rotocut feeder so the bales are very easy to feed in the barn. 
The downside about these balers is getting parts, everything on them is metric and sometimes there is no imperial match, we once waited a nearly a month for a bearing on the main drive to come from somewhere in Europe.
For the most part, bearing replacement is the main work to be done routinely(2 bearings every other year or so), however they may have solved that problem over the years.
I did run a NH br7060 last year and felt it drew a fair bit more HP from the tractor even on lighter crops, than our Claas does.
I would say Claas makes a pretty decent and reliable baler, just bear in mind that the mechanicals of these balers may be quite a bit different than that of other brands(at least this was the case a few years back).


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## swmnhay (Jun 13, 2008)

Was a few around here.The dealer dropped the line and i think they all have gotten rid of them.Getting parts was an issue.The one guy told me the metric chain was $800 that drove all the rollers.And there was 2 of them.He liked the baler otherwise.


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## Grateful11 (Apr 5, 2009)

mgilbert61 said:


> Bought a 2009 Claas Variant 380 out of TX last spring. Didn't get to use much. Only first cutting really. About 600 bales. Anyone have any views on Claas balers. It's OK. I probably would go to NH if I had to do over.


Just curious why NH? Wife bought a JD 448 3 years ago and it hasn't missed a beat in nearly 1500 bales. It seems to bale fine but after looking at Vermeer and talking to a guy that switched from JD to Vermeer, he has 4 Vermeer's now, he said he'd never own another brand of baler unless Vermeer made big changes for the worse. My wife wanted net wrap but she would have to gone to a different model and nearly $9K more.


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