# New Holland or John Deere



## seanb02 (Sep 11, 2016)

Hey folks, I am looking at purchasing a new tractor for haying with. The primary use will be pulling a New Holland BC5070 Hayliner baler coupled to a Bale Bandit 210. It will be purchased with a loader and spears for moving the bales around. It will also be getting used with a New Holland H7450 discbine for cutting the hay. The 7450 requires 90hp minimum at the pto, but I currently use a JD 4430 for that which is 125 hp and it seems to be a really good match, so I am hesitant to go much lower, but in the future I will likely get away from pull behind and go to a self propelled windrower machine, so perhaps I can get by with less pto hp for a few years. While the 4430 has been a good haying tractor, it is time to upgrade since it is having hydraulic issues, and will not be able to run the new Bale Bandit anyway.

So, I specced out a New Holland T6.155 to order, but then found out that it would not be here in time for haying season next year. Went over to Deere and they found me a 6130M with IVT that is in stock. Then the New Holland dealer got back into the game by coming up with a T6.180 that they can get, blue power edition, with the dynamic command transmission. 

Knowing virtually nothing about the dynamic command, I am leaning towards going Deere on this one. But what would you folks recommend, the T6.180 is certainly more tractor, and assuming similar money between the two it make the decision difficult. Both are auto guidance ready, which is important to me since it will also be used for spraying with, and it makes it nicer to use when cutting hay. Any thoughts on this? Thanks.


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## Beav (Feb 14, 2016)

We have both deere and NH tractors we run our 5070 baler with a JD 6420 or NH Powerstar 75 the 6420 is the first choice. For me it would come down to price if the HP and extras meet your needs. We are lucky to have good dealers for both brands. We don't have tractors in your HP range but either tractor will easily replace your 4430, good luck


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## seanb02 (Sep 11, 2016)

Expected to get a few more replies to this topic from folks that have used similar tractors for haying before. But anyway, thanks Beav for your response. Kind of what I was figuring, can't really go wrong either way. Not a brand loyal farm here either, I prefer the guys at the local NH dealer better, but neither Deere or NH stocks much in the way of parts around here, most things have to be ordered. 

Found out a bit more on the T6.180, it does have the CVT rather than the dynamic command that they originally thought, so that narrows the playing field more. Cost will be slightly more than the Deere by about $10k, but the NH comes with a lot more features plus the additional HP. Blue Power edition would be more comparable to a 6R series JD. We don't have any JD tractors set up with auto guidance, but our main workhorses for tillage and silage chopping are a pair of T7.270 tractors so I am familiar with the systems on those ones. 

Still up the air, but will most likely end up with the T6.180


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## rjmoses (Apr 4, 2010)

As a rule of thumb, I figure at least 133% of horsepower requirements if on hilly ground. Implement calls for 100HP--I'd go 135-150--the hillier the ground, the more HP I want.

Ralph


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## bool (Mar 14, 2016)

NH are good tractors and you don't have to pay the green paint tax. Ten years ago I went looking for a good used JD 6300, 6400, 6310 or 6410 and ended up with a NH TS100 for $15,000 less than I would have had to pay for a green one. I am still happy with it.

Roger


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## Bonfire (Oct 21, 2012)

Is that 180 a 6 cylinder?


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## disenchanted (Mar 1, 2020)

Bonfire said:


> Is that 180 a 6 cylinder?


Yeah it's the only T6 that still has the six cylinder.

Guy I work for sometimes had a 180 he bought new a couple years ago. The tie bolts between engine and transmission started loosening up and it tried to split itself within 500 hours. Dealer replaced them in the field, it did it again not long after. Then it went in to be split and some new gasket design installed that allegedly was going to fix the problem, and it went for a while until maybe a hundred hours out of warranty it began coming apart again. Then it returned to dealer, never to be seen again. It was used in large part as a loader tractor, which I have no doubt contributed to the problem since CNH doesn't use frame rails and the loader mast goes directly to the engine, but the fact that there was an update for it makes it seem to me like it was more than an isolated problem.

I'm not sure I would agree that the New Holland is surely going to be more tractor. The "180" doesn't have a darn thing to do with the horsepower, it's only rated for 145 and I never felt that its power boost mode or whatever that was supposed to add power under heavy load really did much. The first time I ran it I was sure something was wrong because I ran out of power so quickly. I would hazard a guess that ballast and tires are in this case going to have a lot more to do with which tractor can put more power to the ground than engine or frame size.

I don't want to sound totally negative on the T6, it was a perfectly pleasant machine to operate and I've never run a late model Deere in that class to compare directly, but in that case the guy weighed Deere and NH, bought NH on price, and in the end got what he paid for.


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