# No high tech



## KS John (Aug 6, 2018)

http://m.startribune.com/for-tech-weary-midwest-farmers-40-year-old-tractors-now-a-hot-commodity/566737082/

LOL I just bought them because they were in my price range!


----------



## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

Not to mention I don't have spare sensors, computer boards and $5000 wiring harnesses laying around for the new stuff. I have a stash of parts to keep the ole Oliver double digits running for a long time and the same goes for the four digit models.


----------



## Gearclash (Nov 25, 2010)

Have to go back quite a few years to get completely away from tractors that depend in some way on electronics. On the IH side, all the way back to the 86 series as the 50 series (5088-5488) had the Sentry to control and monitor the transmission. Those tractors can run without the Sentry but at the risk of utterly frying the transmission if something malfunctions.

I will say that while electronic problems are aggravating, I've spent by far more money on repairing hard parts on my tractors than electronic or electrical.


----------



## slowzuki (Mar 8, 2011)

Get annoyed with old tractors when things like a little gear pump costs more than another tractor though.



mlappin said:


> Not to mention I don't have spare sensors, computer boards and $5000 wiring harnesses laying around for the new stuff. I have a stash of parts to keep the ole Oliver double digits running for a long time and the same goes for the four digit models.


----------



## JD3430 (Jan 1, 2012)

Not saying its an intentionally "rigged system", but it almost looks that way to me.

Large corporations that manufacture planned obsolescence goods like tractors most likely have meetings where they crunch numbers on how many existing 4XXX 5XXX 6XXX 7XXX tractors are still in service.

From these figures, actuaries can predict with reasonable certainty how much money to spend on new tractor wear items to get new buyers in the showrooms.

I'm pretty sure longer lasting wiring, electronics, pumps, valves, etc can be built and installed. but at what added cost? Will a manufacturer price themselves out of the market? Will they also keep repeat customers from the showroom every X number of years if they build TOO GOOD of a machine?

If a manufacturer of tedders has their spline shafts cryogenically hardened and another manufacturer doesn't, yet they look the same from the outside, the first one costs more to make and must have a higher price tag. Will the loss of sales to the cheaper unit and less trips to the showroom be worth the higher price and longer customer satisfaction?

To me, it seems like most buyers are less informed than they should/could be. Its very tough to see "whats inside the box" when you buy machinery.

Seems like older machinery was designed by engineers without majority shareholders looking over their shoulders. It seemed to last longer. They also didnt have marketing execs looking over the engineers shoulders telling them to add this trinket and that trinket to make the machine more appealing, but less reliable.


----------



## r82230 (Mar 1, 2016)

Hate to defend manufactures BUT, here is my take on somethings becoming 'obsolete' or what seems like ridiculously expensive.

Many moons ago I worked for a major boat manufacture (biggest dollar volume of boat sales, not the biggest number of boats manufactured. However both the manufactures were purchased by the same parent company). This was so long ago, that I remember when we first started using AutoCAD (is that even in existence anymore?? :huh & 'desktop' computers (I told you it was a loooonnnng time ago ).

Anyhow, if we had a dealer part request from an older model boat, we had to look up the previously hand drawn 'blue print, from a file cabinet (do they make them anymore??). Then have someone, manually re-manufacture the part. Now, realize if you are presently making the identical part it wouldn't be difficult, but if the jigs/models/fixtures or other apparatus that was used previously didn't exist any more...&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;. we sure didn't make money on the recreated part even though we may have charged what may seem a ridiculous price. If we were lucky (which generally we were), the employe(es) that previously built or assembled the part were still employed by us, which helped a lot on the manufacture of the part requested. Which in turn could/would save labor hours in the process.

Plus, there can be a huge difference in efficiencies when making hundreds (or thousands) of parts verses one part. Then you have the 'cost' of storing jigs/models/fixtures (let alone the blue prints, now computerized, but still take space, which in turn cost $$$) or worse yet making/storing a part that might not ever be requested by a dealer/customer.

I'm not saying charging 'ridiculous prices', is OK, but maybe we don't know all the facts behind the process of manufacturing an obsolete (no longer used in on the present manufacturing floor either).

The manufacture that I worked for, we jumped through a lot of hoops to make our customers happy at that time. I'm not sure they are doing so as much today. I left short after the 'bean counters' got involve higher up in management (the top). IMHO, we were headed down hill FAST, everything had to be profitable standing on it's own. The customers/employees were quite expendable it seemed. Hence, I left BEFORE they closed the plant that I worked in (with the highest paid hourly workers, but also most efficient in the company).

Larry


----------



## slowzuki (Mar 8, 2011)

These companies also build construction grade equipment, the engineers know how to spec or design for more abuse and hours, but it results in a more expensive product. The bean counters decide what goes out the door balancing low warrantee claims and low early failures vs adding more fancy features that sell units vs maintaining profits. The crazy durable tractors that existed in the 70's and 80's are most likely accidental in that they were trying to avoid early life failures in a time of such change and highly competitive growth in the market, they didn't have a great body of knowledge about the loads/time between failure on that size tractors. Easy answer was build it bigger/stronger and get it out the door, don't worry about the cents because the dollars are rolling in at the moment.



JD3430 said:


> Not saying its an intentionally "rigged system", but it almost looks that way to me.
> 
> Large corporations that manufacture planned obsolescence goods like tractors most likely have meetings where they crunch numbers on how many existing 4XXX 5XXX 6XXX 7XXX tractors are still in service.
> 
> ...


----------



## dvcochran (Oct 1, 2017)

JD3430 said:


> Not saying its an intentionally "rigged system", but it almost looks that way to me.
> 
> Large corporations that manufacture planned obsolescence goods like tractors most likely have meetings where they crunch numbers on how many existing 4XXX 5XXX 6XXX 7XXX tractors are still in service.
> 
> ...


Spot in marketing principles. One factor on the other side of the equation is that there should be more unit sales of the better built equipment. This seldom true for commodity items, but is more often true for higher priced ticket items.

With the ease of access of most everything now a days, I am not certain this principle tracks as solid as it used to. As an example, how many farmers do you know that has 'backup' pieces of equipment? Often the broken equipment gets replaced with new or "slightly less broken" equipment instead of adding a large labor component to the cost of fixing the original piece.


----------



## dvcochran (Oct 1, 2017)

r82230 said:


> Hate to defend manufactures BUT, here is my take on somethings becoming 'obsolete' or what seems like ridiculously expensive.
> 
> Many moons ago I worked for a major boat manufacture (biggest dollar volume of boat sales, not the biggest number of boats manufactured. However both the manufactures were purchased by the same parent company). This was so long ago, that I remember when we first started using AutoCAD (is that even in existence anymore?? :huh & 'desktop' computers (I told you it was a loooonnnng time ago ).
> 
> ...


CNC milling equipment and 3D printers have dramatically reduced the cost of single part machining, IF the part is vectored, not hand drawn. I have often wondered about cast/forged parts that require tooling. How does a company retain and track the tools for a hundred years?

AutoCad is still going very strong. I learned it on release 8-286, meaning a 286 PC that was running on DOS (no windows) and no hard drive. Something like 8 hertz clock speed and 2 5 1/4" floppy's to load software. Everything was command line driven; no GUI, no print preview and we only had plotters back then so messing up a print was a BIG deal. It really kept you on your toes and forced you to know the command terms, page space, paper space, etc.... very well.

I don't miss those days at all.


----------



## CowboyRam (Dec 13, 2015)

dvcochran said:


> CNC milling equipment and 3D printers have dramatically reduced the cost of single part machining, IF the part is vectored, not hand drawn. I have often wondered about cast/forged parts that require tooling. How does a company retain and track the tools for a hundred years?
> 
> AutoCad is still going very strong. I learned it on release 8-286, meaning a 286 PC that was running on DOS (no windows) and no hard drive. Something like 8 hertz clock speed and 2 5 1/4" floppy's to load software. Everything was command line driven; no GUI, no print preview and we only had plotters back then so messing up a print was a BIG deal. It really kept you on your toes and forced you to know the command terms, page space, paper space, etc.... very well.
> 
> I don't miss those days at all.


I remember working with AutoCad on those slow as molasses computers way back in the late eighties. They were hard to draw on. The DataCad program I bought in the Early nineties was ran circles around that early AutoCad.


----------



## hog987 (Apr 5, 2011)

Weather we like it or not the ag world has become more like the auto world. Features and creature comforts sell. People like all or most of the controls on the arm rest insteas of reaching another 10 inches. I mean just look on youtube about equipment reviews. On a tractor 2/3 of the review is on how the cab is layed out. Very little of the reviews now are on performance and reliability. 
Than anytime you have electric over what ever it can decrease the reliability. If it breaks is it electric, is it computer or is it mechanical? 
I do often wonder if equipment manufacturers do miss out on sales by having over priced complex equipment. But i guess as long as they keep making the shareholders happy they really won't change much.


----------



## Farmineer95 (Aug 11, 2014)

Since we're talking software, in the 3D world, the software you choose can be pricey. 10k for some, more for others. The amount of money spent just to model a part, then make an assembly model can be mind boggling. Now add in the planning software, warranty software, graphics that does manuals and different for marketing... the desktop (yes engineers still use desktops) computer an engineer uses could have up to or more than 25k of software seats on it. Not to mention the horsepower the computer itself has to have to efficiently run the software and dual LED monitors of course. 
All this for one employee so he/she can do their job.


----------



## skyrydr2 (Oct 25, 2015)

Dual monitors? We were running triple monitors back in 2006 at Woods/Wain-Roy engineering department, and yes the software "seats" are ridiculously expensive.The price we pay for a throwaway world....


----------



## JD3430 (Jan 1, 2012)

When there's a breakdown I can't fix and the service truck comes, I get pretty upset-mostly at myself. I see mostly the same 2-3 techs and they all give the same advice: buy older, simpler equipment that's easier to fix. 
I agree with them, partially. Where I don't agree with them is:

1. They don't have to run the older, less comfortable, noisier, more dangerous equipment.

2. They don't have to find the parts for them when they become obsolete.

One example was I used to own a NH1499 self propelled haybine. It was pretty simple, fairly comfortable to operate and cheap/easy to fix. 
About 5 years ago, I broke a drive sprocket bearing. Took the cover off and there it was, simple and accessible. Called parts and they had to order the part from a dealer in Wisconsin. I thought that was weird. The parts guy told me there were only 2 of those bearing left in the country and they would be no longer available. I'm sure if I did some research, you could cross over to another manufacturer to find it, but it scared me off and I traded it for a newer discbine. 
Obviously, there's a coordinated effort starting at the dealership level to make 20-30+ year old machine parts harder to get to scare us into newer machinery.


----------



## stack em up (Mar 7, 2013)

JD3430 said:


> Obviously, there's a coordinated effort starting at the dealership level to make 20-30+ year old machine parts harder to get to scare us into newer machinery.


This is simply not true. Dealers make ~ 22% more money off a piece of older used machinery than they do on new. Warranty work doesn't pay for crap.


----------



## JD3430 (Jan 1, 2012)

stack em up said:


> This is simply not true. Dealers make ~ 22% more money off a piece of older used machinery than they do on new. Warranty work doesn't pay for crap.


Maybe not for green, but it is for NH.

I had a 30 year old NH 1499 Haybine and parts are obsolete and no longer produced.


----------



## stack em up (Mar 7, 2013)

JD3430 said:


> Maybe not for green, but it is for NH.
> I had a 30 year old NH 1499 Haybine and parts are obsolete and no longer produced.


I fully understand some parts being NLA, but has nothing to do with forcing people to buy newer. It ends up being an inventory issue. Why stock a part for 30 years when there has been 3 sold in that 30 year period. I don't blame NH for discontinuing some parts.


----------



## Gearclash (Nov 25, 2010)

CNH stands for Can Not Have. They are disgusting about not carrying parts for relatively modern equipment. The 5000 Maxxums are one example.


----------



## IH 1586 (Oct 16, 2014)

JD3430 said:


> Maybe not for green, but it is for NH.
> 
> I had a 30 year old NH 1499 Haybine and parts are obsolete and no longer produced.


Parts will always go obsolete as we continue to move forward. We have more power at our finger tips now to at least attempt a substitute/aftermarket or what have you. Imagine how hard it was 30 years ago to find a 30 year old NLA part.


----------



## Hayjosh (Mar 24, 2016)

hog987 said:


> Weather we like it or not the ag world has become more like the auto world. Features and creature comforts sell. People like all or most of the controls on the arm rest insteas of reaching another 10 inches. I mean just look on youtube about equipment reviews. On a tractor 2/3 of the review is on how the cab is layed out. Very little of the reviews now are on performance and reliability.
> Than anytime you have electric over what ever it can decrease the reliability. If it breaks is it electric, is it computer or is it mechanical?
> I do often wonder if equipment manufacturers do miss out on sales by having over priced complex equipment. But i guess as long as they keep making the shareholders happy they really won't change much.


What is this "cab" thing you speak of!?


----------



## Hayjosh (Mar 24, 2016)

Gearclash said:


> Have to go back quite a few years to get completely away from tractors that depend in some way on electronics. On the IH side, all the way back to the 86 series as the 50 series (5088-5488) had the Sentry to control and monitor the transmission. Those tractors can run without the Sentry but at the risk of utterly frying the transmission if something malfunctions.
> 
> I will say that while electronic problems are aggravating, I've spent by far more money on repairing hard parts on my tractors than electronic or electrical.


That's why I love the 80's and early 90's vintage Ford tractors in the XX10 or XX30 series. New enough not to be antiques, but not so new that they've gone all electronic, and they're still tough and reliable, tons of parts available. I had a foster teen who was really into old tractors. He really liked my neighbors Ford Workmaster, but he didn't like my 4610 because "it looked to new." (his actual words).


----------

