 | Home > Off Topic > Tractors.. |
 
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| custom90 Member Since: 21 Jan 2010 Location: South West, England. Posts: 20754  
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Are you sure you don't mean the Defender.
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9th Jun 2014 8:47pm |
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| mrd1990 Member Since: 16 Aug 2012 Location: Wales Posts: 601  
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This is a comparison to the defender after being in a tractor today. When people say defenders are "tractor like" it's an insult to tractors..
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9th Jun 2014 9:15pm |
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| JWL Member Since: 26 Oct 2011 Location: Hereford Posts: 3443  
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All very nice but, you start looking at ones that have got a few hours on them when they're a few years older and still see if you have the rose tinted spectacles view then. Tractors have quite a few creature comforts in them because they can be your work place for more than a couple of hours a day, every day. There does come a point when you are glad to have a breakdown to get out of the thing.
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9th Jun 2014 9:18pm |
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| shaggydog Member Since: 12 Aug 2012 Location: Kent Posts: 3347 
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True, But you can buy a brand new defender for £32k
A brand new tractor is (last time I looked) £100k |
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9th Jun 2014 10:18pm |
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| dnorrishill Member Since: 15 Jul 2011 Location: Hampshire Posts: 619 
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Thought was going to be a thread about favourite tractors... International 1056 was one of the best I ever drove.
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9th Jun 2014 10:46pm |
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| Cupboard Member Since: 21 Mar 2014 Location: Suffolk Posts: 2971 
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A Defender with a CVT gearbox would be lovely
The first time I drove a Defender I forgave it for being a bit agricultural, then I drove my first tractor and was amazed at the improvement. Today my arse has been keeping the air suspended seat of a little Fendt 412 warm, meanwhile the fantastic air conditioning with continuously variable temperature and fan settings kept me comfortable. Yesterday I did only average 4MPG though. Lots of short road sections hauling grass in a fairly big (14t) trailer to the farm. We've calculated that the 412 on hedgecutting works out to be the equivalent fuel consumption of driving along a motorway doing 40MPG, so for what they are they're pretty efficient too. The trick gearbox really helps, you're always in the right gear for the job. Come to a hill, the engine will stay in its sweet spot and the gearbox will adjust itself so you're getting the most out of it. You can set the engine to peak power, peak fuel economy or whatever you like, and get the gearbox to work its magic to keep you there whilst getting maximum possible performance. Fantastic stuff. The new ones come with a 7 or 10" tablet, your choice between hydraulic settings, gearbox settings, trailed machine settings, cameras, job statistics, current performance etc etc, or a combination of the above, and if you need the instruction book it's all on that in addition to the paper copy. A tractor needn't cost £100k, but can easily cost twice that. All depends on what you want. Something like a Fendt 700 series (middling to large, 160-240HP, best on the market) will be £80-130k, but a McCormick will be a lot less, Zetor even less. We've just bought a second hand, 2004, 100HP mid sized McCormick for small jobs and that was £13-14k and that's a lot of tractor for the money. That's still got a suspended seat, A/C and whilst it doesn't have the CVT it's got a semi-powershift gearbox and full power shuttle which is lovely and easy to use. Four gears on a rocker switch in four ranges, clutch to change ranges (or just put the shuttle in to neutral). Changing direction is as simple as flicking the shuttle from forwards to backwards and its electronic clutch does all the rest. The Fendts' shuttle is even better because you're doing it all wear free in the transmission. You can go from full forwards to full backwards and the flick of a switch entirely done by clever gearbox trickery (it's like the Prius, they have a planetary combining direct engine drive with a variable hydraulic drive. Varying the hydraulic component sets the effective gear ratio). They couldn't be easier to drive either, foot on clutch, turn key, engine goes brum. Foot off clutch, push drive lever forwards. The longer you push it forwards for the faster you go, pull it backwards to slow down, keep pulling backwards and you go backwards. |
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9th Jun 2014 10:55pm |
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