John Deere Co....ATTN Scott

jgh · Feb 26, 2005

20050226

[Sometimes I feel like a student, ala S250, I have spent so much time on heavy equipment. And I run a restaurant, mainly!]

Y'all boys sure 'bout the compact Deeres? I'd never heard that Hitachi had supplanted Yanmar....

And I believe a German company still makes NH's mini-excavators, SCHAEFF. But the motors are Mitsubishi on both. Not sure about the big boy NH's, not many of those in our area.

Cat small excavators also are Mitsi-motored and are in fact made in Japan. Some kind of joint venture there.

Most Bobcat products have Kubota engines but are made in NDakota.

My NH TN90F tractor has an Iveco diesel engine. It was made in Italy as was the whole tractor, and reeked deliciously of garlic while hot and breaking in. That is not a joke but was hilarious and golly do I miss that stage in its tractorhood!

I once looked at a Case utility tractor (xx70 or 80 size?) and noted a Perkins engine--owned by good ole Cat, I believe.

Truth stranger than fiction--Izuzu, part owned by GM, makes (or did) engines for Hitachi Mini-excavators. I have photography from 2000 to back that one up!

Even Mack Trucks sometimes have other company's motors, usually where there is some kind of specialty need such as mining (heavy trucks with steep grades), etc.

I suppose the rule is...Don't say nothin' bad 'bout no one when visiting dealers!

Hope I amused, amazed and informed, but don't hold me to all three and good night.

/forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Jim

Tigerotor77W · Feb 26, 2005

Heh, yeah... lot of companies dissipating their workload these days... though perhaps it happened in the past and no one bat an eye. Who knows.

The Case line parallels the LBX line pretty well... when the first LBX ADTs rolled out, I thought that they were in fact designed by LBX themselves. I knew the Cases were just about identical to the LBX models but never thought another company would supply them TO LBX to begin with. Interesting.

The whole Schaeff deal is interesting in and of itself, because in theory, Terex owns Schaeff. So NH is buying Terex (now) machines... they must not consider Terex to be a threat in the CCE industry.

Cummins and CNH have some sort of agreement. They reached a 5x10^n (that is, either 500,000 or 5,000,000) engines milestone a few years back.

Anyhow, [edit: I believe Hitachi makes the smaller Deere exs, but it's possible that Yanmar produces Hitachi's models. Odd, now that you mention it...]

Sorry, coopers, for dragging this away from Deere. /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif Anything else you wanted to know?

ScottAR · Feb 26, 2005

Since Yanmar has started marketing it's own machines in the USA, I believe they are out of the Deere makin' business.

Larger NH excavators are Fiat-Hitachi; now called Fiat Kobelco.

The NH/Schaeff/Terex horse trading is pretty interesting...
I wasn't aware of that...

Cat and Mitsu have had a joint venture since the late 40's or early 50's. All Cat excavators are made there since Cat sold off it's mining shovels. I forget who bought em... Mitsu also makes all the dozers under 100hp, and the smallish wheel loaders.

Cat bought perkins to secure engine sources for it's small product lines.

Hitachi has always used Izusu to my knowledge.

Several of the CaseIH tractors have Perkins power as did the older maxxum (now McCormick) tractors.

Case has a JV with Cummins called Consolidated Diesel Corp.

Komatsu builds Cummins designs under licsence I believe.

Some of the smaller Macks had Renault engines; I dunno about the drivelines.

coopers · Feb 26, 2005

Wow, a lot of interesting stuff. No problem bobcat....what do you guys think the future is for Deere? I've heard in the past that Deere lagged behind in a certain category like agriculture or something like that and recently have come back and are doing well. It's weird because you always hear that Cat is the most well known name and such, which it is....but I don't hear of people purchasing their equipment, I mean, I don’t see a lot of Cat equipment out here, maybe a few backhoes and a lot of agriculture stuff just because I’m in farm land…but that’s about it. Deere, you hear it all the time. From CUT's to forestry, construction and so on....I personally think Deere is better (but I like Case backhoes way more than Deere or anyone else) when it comes to their construction and forestry equipment, but I may be biased just because I’ve been around them so much. Seems to me that Deere is doing well and they will continue to do better, I think that they did well in their design with the new excavators (2003 and newer). What do you guys think?

Blake
WA

Tigerotor77W · Feb 27, 2005

To be very frank with you, I believe certain companies are enforcing the "low-cost" method of producing machines. This certainly isn't to say that making machines as expensively as possible is a good idea; it's saying that some companies turned to a maximize-profit business model, not the "let's make the best product possible" model.

I believe Deere has done a tremendous job of restructuring its entire product line. Just about every major line has underwent a complete turnaround within six years (excavators, dozers, wheel loaders, SSL, ADTs, backhow/loaders), and the the innovation that went into each overhaul is pretty astonishing. While other competitors haven't quite been turning out the same new iron that Deere has, I can guarantee you they will have a whole new slew of products out within the next few years as Tier III comes on. If my impressions are correct, Cat will be throwing quite a few new products at us soon, and my previous sense of lack of innovation on their behalf should be eridicated somewhat. Which, for me, is a relief. I could only hope that another company would do it, too.

Why people don't buy Cat around you -- several reasons. One of the general reasons I think is that Deere entered the markets at a very opportune time. Around 1997-2000, when the market was doing really well, contractors were looking to replace older equipment -- mainly equipment from the late 80s or early 90s. (Cat 225 excavators, 950/966E or F wheel loaders, Deere 544G wheel loaders, etc -- older machines.) Deere just so happened to release a new series of excavators, dozers (under 100hp), and wheel loaders at the time, all three categories of which had been somewhat stagnant. Cat had been marketing its D3C for a long time -- it was at Series III standing when the Deeres came out -- and its G-series wheel loaders were only beginning to come out (with the 914 and 992G, then with the 980G, but not yet targeting the 150-260 hp class, whcih was were a tremendous amount of growth seemed to be occuring). For this, Deere came out as a "better" product than Cat -- which may or may not be true. If a contractor was comparing a prototype 972G or an ancient 950F to a "real" 744H (either better because it's a finalized design or because it's so much more powerful than the 950F), well, yeah, the 744H comes out on top. I presume a few contractors were looking for more in a loader and saw Deere there, and being there, just claimed that its loader was more powerful than their old Cat. Well it darn well better be if it's replacing an old loader -- and especially so if it's of a smaller size class!

That's just my opinion. I think Cat got burned and it doesn't want to go through that again. Do I believe it has a long way to go? Yes, it does. Other companies are experimenting with hydrostatics a bit more (Komatsu in its wheel loaders; Liebherr already uses hydrostat in its entire line of WL); other companies have refined controls (Case backhoes, I have heard, are smooth as slik) that Cat still can't quite match. But I still believe Cat is about to do something exciting -- even as much as I try to stay on top of the industry's releases, there are products I have no idea exist -- and they're going to do it well.

Least, I hope so, because I want to work for them. /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

coopers · Feb 27, 2005

That's an interesting outlook. I don't have acess to the financial world of heavy equipment so I did not know that Deere happened to redo it's whole line of machines in time for contractors to start wanting newer machines. That makes sense then. Cat just seems to not be all there yet. /forums/images/graemlins/crazy.gif I hope we buy some new case backhoes for work, I'm curious to know how the controls feel. I know that with are fairly new 580SL std. hoe that the thing is **** powerful. You can't have the throttle up too high when using the hoe because the thing just goes nuts if you aren't smooth enough with the controls. Cool stuff....!

Blake
WA

Tigerotor77W · Feb 27, 2005

I don't whether the financial stuff I mentioned was exact. But from what I observed, the late 90s were a boom time and there was a LOT of new iron being put out around then. Whether contractors really did have a buying splurge, or if I'm way off the mark, I dunno...

coopers · Mar 4, 2005

What was Deere's year turning point for their products? What year was it that they went through and came out with new lines of product like the 120C, 160C LC and new wheel loaders etc.?

Was it in 2003 or '02. I think it was '03 right?

Blake
WA