I have a friend of mine who owns one of the old RC100s that had the A/C condensor mounted in front of the radiator and cooler. He had lots of problems with over heating until he updated the location over the roof. he still had some problems with the radiator and cooler because he brush cuts low lying areas with bullrushes sometimes and the stuff is like cotton. He demoed the new PT100 forestry on Thursday and said the machine is the real deal. he told me that the machines reversible fan can be activated from inside the cab or it can operate on the automatic timer. He didn't have to get out to blow the radiator and cooler one time during the day and he usually has to do it manually with a portable compressor every hour or so with his current machine. he said the radiator was absolutely spotless at the end of his demo. He also told me that it was the coldest A/C cab he has ever been in and that it is impossible to run it on full cool for more than about 10 minutes (he said his forearms and hands started to hurt because they were so cold). He said a nice feature was that you could run the cab with full pressurization and still adjust the thermostat for the A/C temp and that the cab pressurization was amazing (night and day compared to the 297 CAT he demoed). He did most of the demo with his DAVCO but the dealer brought out ASVs Fecon that was made exclusively for the PT100. He tried it on timber up to 8" and said the machine and the mulcher work beautifully together. he said the two speed motor on the mulcher made a huge difference compared to his FAE mulching head. The machine runs at 3650psi at 40gpm. he is now waiting for a trade in value from the dealer for his RC100.
As many of you will remember in November of lats year I made alligations regarding the RC-100 and it's use for masticating.
Last week ASV delivered a brand new ASV-PT-100 Forestry unit in an even trade for my RC-100 as a settlement.
After 10 hours of use the PT-100 Forestry is the real thing. ASV has made substantial improvements. Many of the complaints that I have read on this web site has been addressed.
They are:
The positive pressure and AC are great.
THe hood protection and hood now both fold to the rear providing good motor and filter access.
The full gages vs idiot lights are great.
The seat with suspension is great for the back.
The forestry guarding is heavy and well thought out. It fits well and is very strong.
Due to the poor rear visability I installed a rear view camera which works great.
A few things that I contacted ASV on is that the forestry package is missing two important items:
A my old RC-100 had a metal guard on the rear of the implement carrier. The new package. ASV was nice enough to allow me to keep the old one.
Secondly my old RC-100 had a guard system that guarded the undercarrage from sticks entering from the underside of the tractor.
All in all the New
Factory Equipped PT-100 Forestry machine is as good as anything else out there in this horsepower class.
In a settlement with OSHA ASV has retested the ROPS used on all the old style RC-100 and PT-100 machines. Upon approval of the increased load certification you will be provided with a new ROPS certifiction label for your machine and you will be legal to operate.
With the new machine delivered and being far superior to the old machine the issues of cab dust and OSHA compliance will not be addressed by us.
We worked with Jim Christensen and Richard Rosen at Terex to reach our settlement. ASV and Terex did what was right.
AND YES I WOULD BUY A PT-100 FORESTRY AGAIN. IT IS FAR SUPERIOR TO ANY 100 hp MACHINE OUT THERE.
Jon Remalia
Wildfire Solutions of Northern California
