Product improvement or planned obsolescense?

[TimC]

It's definitely not planned obsolescense in the traditional sense...

The best example I can give you of planned obsolescense is your computer... Try buying the latest software and run it on a Windows 98 PC... Or try to hook up your 25 year old Tandy 2000 to the internet. Or try and get parts for either one.

BUT, with tractors it's not the same. You could go get a brand new 5' bush hog and pull it behind a Ford 601, 8N, etc, or a brand new Kubota Grand L. No real problem there... you can also still find parts for older machines.

I agree with most posters, it's marketing... While many people here may not care too much about the bells and whistles, most here would also not turn them down as a "No cost added" feature.

Finally, if you look at the cost increases on the materials that go into a tractor (mostly 1000s of lbs of steel) and then look at the price increase over the last few years, I bet you'd find that prices have risen less than the materials that go into a new machine... So, it'd be hard to say that the manufacturers aren't passing at least some of that savings back to the customer...

Just my $.02

 

[MikePA]

The posts by people who rail against companies making a profit, well, any company except the company they work for, are hard to comprehend. They reveal more about the poster than the companies they complain about.

All companies are in business to make profit. If people don't like the price one company charges or if they can somehow determine they're making an unfair profit (whatever that is) the solution is simple, don't buy from them.

No one is 'forced' to buy a new tractor unless;

1. They want to perform a new task their existing tractor can't perform
2. They want to perform an existing task faster or more efficiently.

 

[flusher]

I'm curious if others feel the same as I do concerning tractor model turnover.

I bought my JD 4200 in 2001, and since then JD has issued the 402x series and now the 200x series, and for all I know I may have missed a series or two in the HP range similar to my rig.

My question is; are the manufacturers doing actual product improvement, or is it planned obsolescence? It seems to me that the 4000 series tractors from the 2001 era are fine units and would have benefited from product improvement and evolution instead of product replacement. My rig is a fine unit; but it could use product refinement with time, not product replacement.

After all, tractors, even CUT's are utility vehicles and tools, and not cars trying to capitalize on the latest fads and styling trends. It seems to me the manufacturers could and should exploit a product line before replacing it with another new line. Look at Peterbilt, Kenworth, International and others in that they are still using the same basic cabs as they did in the 1970's; but have refined them over the years to include new technologies worth incorporating. Granted I'm not including the new aerodynamic rigs in my comparison; but the traditional styled trucks.

Roy Jackson will say the JD 790 is a tractor for the owner who wants a 1950's style of JD. I'm sure he is right and there will always be a place for simple value priced units such as the 790; but more modern units should have a longer model lifespan than 2 to 4 years.

It appears the tractor manufacturers have taken a cue from the high tech computer industry in that frequent product model turnover is considered a good thing.

I'm looking forward to hearing what other people think.

Depends on how you define "obsolete".

I have a 1964 MF-135 diesel. It doesn't have the conveniences of my 2005 Kubota B7510HST, but I can get parts easily for both. IMHO the 135 is no more obsolete than the 7510.

Tractors are not like PCs since tractor improvements are small incremental changes, not order of magnitude quantum leaps that you see in PCs. The Intel 486 chip of the late 1980s contained about about 1.2 million transistors. Intel's latest Penryn chip has 410 million. In no way are today's tractors a 400 times improvement over late 1980s vintage tractors in any spec you wish to cite.

Twenty-year old PCs are museum pieces with little or no spare parts support. These things are truly obsolete. Twenty year old tractors are still doing a day's work and can be easily repaired with readily available parts.

So far CPU chips have followed Moore's Law pretty faithfully (doubling capability every 18 months). The part of the semiconductor industry that produces CPU chips historically has experienced price deflation (i.e. unit prices failing to keep pace with product improvements) over the past 25 years or so. I don't think this is true of CUTs.

 

[mjncad]

Depends on how you define "obsolete".

I have a 1964 MF-135 diesel. It doesn't have the conveniences of my 2005 Kubota B7510HST, but I can get parts easily for both. IMHO the 135 is no more obsolete than the 7510.

Tractors are not like PCs since tractor improvements are small incremental changes, not order of magnitude quantum leaps that you see in PCs. The Intel 486 chip of the late 1980s contained about about 1.2 million transistors. Intel's latest Penryn chip has 410 million. In no way are today's tractors a 400 times improvement over late 1980s vintage tractors in any spec you wish to cite.

Twenty-year old PCs are museum pieces with little or no spare parts support. These things are truly obsolete. Twenty year old tractors are still doing a day's work and can be easily repaired with readily available parts.

So far CPU chips have followed Moore's Law pretty faithfully (doubling capability every 18 months). The part of the semiconductor industry that produces CPU chips historically has experienced price deflation (i.e. unit prices failing to keep pace with product improvements) over the past 25 years or so. I don't think this is true of CUTs.

What Flusher says about tractors and computers is quite correct. However, Flusher's comments reinforce my opinion that the tractor manufacturers are releasing new models on a frequent basis because someone in Marketing has decided that the computer industry business model applies to tractors too.

I would rather see incremental (a.k.a. evolutionary) model changes to a tractor until it is no longer feasible from and engineering and business standpoint to improve the model. Heck, even the ridiculously market driven auto industry gets a decent run out of a good pickup design before they start from scratch. The Ford Super-Duty series came out in 1998, and the 2008 model year has seen the biggest changes in the model line since its inception, and yet the family resemblance of a 2008 and 1998 Super Duty is obvious. But that is a 10-year run so far for the Super-Duty as opposed to a 2 - 3 year run for the early 2000's Series 4000 tractors from JD.

As some posters have mentioned about model number confusion for incremental models, a cue from the aviation industry would easily cure that dilemma. Just add a suffix of some kind after the model number like they do aircraft. There are B-52A's, B's, C's, etc. My 4200 could be a 4200A, a 2008 model could be a 4200D depending on the number of improvements since its inception.

 

[ccsial]

What Flusher says about tractors and computers is quite correct. However, Flusher's comments reinforce my opinion that the tractor manufacturers are releasing new models on a frequent basis because someone in Marketing has decided that the computer industry business model applies to tractors too.

This applies to almost all the products of this ever increasingly competitive world. Every one is looking for that "edge" to sell their products. The global enconomy is putting a lot of stress on wealthy country manufactures to compete with lower prices as well.

Have you looked at washing machines lately. Some of them have more controls and readouts than my first airplane. Some buyers think they need all that stuff.

Al long as people have money, marketing departments will work on how to get it from them.

 

[MikePA]

Al long as people have money, marketing departments will work on how to get it from them.

Nothing wrong with this. That's their job.

The underlying assumption of may of these posts is all consumers (except the posters) are idiots and have no power to resist marketing. Just a herd of lemmings rushing to the cliff of yet another purchase they do not need.

Isn't it the height of arrogance to sit in judgment of other people's purchases? Who are we to determine someone else's needs? How can we know if they 'need' certain controls on a washing machine? Answer, we can't.

I have greater faith in people, that they have the intelligence to define their own needs and look for products that meet those needs.

 

[ccsial]

Nothing wrong with this.

I agree, I'm a business man too.

 

[Robert_in_NY]

As some posters have mentioned about model number confusion for incremental models, a cue from the aviation industry would easily cure that dilemma. Just add a suffix of some kind after the model number like they do aircraft. There are B-52A's, B's, C's, etc. My 4200 could be a 4200A, a 2008 model could be a 4200D depending on the number of improvements since its inception.

What John Deere does is change the last two numbers of the model designation. It goes from the 8200 to 8210, 8220 and currently the 8230 (I don't follow the JD compacts to know what models they have so I am referencing the 8000 series.

New Holland added a A to its models so the TS went to a TS-A, TN went to a TN-A. However, New Holland is changing all its models to a number system like John Deere now so the TS-A is now a T6000 series. They are doing this so customers can better understand what frame size tractor they are looking at since New Hollands letter system was quite confusing to almost everyone.

I have no idea what Kubota does but Agco did something like New Holland recently.

John Deere likes to change the hood design every time it changes the model designation. I am not sure why exactly but they do this on all their models. I guess they do this to help people identify what model tractor is in the field from a distance so everyone knows who has the newest tractor

I have also noticed John Deere updates their model numbers more then any other tractor company. They make money still so I will assume they know what they are doing.

 

[Farmwithjunk]

I have also noticed John Deere updates their model numbers more then any other tractor company. They make money still so I will assume they know what they are doing.

"....Know what they are doing"? They wrote the book on marketing tractors. Or at the very least, they wrote the most recent chapters. The marketing dept. at Deere Inc is probably MORE responsible for their success than any other single part of the story.

No one is perfect. No corporate giant AG/construction/forrestry/consumer products company is either. But, EVERY brand is always chasing Deere. EVERY brand compares their latest efforts to Deere. EVERY owner/end user always compares their brand of choice to their neighbors Deere. They are the bullseye everyone else is trying to hit.

How many "units sold per year" is that reputation alone worth to Deere? Who knows. But you can bet the ranch Deere values their status as much as they value designing the next "better mousetrap".

It's all about name recognition. No name in the industry carries the clout of JOHN DEERE.

All things being equal, model for model, option for option, Deere has legitimate competition. There are multitudes of competing products that are as good, even better that what Deere sells. But that IMAGE ends up being a tie breaker more often than not. The validation of that image is the fact that Deere is almost always in the top 2 or 3 in every conceivable catagory. They're a tough act to beat.

FORTUNATELY for some, unfortunately for Deere, some people aren't always image driven.

 

[Robert_in_NY]

Morning, I understand the marketing department of Deere and don't fault them at all. I am just amazed Deere keeps spending so much money retooling new hoods everytime it changes the model designation a tad bit. But with a new hood everyone can tell you have the latest and greatest