If Massey Ferguson is so big....

Older Massey engines were great (Perkins). Their hyd system was awful (slow and weak). Their attempt at a powershift (multi-power) was bad but no worse than the early JD powershifts or the Ford select-o-speed.

I do own a MF40 backhoe and it gets the job done. A little underpowered for it's size but the Perkins engine never misses a beat. The industrial hyd on the MF40 work great but they use the same old ag power steering pump (that's awful). All in all it's a pretty good hoe to use around the farm but I'd hate to try to make a living with it. I guess you could say that for any backhoe made in the mid '70s.

Spud. What outlandish claims did I make? I can go down a long list of MF tractors that I sold that actually spent more hours accumulating time on a technicians time card than were accumulating hours on the tachomater while working. Sadly, that is literally the truth. I sold Massey's in good faith (and I still do, I just sold a low hour used MF 281 today), but at the end of the day they could be disappointing. I'm just glad that I got out of the MF dealership before it closed it's doors for good along with a lot of others in the Southeastern US. John Deere is not perfect either, no company is, but I feel blessed to be doing what I'm doing and fortunately I can have enough money from time to time to buy another old Persian Orange piece of machinery to mess around with.

The thing to remember is Massey Ferguson's North American tractors and combines from the 80's were pure  junk. However todays AGCO tractors have nothing to do with Massey Ferguson other than the decal on the side. Todays AGCO are as good as anything out there regardless of the color. It's like building the best car in the word and deciding to name it a Yugo. Can you say "market resistance"?

I took the family to Panama City Beach this summer and noticed that all the state mowing tractors that i seen were Massey in FL.

Dave,
I agree with your analogy.  You can take a Fiat and put an Allis paint job on it and sell it value priced just fine.  What AGCO is doing is taking an Allis, putting Fiat paint on it and pricing it like a Deere.  Or using your analogy, taking a Chevy, putting Yugo logo on it and pricing it like a Cadillac.   Or taking a Corvette, putting Camaro styling on it and pricing it like a Ferrari.  LOL 

I always liked going the other way.  Like taking an Dodge Omni, leave the styling alone, (except the little GLH on the side),  but put  a turbo and intercooler on it and a few other modification and surprise people that don't know.  Or taking a Taurus and putting that high performance engine in it, (can't remember what they called that).  I laugh at kids now days cause they take these little foreign cars and put big muffler son them, spinning wheels and lights under them and think their cool.  I'd love to get an Omni GLH up next to them and blow their socks off.  OK, I'm officially off topic.

Its all relative to where you are in the world, here in Northern Ireland MF is huge. Maybe unsurprising as this is Harry Ferguson Country. I was thinking about it, and on our road alone there is 13 MF tractors still working for their living, from a 60's 35 to a brand new machine. You would be amazed by the amount of Red machines that are still in Ireland and Britain. 

Adam.  What models do you have issues with.

I've read that there is supposed to be a fair amount of Oliver/White design in the powertrain on the new Agco tractors. I have no idea if there is any truth to that though.

I've been watching this post for a while. I have to finally speak up. We have had massey and allis on our farm since before I was born('59).  Our main work horses have been massey's. We have never had any major problem on any of them. I have two of each now and the newest one is a 5455 4x4 massey with Dynashift. I enjoy running this tractor. My brother has mostly jds 100+hp, one brand new , and one 6080 allis. I like using the massey as much as any of the jds. Nick 

Spud,
It was an analogy.  I'm sorry I should have been more clear for the kool aid addicts.

Some people on here got really butthurt about them dropping the orange paint..... Dont worry about it.  Alot of them also more than likely werent major buyers of new tractors either....

Yes Spud you are and I know because I was one once too.  There are lots of addicts in farming that only buy something because of its color or name and most of them are Deere buyers.  I was once an AGCO addict and woke up after someone high up in the company lied to me.  I've never said anything bad about the new AGCO tractors but their upper management is absolutely awful.  Many farmers, employees and dealers think AGCO's  management is terrible too.  If I slam MF because I think upper management was idiotic to go to them instead of AGCO/Allis in NA and any excuse I've heard from them doesn't hold water.  Their hypocritical and have some hidden European/Wall Street agenda.  After all I invested in them monetarily and emotionally it hurt to be lied to.

AC Farmer I think most people ticked at AGCO are the ones that have bought their equipment.  I've owned/own compact, mid sized and large AGCO tractors.  I have several AGCO implements and many Allis pieces too.

For the record the new MF/AGCO tractors are very good machines.  The SISU powerplant is very nice and the transmissions are first rate.  The cabs aren't the best but their OK.  My only complaint is around here dealers are far and few and their priced comparible to Deers'.  You can get a similar New Holland with a decent engine, decent transmission and nicer cab for 15-30% less.  My other issue is that I don't think AGCO is going to survive with it's current upper management so who is going to supply parts for a mostly European tractor down the road? 

Spud. I sold Massey tractors for about three years and I had a ton of problems with the Massey 400 and 500 series utility tractors, the 1400 and 1500 series compacts, the 3600 series "high end" utilities, as well as a lot of problems with the 5400, 6400  series tractors that I sold. I think every one of the 400 and 500 series tractors I ever sold ended up coming back to the shop or needing a big field service call within the first 10 to 20 hours of run time. These tractors were built for AGCO by firms of Brazil, Turkey, and some by TAFE out of India. They especially had a ton of problems with the neutral start switches, PTO safety switches, and stuff like that. The 1400 and 1500 series compacts were built by Iseki out of Japan and we had several of these that needed to be disassembled and reassembled several times before they were even sold to have major frame and rear end components completely swapped out for recall purposes and then when these tractors finally made it out of the dealership they were heavily plagued by hydraulic problems. The 3600 series tractors are built for AGCO in Europe and they all ended up coming back into the dealership to basically be completely torn down, worked on for recall and warranty purposes, and then put back together only to come back in in the next 10 to 15 hours to be torn down again due to transmission, hydraulic, and rear end problems. The 5400 and 6400 series tractors had severe problems with electronics and hydraulics that translated to a lot of functional problems with the transmissions, SCVs, PTO, and 3 point functions. Of all the 5400 series tractors that I sold I think all of them were traded in on John Deere 5025 series and 6000 series tractors before they reached 1000 hours. I will not even talk about the MF 2600 (built in India with knock off Perkins engines, called "Simpson") series since the quality was obviously so bad on them that I vowed never to sell them from the first time one of them got delivered to the dealership.

I've been selling John Deere now for over three years and I've never had a major problem with one like I did for dozens of Masseys that I sold. Color doesn't matter since I know a lot of the orange ACGO and yellow Challenger tractors that corresponded with the Massey models also have had a lot of problems. In my opinion Massey is just a name anymore..... The company has gone bankrupt on a few occassions and the name has been bought and sold, bought and sold a few times by holding companies. There really has not been a true original Massey Ferguson design since probably the 1970's. Some of the tractors that had the MF name like the 390 and a few others were great tractors. but that quality is not there anymore.