Complaint Review: AGCO/New Idea - Duluth Georgia

New Idea Farm Equipment are a RIP OFF & a Nightmare to operate.
2011.08.22

Avoid New Idea farm equipment, they are a total rip off!

This really burns me up something fierce because this is such an industry standard nowadays it's impossible to escape. Every company does it but some do it worse than others an "New Idea" (what a mockery of the term) is by far one of the worst. Thanks to CAD design engineers can now design a machine to function as they wish but also at the same time rig it up in such a fashion so it'll fail exactly how & when they want it to an will make darn sure you have to come to them to get parts.

Now New Idea is really just a subsidiary of "AGCO" who everyone has learned the hard way are a really mean vicious company that gouges it's customers in the most "f**k you" way possible. These devils hide under multiple brand names like Challenger, Fendt, Massey Ferguson, VALTRA, etc. They are massive an have made their money through 3 lame a** ways which are

1. Designing planned obsolescence in all their products to the extreme, these psycho's are so evil at it that they make Apple Computers look like a reputable company.

2. Monopolizing their part # index so to force you to buy their ridiculously over priced books & they also do everything possible to keep their information off the internet so it's like a battle of the minds to find the information you need online. These guys are more hardcore on keeping their stuff off the net than Hollywood is protecting their suck a** movies an AGCO does a much better job.

3. Engineering fail points in all their equipment. New Idea is a mockery of the term because it's just the same old(((REDACTED FOUL LANGUAGE)))tactics they've been pulling. The whole purpose of creating a "new" company was to trick people into buying the same old rip off s**t they made before because I doubt anyone with a brain would buy any of it if it had a AGCO label on it. Now don't get me wrong in thinking I got it in solely for AGCO. It seems these Farm Equipment companies in general have become so corrupt that it's become a game of choosing the lesser of the evils, the stories I hear about John Deere's, Allis Chalmers, Whites, Versatiles, makes me wonder why anyone touches these brands.

We have a 4865 Baler an while it does the job fine & dandy it's a total rip off on how they designed it. The level of planned breakdown put into the engineering of it is insulting. I'll simply make a quick list of 5 common mechanical fail points that I have to fix regularly like an oil change.

1. Roller Bearings go exactly after 100-300 hours (100 for main drive, 300 for non drive) with such consistency that I can set my watch to it. Sure enough they are an oddball size so rather than go with a more reliable & common size bearing they cause you to spend twice as much to have one made by NSK. Right there they have doubled your expense while at the same time making sure you have to replace them often. ALL 24 of them! It's like every 100 hours you just bought yourself a new baler. These suckers are $90 bucks a pop plus you have to go to the city to get them since they have to be made there, any common bearing store does not stock these sizes so you lose a lot of time making trips to the city. Even worse is if they go they can totally melt down taking out the spindle an a roller costs $360 each. If you get lucky it's a major b***h to get these things off, you literally have to carefully cut them off with a grinder.

2. Roller Bearing Housings: The bearing housings are COMPLETELY non machinable because every machine shop out there that will do it at the rate to make it cost effective barely justifies the cost. Also if you plan to do it yourself you find it so hard if not impossible to fit in any common machining equipment without some serious work. All of this could have been avoided if they put in REPLACEABLE copper rings in the bearing housing so you just have to replace the ring if the bearing goes. Not that you could do it because there is barely enough metal holding the entire housing together so removing any to put a ring in would result in the housing breaking.

3. Rare Bolts: This is by the nastiest & cheesiest way to rip you off. I have seen these annoying "rare sizes" everywhere but "New Idea" takes the cake. On the bearing housings you can ONLY use these EXTREMELY hard to find "Grade 8" carriage bolts. There is no way to modify the machine to take a larger & more common "Grade 5" carriage bolt because the bearing housings will only take a 9/16th an you can't drill the holes bigger because there is ONLY just enough metal to hold everything together so removing any will cause the housing to shatter so you would have to go through a lot of work welding onto the housing to reinforce it. An what really sucks is you never should reuse the old bolts because they will most certainly break before the bearing goes again an when/if they do the roller will cause a lot of damage just because a few bolts broke.

4. One of a kind belts: This I do not mind so much except that they do not last an again they are expensive. You have to check constantly the tightness of the belts an adjust CONSTANTLY. They could have made the belts "self adjusting" but no........... They even made sure that the belts have to be replaced when they stretch to a certain point an of course like clockwork they only last so many hours. The only thing these belts are good for are tool box lining mats.

5. Baler Teeth: I really hate replacing them because it's a hard job but also because they are total weak sauce. Balers still use these crappy all steel teeth an New Idea has these TERRIBLE buggers that have "kink points" so whenever they hit a rock they will break exactly at those kink points. I have an old single rake an I have almost never had to replace a single tooth but on my newer equipment (1980's an up) they go through teeth like a hockey player.

Well there you go, the amount of "down time" I have experienced on this lemon in unforgivable considering the very nature of farming where it's a race against time to harvest. Even worse is that working on a Baler is the most knuckle breaking headache there is, it's brutal work. There is doing business an then there is just being a crook. If they want to make "parts only from us" then fine but when they do it to this degree an engineer periodical fail points into it then they are just causing me massive personal physical pain & financial woe to the point I simply have to avoid all AGCO/New Idea & subsidiary equipment.

RIP OFF!!

I personally want nothing to do with farming, the market is rigged & everyone is leeching off the dude doing all the back breaking, knuckle busting labor in the field. Farming = slavery an it's time for a slave revolt!