Surely AGCO closed the wrong plant?

[Agmachinery observer]

Doesn't it seem ironic to you all that AGCO closed the factory that has the products with the best reliability record? Look at history and Banner Lane has always produced the best tractors, certainly much better than some of the disaster areas made in France.

MF has always survived on the strength of its British tractors, even though many of the French tractors have been sub-standard. But it's probably the 6100 series that did the most damage, particuarly at a time when the trend was away from Banner Lane tractors of 50hp-100hp.

I think the reaction to the closure will not be good - MF will lose a lot of 4300 series business if they produce a Renault-type replacement.

Still, that's their decision. Good luck to them.

[Fred]

From reading the Agco statement carefully it seems the geardoxes from GIMA will be new, giving them a chance to update the designs it says! This could be a receipe for a downturn. The present gearboxes are simple and proven but probably are quite expensive to produce with old factory technologies etc, so excellent chance to cut a few corners with the new ones. Having not been impressed sitting on a 165 and 590 for endless hours I didn't have time for the red ones. However I did end up in a 690 for some time- comfortable but rotting fast!! The 398 was a total surprise and to my mind better than the 4200 series on steep slopes, sad day when they stopped them. I haven't heard of a 3000/6000 series that didn't have something that didn't work. I guess we'll have to wait and see. Maybe in ten years Agco will ask for the site back off Tesco's.

[Friedhelm]

Wrong or right, who knows really? The future will teach us .
The main problem MF had in the past were not home made. The former Owner just wanted to earn a lot of money and were not willing to invest for the future. The result was the 6100 er Series. It was developed on a low budget und not tested long enough. So problems appeared on sold tractors. This is why french machines have got this bad name in common. Those problems were solved and the machines are running good and without problems these days. This had not such a impact on the Banner Lane made tractors because those tractors were build on "old" technology. In fact we have never had such good tractors like the 6200/8200 series developed under AGCO. I visited Beuavais several times and AGCO really took money and changed a lot at the factory. New tractors are tested very long , IMO too long sometimes, and machinery is good and without any faults if it is going to be sold.
A lot of the tractors which leave Banner Lane are sold to countries outside Europe and NA. So the cost side is very important to be competitive now and in the future.
To close factories is nothing new. Just look at Case, first they closed Neuss under CNH they sold Doncaster. TO believe the dutch magazine Boerderij CNH goes from 60 factories in 1999 down to 39 factories in the near future. Also the platforms on which the tractors are build goes down from 66 to 35. This results in lower costs a year: 254 million Euro are saved a year by this way of building tractors.