Agco to close MF Factory

[sjb]

Agco has annouced the closure of the wests largest tractor factory, at Banner Lane, England. The home of the grey fergie. Anyone got any ideas where they will build 200 and 4000 series MF's plus agco allis and challenger alternatives? Seems they are continually moving things around, does this bring any sort of stability and quality to the product?

[Red_Painter]

They were talking about closing the Banner Lane factory months ago in an "Implement Tractor" article. I guess it has to do with costs connected with currency exchange. Does the UK not use the Euro currency? They said local suppliers were doing what they could to reduce their prices. Too bad. Those tractors have a great reputation in North America.
I would guess they may be built in France or maybe Brazil (at least for the Americas) since similar looking 5000 tractors are built there.
How about another Agco aquisition or Same group? The way things go today, maybe Mexico or China. My guess is France if the cost savings are sufficient.

[leemsutton]

I guess a lot of it is to do with the CAT/AGCO agreement and also the cost of production here in the UK.

Everything here in the UK is getting more expensive so it woul dbe cheaper to build them somewhere else and then ship it over.

OR - could this be the start of the reduction of MF as we know it. Do you think that the challengers will be the new MF's.

Perhaps we will be buying a MF 62 series for the badge only when really it will be a challenger that was built in the states!!!!!!!!!

[kenjar]

According to the statement at the Agco site the high spec models will be scourced from France. Lower spec units will come from Brazil. Transaxles that were made at the UK plant will come from Gima.

You can go to www.agcocorp.com/
check out the corporate news section. The news release is there.

[AgMachinery]

Ratliff said that this could happen a couple of times before in public. Last time as far as i know it was about a year ago. As Lee says he didn't like the high pound. It made the UK produced tractors far to expensive. He threatened to close the plant if the UK government didn't do anything about it. He seemed to be very disappointed that the UK didn't join the Euro.

Aside from the currency concerns, AGCO said the biggest machines made in Coventry, at 110 horsepower, did fit in with a trend towards larger tractors driven by the consolidation of farms. As a result, the plant has been running at just above 50 percent capacity.

This is found on the Yahoo website:

Production of basic tractors now made at Coventry will be transferred to a low-wage site at Canoas, Brazil, while higher specification tractors will be made in Beauvais, France.

"The strategic value of Canoas for export business is derived from lower product costs and a favourable currency," AGCO said.

[Martijn Oortgiese]

A couple years a ago I,ve hear the rumor that New Holland was to close in England and to move to brasil. Look at Deere and CNH the made the same tractors as in Europe. Ratliff has right production cost will to high. now England didn,t go whit the euro. One think I know MF will be MF and Fendt will be fendt. Thats the good strategy of AGCO. They don,t paint Fendt red and sell it as Fendt. Like other big names do.

[eppie]

Hey, they did it with White, Allis, and more of those N.A. brands. And what was running last year around the Beauvais factory?? it was only having an MF cab, badge and paint, the rest was Fendt. At first, Ratliff said that Fendt will be Fendt and MF won get the Fendt vario tranny. Now they have that red painted proto, within 10 years they have pushed red Fendts a.k.a MF vario through your throat. It's just strategy, to calm down the Fendt drivers.

There is just one thing for sure in tractorland: Zetor will be Zetor. (11641 excluded. and Kubota?? connected with Iseki perhaps?)

All the rest will be repainting and rebadging. Even Deere does it. "still John Deere"? John Deere buys Renault, Carraro and used to buy Zetor to 'camouflage'

Green painted (camouflaged) Zetors fit better in South american markets with their civil wars... ;D

Other small independents like Landini/McCormick share models, SLH-Deutz fahr make tractors that have to be ashame wearing the name Deutz when they see our original D50. Valtra uses Carraro trannys with Deutz engines for their narrow models.

There ar not that many original tractors left.

[Woodbeef]

Ahh.....Renze.....the whole Valtra 3000 series is built by Carraro ,not just the axle.

Of course Zetor does not badge engineer anyone elses tractor at this time. Do not be too hasty though,if they want a bigger piece of the US pie they might just take on an Asian compact or two in the future.

[sjb]

The idea that tractors are original, 100% one make is not true for any manufacturer. They all source at least some items from OEM sources. It's just not economically viable to develop everything yourself, hence green Zetors, every colour Carrarro's, green Renaults etc etc. If the farmer would pay for a 100% one make tractor that never broke down and lasted a life time I'm sure someone would build it, market forces. But the price would be incredible.

[eppie]

Hey woodbeef, Zetor wants to buy Projestov, the maker of the compacts sold in th U.S. as 2040 and so on.

Back in the days of the Motokov imperium, they had a whole line of compacts.

Besides, HTC main strategy was to make a full line of compacts to 200 hp on their own. I think badge engineering doesn't fit in that strategy. They have started to give the narrow UR1 an update, what didn't happen since 1984. Now they are assumably bidding for ZTS-Tees, since ZTS is nearly bankrupt. There are some small compact builders left in the Czech rep. and they wont cost them much. unpronouncable names like Projestov will be glad to have Zetor engines, know-how, and most important, sales channels and state-of-the-art economical leadership by HTC.

[kenjar]

Hey Renze,

Do you have the link for Projestov?
I found a site for them once and cannot locate them now.

Thanks kenjar.

[eppie]

I have seen a website 2 years ago, but couldn't find it yet.

[kenjar]

Renze,
Have you checked out these sites?

www.rehos.cz/ click on Nabidka

www.ags.cz/

[eppie]

nice links, the Agrojet mowers are imported to the Netherlands.

But the tractors on the first linked page has no TZ-4-K-14 on them, i think those are Carraro tractors. The badge on the nose is also Carraro, i think.

Have you seen that AGS manufactures cylinder liners for Skoda, Zetor, and even Sisu??
www.ags.cz/vlozkyan.htm

Hey, here is a projestov manufactured tractor. The front axle hubs could be the same as on the Zetor 5245
www.agrosort.cz/Cze/foto.asp?co=118
Or look this German site:
www.lindner-agrar.de/mt8.htm
This is a successor of the TZ-4-K14, practically the same. nice page with all implements:
www.agroservispv.cz/Agroservis/textokno.htm

Did you know the Lombardini engines in the TZ-4-K14 are contract manufactured in the ZTS-Tees Martin plant??