In defense of Deere - we sold a lot of new 350s and 450s to loggers and dirtmovers. The 350s broke to pieces - but the 450s were extremely rugged and we had almost zero problems with the transmissions until they got high hours on them. John Deere DID get sued over every HL-R trans they ever made - including all the 2010s and all 450s up to the newest 450C models. But that lawsuit had nothing to do with trans failure, it was all about them taking off in "neutral" and killing people.Problem is now - they all have high hours on them. Even if a trans was recently "rebuilt" who knows how many parts that still worked - were reused not renewed. We had a Case industrial dealer across the road from our Deere dealership. When the Case place went under (burnt down), we hired two of their "anti John Deere" mechanics. After a few years - both the guys felt the Deere and Case 450s were pretty much equal in regard to how rugged they were. That's saying a lot considering how they felt at first. I worked for Deere at three dealerships for a span 35 years. At present, I own one Deere crawler, three Allis Chalmers crawlers, one Oliver-Cletrac, one almost-Case Terratrac, one Case crawler and two Case backhoes. With farm tractors - I have 8 Cases, 2 IHs, and one Deere. So, guess I'm not very brand-loyal to Deere.
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