YANMAR TRACTOR IN THE US AGAIN?
Will we be seing new dealerships and
new tractors in the United States?
Is Yanmar Back?
According to several reliable sources in the industry- new Yanmar
tractors will again be rolling.... er..... crawling into the US
again. Before you get your name on the Yanmar waiting list- these
are not, at least yet, the tractors that we have grown to love.
This new breed of track tractor uses 2 long rubber "dozer"
type tracks instead of 4 tires. The 1st of these machines, dubbed
the X80 crawler, is designed to be used primarily in orchard applications.
Yanmar has, apparently, a few of these prototype "crawlers"currently
being tested in a few California orchards. If all goes well, and
it looks like it is, around 100 of these new tractors should be
in dealerships as soon as January 2005. So what are the specs on
these new beasts? Rumor has it that the 1st crawler, the X80 will
use an 80hp- diesel (of course) in the 54" width range with
a slightly smaller version on the horizon.
When asked the $1,000,000 question about the possibility
of a future wheel based compact tractor we got carefully diverted.
Not a "yes" but not a "no" either. Makes you
wonder- doesn't it? This all seems to be good news to those of us
that love the Yanmar tractors. With Yanmar's support back here in
the US, hard to get parts for the newer "F" series tractors
and some of the older tractors could slowly start to make their
way stateside. Even better, with John Deere out of the picture (and
we are pretty sure they are) - parts for the gray market machines
may ease up also.
So what is happening to John Deere? Yanmar dealers
have received a record number of calls for Deere parts in the last
month. Customers are all saying almost the exact same thing-"my
dealer told me that they can't get parts anymore and that I should
call Yanmar" Intrigued by the attack of calls, we contacted
one of our friends inside Yanmar. John Deere is, supposedly, having
a very hard (maybe even impossible) time getting parts for many
or all of their Yanmar built tractors. As most of you already know,
Yanmar has been building most of the compact tractors for Deere
since the early 1980's as well as supplying them with parts for those tractors. One person affiliated with Yanmar explained that "Yanmar and Deere seem to be in a custody
battle now - and the parts are the kids".
For all of us out there that have been begging for
a new Yanmar- good things may be on the horizon. Only time will tell.
** Update**
In Dec 2005 Yanmar announced that the new X80 tracked tractor was for sale in select California dealerships. The site also notes that it is currently the only tractor available in the US.
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