Does this tractor transmission give Matt more bang for the buck?
14 Nov 235 min 54 sec

Join Matt Miles on his farm for a look at the Fendt 936 Vario tractor's performance. In this video, he shares his impression of the CVT transmission and discusses its potential to enhance farm productivity. How does it stack up against the rest of his fleet and why it might be a wise investment?


00:00 While farmers love machinery, and I'm no exception, I'm coming at you from the seat of a Fent 9 36. The story here is taking power 'cause we all love horsepower and actually 00:11 putting it to use, what if you could make your machine more efficient through a better transmission? That's what we're talking about today at Miles Farm. 00:19 We're staying here with my man Matt Miles. We've got David Soliday from Fent. We're talking about a tractor that's been on your farm. 00:26 You've been trialing it now for a month. You've used it mostly in tillage applications. Tell us about your trial that you're doing with this tractor and what excites 00:34 you? Well, we're basically comparing it to what we run. You know, we uh, we run a certain brand of everything and, 00:40 and we've been looking at these at trade shows. They're awesome looking. This is an absolute Cadillac and so we wanted to put it to test on the farm and 00:47 so far it's, you know, the power, the um, ease of operation. Once you figure out the buttons on it, you know, it's, it's uh, 00:55 it's pretty amazing. You've Used it in, uh, deep ripping and you've used it in field cultivator applications, right? That's how it's set up. And you've got PO Bakers to cover. Uh, 01:04 one of the things that excites you is the transmission. Tell me about that. Yeah, well it's ACVT transmission, which kind of you, 01:11 you can kind of assimilate that to a, if you got a manual transmission in your pickup or you got a automatic, you know, you're gonna always order the automatics if you can. 01:19 There's very few standards sold anymore, right? They went from four or five speed transmissions and now my new pickup's got 10. So you can see where the CVT this is way ahead of what even these automotive 01:29 companies have come to it. It gives you a smooth transition from gear to gear because there's really no gear there. 01:34 Okay, David? Um, you know, growing up I'm on tractors. Yeah, you clutched it, you put it in range, high range, medium range, low, 1, 2, 3. 01:43 We are away from all that. This is, this is comparing it to Matt's pickup truck. It's 10 speed automatic kind of a thing. Why do I need that? 01:52 You know, it's important to get power to the ground in, in a tractor situation where this, this tractor with a continuously variable transmission CVT transmission gives 02:00 you that opportunity from 65 feet an hour to 33 mile an hour transport speed. So if we're running, you know, 02:05 having to go a long distance between farms or fields, we're able to get there. But with the infinite speeds you're able to hit the entire power range and 02:13 that's what's really important to make sure we get that power off to the Ground. Alright, so going down the road at 33 miles per hour, that's cool. 02:17 If you're hauling your silage wagons and you know, whatever you're transporting from one farm to the next. In general, my tractor's probably, uh, 02:23 gonna go between one to four miles per hour out in the field. Aren't I really just using one or two gears then? 02:29 Yeah, but there's a lot of gaps that, that you're missing there even within that, that that range from a speed perspective, 02:34 this tractor is a smart tractor so it's able to know what it needs to go whatever speed you need to go to get that job done and and which it will do 02:40 that. Okay. This is about a 350 horsepower tractor. It's probably a pretty standard size. You've got a lot of places you plug in a 350 horsepower tractor. 02:48 Does this look like to you, you're getting more bang for your horsepower buck because of the transmission? No, absolutely. 02:55 I mean it's basically telling the tractor what to do and so it's running at whatever speed is most efficient for that operation. And, and you know, 03:03 we do so many different operations. So one operation you may be running six miles an hour at 1400 RPMs for the next one you may be running five miles an hour at 1600 RPMs and it tells 03:14 it, it talks to itself and tells it what's the best bang for your buck in that operation. 03:19 Is one of the offerings to a guy like Matt Miles here, he's got a lot of acres to cover. He is got a certain time span to do it. Is it expediting the process or is it efficient use of the diesel? 03:32 Because it seems like if you're doing it the right way, you're gonna conserve diesel. Yeah, so there's a couple things and, and we'll get into fend id, 03:39 that's called the fend id low engine speed concept where this is AMAN engine, MAN diesel. And what that means is, uh, it's a German diesel, 03:47 it's able to lower your RPMs and which means less fuel. 'cause our max torque on these engines are about 1300 RPMs. So it almost sounds like the tractor's not even running. Mm-Hmm. 03:56 It did. I mean I was very surprising. I was like there's no way we can get this done. You can't even hear it running. You know, farmers are notorious wide open. Right, right. 04:05 Whatever the RPMs give it all it's got. Yeah. Right. And we've learned through efficiency ratings Yes. That, that they're doing things with this tractor that, that make it more efficient. 04:14 You just gotta get used to being able to adapt to that situation, David. Alright, so we can maybe save some fuel. 04:19 Have you demonstrably been able to tell a farmer you can peel off six tenths of a gallon per hour of usage because of the transmission? Are there, 04:27 is there data that backs this up? Yeah, There absolutely is for the transmission and then for the engine as well, we're able to pull a lot of that data off a can buss and able to see what the 04:36 tractor's actually doing versus, you know, what their competition's doing today without Getting too engineery. This engine, this, this, 04:42 this transmission where we're going with this, um, it's an improvement. Yeah. The farmer is saying, I don't know man, 04:48 it sounds like there's gonna be more maintenance. Sounds like too many bells and whistles gonna make it harder for me. What if it breaks Answer that, uh, objective. 04:55 Yeah, so I'm Sorry, answer that. Uh, shall we say excuse? Yeah, so with a vent tractor, uh, it comes with gold star warranty three year, 05:03 3000 hour. The customer doesn't touch it. Um, the, the, the dealer will come out and do all the maintenance, the service on it, et cetera. And uh, and then if we can't get the tractor fixed, 05:10 if it does go down during that period, um, we can't get it fixed within 48 hours. We'll get a loaner out until we get that tractor up and running. Yeah, 05:16 That's huge. Yeah. And you've not seen anything that, uh, has you concerned about this when it comes to the transmission thing? 05:21 Is there anything that a newbie, if you put one of your hired guys in here, you're gonna say, hey, 05:26 'cause it's gonna be too new to them to understand or is it pretty well do you think 05:30 Actually the transmission is easier to run than a manual transmission because you don't have to, 05:33 he don't have to choose what gear he's going in the tractor chooses It for, put it in drive and go put 05:38 It in drive and Go. He's Matt Miles, he's David Soliday. I'm Dave Mason coming at you from Miles Farms talking about a new transmission 05:44 that might make your horsepower more efficient. Putting the power to the ground as we say, till next time.

Growers In This Video

See All Growers