This seems to be the perfect place to ask a big time question. If you were trading in a 2014 Volvo G970 which way would you be leaning towards a Cat 160M or a John Deere 870GP. I have been operating Champion and Volvo for over 35 years and realize it's going to a new experience to say the least. The Cat and John Deere both have their good and bad points no doubt, I am more concerned about reliability and fuel burn, the emission related problems will most likely be the weak point on either machine. If anyone has operated both machines recently could they pass on any concerns or comparisons. Thank You
Following, looking forward to any responses.
Well, I started out on a 740 champion and ran one for years then moved to a new 140h Cat which in my opinion the Cat was way ahead in the comfort and ease of operation, than I started operating the M series Cat in the Winter time, my experience with the M series Cat is that you cannot take your eye's of the road not for one second if you are doing a lot of running on the road way's to get to your roads, I find you cannot relax in a M series Cat and if you spend any amount of time in a grader you need to be comfortable, I did not find the M comfortable at all and added more stress to a long day, hands down the John Deere GP with the added steering wheel for comfort when wheeling to your next road, having joystick controls when operating and a steering wheel as a back up, they all have their problems but you need comfort to help relieve a long and some times a stressful day of grading, if you can.. try both machines would be the best, the M series like their fuel about 1/3 more a day then my 140h burns but not to much problems with the emissions junk on them other than you need a back up camera to see behind you backing up because of the raised hood in the rear to accommodate the emissions system, I'm not sure if you need the camera in the new JD or not.
Thanks for the reply, the high-speed plowing and long hours is my main concern as well, I am presently plowing approx. 160 miles of gravel road and some hourly work doing subdivisions as well with 2014 G970 Volvo. It works out on a average snow event to about 450 miles + 10.0 hrs. of low speed work which fizzles out to about 2.5 to 3.0 long days of plowing . I try to maintain a plowing speed of 25+mph with a Capital I heavy duty one-way plow and wing, of course there are a lot of variables in the average. Yearly (summer Bladeing and winter Plowing) overall fuel burn on the G970 is showing on the machine computer as 4.19 US gallons per hour = 15.86 liters per hour = 3.5 imperial gallons per hour .(this almost makes the Cat and JD guys want to puke) I had a chance today to look at a spanky new Cat 160M3 right off the boat from Brazil and I was really impressed with a lot of the features and improvements since M series inception. A lot of money and emissions are involved but I have no operating seat time other than playing around trying things and giving the salesmen some heartburn. Later this afternoon I wrangled with the JD sales crew at a Municipal trade show and they were showing off their 870GP (joy stick). Again a lot of features/emissions and money but it had a little steering wheel for roading, if nothing else it would make a nice grab handle when you smack a drift and things go south. The joysticks had a very short throw so my way of thinking is they would be more touchy and sensitive compared to the M. They are positioned different and I found the roller switches a little awkward. Naturally I couldn't lite it up inside the trade show. I still have the Komatsu guys trying to get in on our tender show as well, nice machine but lacking a engine, heavy enough but only 6.6 liter engine, plowing with a one way/wing is a recipe for short engine life and lots of fuel. I think before we go to the tendering process we will have to drag a demo up here to The Pas Manitoba (650kms. from dealer) and get some seat time, bad thing is all the tier3 machines will be bought up and I'll be dealing with DEF. I started out in 1979 on Champion 562. 740, G960 and G970 over a span of 35 years of highway work with 20 years or so directly on graders so I am hoping not to end my working life on a dud.
Your best bet is to try both machine's for a day before laying down some series coin, by the sounds of things you spend a lot of time in the cab so comfort is a must, both machines have the software built into the controls to not be so sensitive, coming of a champion Volvo will seem awkward moving to joystick control for sure, just takes some time getting used to, servicing is something else to consider as well, along with warranty work and down time, and you will have that for sure with these new machines,
I would have no use for a backup camera on a JD machine. The rear view is very, very good. Horrible on the M series. JD now offers three control designs. Standard rack and steering wheel (G models). Armrest finger controls and mini steering wheel (GP models). Joystick and mini steering wheel (GP series). They claim the armrest/joystick controls can be easily exchanged with a plug and play system. But you know how claims are.
Good well adjusted rear view mirrors are a critical thing for any grader operator in my opinion, I try to pay lot of attention to what is going on behind work wise as well as traffic management. There are times when plowing that you are watching behind as much as forward, plowing roads that are completely covered over or poor visibility is always a treat, good mirrors can really help in keeping centered on the road. I tend to do a fair amount of high speed backing (25mph) up when dealing with drifts, I would rather back up a few times than turn around or leave a half plowed or winged back drift. Cutting corners and leaving a drift incomplete will catch up eventually. Mirrors are the only way to go especially with the newer machines, with all the emission garbage growing on top of the engine they could forget about a rear window soon. As far as the rear view camera the only times I use it is when I am articulated and outside mirrors are out of whack, or backing inside the shop in winter. I guess I also keep a eye on my rear mounted wobbly as well. What I have issues with is forward visibility, I don't understand why the frame neck has too be so high at the very front end. There is no real need to have everything so high as clearance for the drawbar isn't that great even when swinging the mouldboard up and out into vertical positions. Both the 870GP and 160M are higher than they really need to be compared to my G970 Volvo. Higher machines tend to be a little spooky on slopes, the reason everybody went to the low profile cab years ago was to lower the center of gravity.
I totally agree regarding the frame height. Deere went to this build type with the G model. They claimed they gained blade height. They did not. Here's a pic of a D model on the left with lower main frame. G model on the right with elevated main frame. Both have the blade raised to the maximum. Especially note the loss of forward visibility. I maintain some gravel roads with steep, pointed hilltops. When blading over those hills I have to lean to one side and look around the main frame to see if anyone is coming. Here's a pic of the the Deere D model on the left and a CAT 140M on the right. Note the same visibility limitations.
Here's a pic looking straight forward. First is out of a CAT M. Straight forward out of a Deere D model. Straight forward out of a Deere G model.
No shorts and sneakers this time? I was always a fan of Champion and therefore Volvo's visibility. I never use the camera, but it is handy when working with a lot of guys on the ground. Some guys think it is safe to cross close behind me. We had a guy that used to see an oversized rock and almost dive under the back axle to pick it up. I set the angle of the camera just for him
It's almost like the manufactures want to fluff up their product to make theirs look bigger than their competitor, more bigger more better type of BS. I would honestly like to do a comparison same as what you did side by side for a day and really give them the close up and personal tire kicking. I did find out in the last couple of months when doing research on new graders that a real time saver is that the competing dealers are more than willing to rip their competition apart , they are well trained or versed in all the deficiency's of the other machine sometimes steering you away from their own machines shortcomings. I was also thinking that the front of the frame may not be my only visibility issue, this was taken Friday April the 13th 2018, I still have about 25 miles of road to open yet and it hasn't been fun this spring. We had so much wind this past winter and cold to boot. The snow has about 2 feet of hard crust on top that I can run the front wheels over and crystalized snow underneath, no traction and heavy. On the level it is about 4 feet deep and in the sheltered areas closer to 6 feet. I am going to wait it out for a bit until the snow gets set up and the V-plow will lift it, it's just dropping behind the plow. As soon as I figure out how to download some video I will post a few clips of how we deal with things in the north.
I can relate to having guys working in close proximity to my grader as well, I used to do a fair amount of bituminous (cold mix) grader patching. Of course we never had back up alarms or camera at that time so you had to have your head spinning like a raven in order not to back over one of the guys. On some of the longer runs you would back up at a fair speed to keep production at some kind of even keel. I would give the crew only one warning to keep out of the work zone because the next time I would come off the machine with a 6 foot asphalt lute (rake) swinging. The other thing was dealing with traffic when laying patches, it was almost entertaining watching people go thru the work zone. That is one thing about modern times that safety has improved dramatically.
Comedian talking about performing in Manitoba. He said it was minus 50. Someone asked him celcius or ferenheit? It doesn't matter...minus 50...... that's not jack frost nipping at your nose.....it it God telling you to GET OUT!
Yep that was pretty close to reality this winter, we stayed at -30c pretty much from middle of Nov. to first part of March, even this past week it was in the - 20c range overnight. We had so much heavy wind this winter and all my snow ridges turned out to be on the wrong side as most of the heavy wind came from the east, typically we get only north west winds with any velocity. Thinking back in the old days we would be just about frozen to death in the old Champ 740, just short of cutting the fan belts off to keep the 671 anywhere close to throwing any heat. We had them tarped in tight and sealed up to keep our lunch kit from freezing solid. A person wonders why he has a few achy bones and a weird sense of humor
I hear ya. I'm fortunate. I don't have people on foot around me. If I did I'd want all the technological help I could get. Would really, really suck to run over someone.....
I sincerely feel for you guys up North. We've had a lingering Winter but moderate. I've not pushed any snow. We haven't had a bad snow Winter for the last 5. We are overdue. In regards to salesmen and their lingo. I demo'd a 12M awhile back. After a week of running the machine the salesman showed up with a CAT rep to sell me. I asked them if they had ever took a close look at a Deere. They both said no. I parked my Deere beside the CAT. Opened all service doors and cab doors. Then spent the next two hours with them looking over both machines. I let the salesman point out a feature and then we compared it to Deere. The CAT rep was very quiet. He was busy typing on his Cell Phone taking notes. When the salesman and I would move away from an area on the Deere he would move in and take pictures and make notes. It was a pleasant exchange and we are still on speaking terms. I think all three of us learned a lot. I just wish someone would take all the good features of each brand and build a grader. It would be awesome.
For sure if we could cherry pick from all the manufactures and build a grader it would be awesome. My concern now is features that I am going to loose going from a G970 Volvo to either a JD870GP or Cat160M. Circle turn power is number one item, my circle has enough torque to be able pick up and spin the machine around or paddle your way out of a embarrassing situation and turn under pretty much full load or cutting pressure. As well they take a fair amount of impact before you are buying parts. The fact I am loosing 2" of mouldboard height going from 29" to 27", they say 2" is a lot depending what you are talking about but never the less the Volvo blade shape (curvature) tends to mix and blend material and can carry a pretty awesome jag of material or snow before coming over the board or into the circle throat. The 11 speed transmission is something I definitely going to miss especially when snowplowing. I can either let it do all the thinking and shifting or I can shift manually, the ability to keep your engine at the optimum torque and traction is always a bonus. I think that's one of the reasons I have excellent fuel burn I can gear up and still have enough closely spaced gears to choose from depending on load. Forward visibility over the frame is way better than the competition, gooseneck is substantially lower. Reversing engine fan, JD is standard but Cat is bucking to add it as a option? Perhaps Cat radiators don't plug up with grass or dust, I kind of think they do? Salesmen get quiet about this as most are not operators. I am going to miss a simple thing as the Volo cab steps, I have been crawling in and out of new JD and Cat machines lately and find them awkward and flimsy. That's not saying Champion/Volvo didn't have poor steps on earlier models. And it will take some time to get used to a different process to exit without a ungraceful face plant. Losing the under hood engine air intake for winter, if you have ever had to pull a filter plugged with snow on the road you will know exactly what I am getting at. I better stop writing as I am going to get all misty eyed on loosing my Volvo, just kidding.
That's the long and the short of it. Football, Hockey, snowmobiles, bikes, powersaws. Ford, GM, Dodge. We all have our preference of teams, brands, makes and models, sometimes it can cause heated arguments. We had a 1990 730. Under powered, no A/C, but it had way better visibility than the 872 they rented for a job one summer.. our 940 is quiet, comfortable, awesome heat, and A/C. The circle will swing while full and cutting, plus visability. The city here bought the last model year, and the guy loves it. Then I see guys on here that are all cat or Deere or whatever. It is a big purchase, and there should be a better way to choose than word of mouth
I totally agree with the comment about moldboard height. 2" is a mile. Dramatically increases productivity whether blading gravel roads when a lot of material needs moved or pushing snow!!! The CAT salesman pointed out to me that the 12M had easier access to the stacked radiators for cleaning. I asked why that was important? He politely explained to me that without easy access it was a hassle to clean them and that in the case of our Deere we had to remove bolts to open the access to the radiators. The factor REP chimed in an further explained to me that CAT thought thru this better than Deere. I told him I had never opened the Deere and had never specifically cleaned the coolers in 1500hrs of use. He eagerly informed me that I should do that immediately as they were probably plugged. I pull a wrench from my back pocket and said let's look. I opened the Deere and opened the CAT which had 120hrs on the clock. The CATs coolers were partially filled with chafe and dirt. The Deere coolers were all clean. The REP got red faced and mumbled "oh yeah, I forgot Deere reverses the fan". The salesman was clueless. So I explained it to him...... I think an 11 speed would be great!!!! At the end of the day that would increase productivity. Puts the machine speed closer to the perfect speed. I've only did a walk around of a Volvo. Never had the opportunity to run one. I liked what I saw.
I'm really disappointed that Volvo dropped graders from their line.
The Deere hydraulics aren’t the best. They don’t hoist you when you slide into a ditch the same as Volvo or Cat. The circle turn isn’t the strongest either. On the heating side, I think they’re okay, but not the best heater. The Deere’s do seem a little louder to me, but I wonder if some of that is because they tried to go all glass from floor to ceiling (try and clean down at the bottom on both sides). I never noticed much difference going from the 11 speed to the 8 speed in the Deere. I’ve never ran an M. Haven’t even sat in one. Can’t imagine snow plowing at 20 mph in one. But lots of guys do. The price point makes them unattenable for our work. I’d love to draw up my own design for a grader. In my case it would be less features. Less plastic panels that vibrate, chaff against each other, and mark and scratch easily. Back to something more reminiscent of what Champion was. Not bother with the moveable blade lift arms for instance. A few guys here had Komatsu 705’s too. Other then the torque converter, they were a beast too. Anymore, I’d just like the iron, a good seat, properly routed, QUALITY hydraulic hose, just an honest grader. Seems odd to me, that in 1995, Cat didn’t have a fuel gauge (dipstick on the g series and you almost had to fuel up midway through the day snow plowing), and suddenly went to drive by wire a generation later.
It would be nice to design a grader specifically for general road maintenance as a lot of graders are basically just dragging or bladeing road and plowing snow, not doing the really heavy road building or pushing scrapers. I often thought about designing a rear suspension that could be locked down when blading and be air or hyd accumulator ride when highballing or plowing to gain another 10 or 15mph in road gear. I have seen graders in Scandinavia and they dangle on the road closer to 45 mph or more. I just detest highballing on pavement with all the bucking and bounce, I have a rear mounted wobbly and it's heavy and hangs out so tire pressure is critical for me. Whenever I can I will run on my gravel roads as they ride better, when they are soft such as now or when it rains I have stick to the asphalt. I wish we could have a variable blade reach for doing different things, when I operated for Manitoba Highways we ran our two foot extension on the right side for reach when doing gravel shoulders on the paved roads. I also carried a two foot cylinder rod extension that I would stick in on the road when needed and with the side shift kicked out we could get the correct angles to retrieve the slopes properly. Probably only the Champion/Volvo circle would handle the load when reaching out to the max. The downside of having things set for reach for one side is having too much blade on the right as well, spreading to the right becomes a problem on narrower roads, straddling the crown makes for a long day. I see the new JD moldboards have a couple attachment points for the blade slide shift on the left of the mouldboard for the cylinder mounting, blade extension can go on either side and be centered. A tight easy to clean cab would be nice as well, the grader design engineers that think plush carpet type sound padding in the cab looks nice obviously never had to clean it, or been around when you tag a good ear wiggling rock and you can't see the steering wheel for dust.
I’ve been operating a M series for the last 6 years and I absolutely love the machine very easy to operate I have no issues with driving down the road in road gear or plowing snow with the M I also run a 772 GP Deere and can’t really say much good about don’t care for the finger tip controls and I feel I have more control with my M verse the Deere while plowing snow I also find the cat to have way more tourqe and luging power then the Deere that’s just my opinion on the two machines
Friend of mine runs an M. He can't understand why all graders aren't joystick. When he started running one 8 years ago and had 25 hrs on it he said "I just want to burn it". It's all about what we become accustomed to. In regards to torque. I've never heard anyone who regularly runs both to say that. My friend has commented several times that our Deere has more torque than the M he runs. Again, it's just opinions. Two years ago I had an opportunity to run a 770G, 140M and 12M in the same day. I drove all three down the same paved road to get to the work site. There's a long uphill grade on this route. The 770G topped the hill at the fastest speed. 140M was second. 12M was third. For whatever that's worth.
Rating horsepower or power to the wheels for a motor grader is probably one of the hardest things to be accurate. Unless you have a wheel dyno there are way too many variables involved unless the thing is obviously nuttless. Weight, grade, traction, load on blade, types of material are just a few variables. As ovrsd mentioned the only solid or consistent test would be on a long hill with a good grade to it. Since hills tend to be a non variable test, if you can top a hill at a given speed/gear or rpm would be benchmark. Of course there is the beer-o-clock horsepower rating in the beer parlor, were the horsepower goes up as the beer goes down.
Yep. Hard to make comparisons on the jobsite. I thought the high gear test of all three on the same hill, same conditions was as good as I could do being a simple layman operator.
Just testing to see if this works
From my understanding it was a total out of the blue global corporate decision made by Volvo to eliminate the grader and loader backhoe lines.This was really bad news for us as I didn't even have the paint wore off the mouldboard on our new 2014 G970, it instantly turned into a collectors item. I felt bad for our dealer as they had no prior inkling of Volvo sending there design, development and basically their blueprints to SDLG in China. The dealer did say that Volvo would guarantee parts and product support for ten years starting in 2014, after that we would have source parts from other places until depleted and then the cannibalizing would start. I see that SDLG had already been adding Volvo front frame and circle parts to there machine already, basically everything ahead of the cab including steering axle and components. SDLG will have to come a long way to build the rest of the machine because the rear portion of the machine is not going to cut it in the North American market. As far as their new factory in the US they probably retooled and are pumping out some other Volvo product. It's really too bad because they had a pretty decent product and had a lot of machines working in Canada, I am not sure about their export market if it was as strong as it was when Champion was the owner. I think they were getting to the point of getting as sophisticated as Cat and JD and couldn't compete.
Cool video!!!! Assuming you were using your Cell Phone?? Turn the phone horizontal. Then you get a full screen video with much better detail. I was trying to see how fast you were going?? Doesn't the dash display that information??
What kind of wing are you running? I also noticed you side delivery seems to have wheels instead of shoes
It's there. My 940 tops out at about 50 kms in 11th, he's in 10th
Speed shows on the left side but the reflection off the rear or side window wiped the speedo side of the gauge cluster out. I had just turned onto the road I was plowing and getting everything tweaked and wound up, I was only in 10th gear in the video so I would have been only 24 mph or so. I thought I would take a short video before I got her in the big onion and got rolling. I normally plow in 11 gear which gets me at 30mph when conditions allow. I knew I had some fairly stiff drifts coming up shortly, so holding a cell phone probably would have turned out badly. That's one thing I am going to miss is the 11 speed trans for plowing, you could always find a gear that was in your torque curve for speed and fuel burn. It took some Go-Pro video but it was a dud as I stuck the sticky attachment bracket on the back window, naturally I didn't get it in the right spot and the way the glue holds it be there for awhile until I get some glue release juice. Or a new back window !!!!!!!!!!
We are running a Capital I one way nose plow and Postless wing set up which is manufactured central Saskatchewan about 3.0 hrs. west of here. They are heavy duty well designed products and are very common with municipalities because of versatility and durability. I can adjust the nose blade pitch by rolling it ahead or back hydraulically and adjust the plow attack angle by extending the left push arm hydraulically for heavy plowing or ridging in fields(narrows the width) It has caster wheels (14 inch pneumatic) on each side of the plow frame that allows the frame to float with contour of the road. I have my plow wheels adjusted that I can roll the blade back and only plow the snow off and leave all the gravel on the road or roll it ahead and cut snowpack. My unit does not have the quick detach lift group, just old school pin on with a chain lift group, my next machine will have the Balderson style lift group. With this unit I adjust the lift chain tension to keep enough weight on my steering tires and the casters take the rest, or you can use the cutting edge with down pressure with the optional rod installed. I ran four winters with the same cutting edges and dam proud of that for the amount of miles that I plowed, and that's just not me bragging it's coming from the councilors and road users that I work for. The wing is Capital I as well and is ungodly heavy, but heavy for a reason because it is almost indestructible. I have the high bench model which gives me 54 inches at the front. It has the Postless front mast with a slide (optional) on the front to give the height for benching. The rear push arm extends and has a mechanical float that works well and the icing on the cake is I have variable pitch (optional) on the wing also. This allows me to roll it ahead (normal plowing) or roll it back to lift the snow. This cut angle keeps the wing in the snowbank when benching or shelving and keeps weight on drive tires, less side drift, less bounce less grey hair when high speed benching. The shape of the wing has something to do with how far it casts the snow as well and how easier it pushes than other models. I flattened a few sign posts and relocated a few driveway markers just from the blast it sends out the business end of the wing . To finish off my road circus I have a Snowgate on the end of the mouldboard because god forbid you plug a driveway in the subdivisions I plow, it's more fun thou when you plug all of them except one.
I just checked out their site. I like that high speed blade and their hydraulic v
No experience with John Deere graders, but have operated lots of 24M, 16M and 16G graders. I am very unimpressed with miniscule cab size of the <24M machines. Very small and cramped, no room for anything in them and poor ventilation in wet weather along with door glass that continually breaks. The 24M has a very large cab, which all Cat graders should have. Do not particularly care for the Cat joysticks either...like trying to operate with rubber controls. Would go back to the antler rack in a second. If I were looking for a smaller grader I would be giving the John Deere with AWD and mechanical antler or electronic antlers a serious look.
They are all coming with the “fragile” tempered glass now unfortunately. Look at it wrong and it all falls out.
We run Deere 772g, came off the Volvo 930g’s. Things I like about the Deere. Power, engine stall protection(only seen this once), front wheel assist, transmission, visibility of the front windshield/lower windshields with no support bar like the Volvo’s, fan reversing, good stereo(aux in/USB port/Sirius), heated seat/adjustability, reverse camera, washer fluid fill is in the cab with a cap that seals, strong blade curl. Dislikes of the Deere. Little bolts for the blades come from factory we had to drill out every moldboard to larger holes to use the blades we get like the ones from the 930g’s, the circle turn torque(very weak, and skips, 2,000 hours in and the brass gear is worn out), some play in the moldboard, the wing mount frame underneath the cab is completely in the way when you’re trying to lose snow off your blade, with the wing arms down when your rear tandem pivots so the front tire is up higher it will contact the wing arms and chew up your tire. Material the floor is made out of holds onto dust and dirt you gotta scrub it to get it back to black, Weak blade slide.
I always found champion and Volvo to have a strong circle