550K-750K have been put up on the deere website. With a 550K on the front page of the construction section. http://www.deere.com/wps/dcom/en_US/industry/construction/construction.page? No love for the 605 :spaz, 655 , or 450 :beatsme. Guess i'll be waiting a bit longer to see a 605K. Only thing i can think of for the 450 is they're using it to milk whatever emissions credits they have left until 2014.
the j series are great tractors,at least the 605c was designed around the j series.the 655c on the other needs to go, still all leibherr design.i remember in 2011 there was talk of upgrading the 655 but still waiting on that.has anybody ran a k series yet what does it do that the j will not, other then emissions crap,only new upgrades is noise and visibility.
They upgraded the price too. I got a quote on a 550J last year when preparing some additional/alternate funding requests. Tractor ultimately didn't get funded, so I tried another route for this FY, which now looks really good for getting the funds. So I call Deere for an updated quote and I'm told they've just gone to the K series (brochures weren't even printed yet), and the price had jumped a little. Quote arrived a few days later for a similarly spec'd 550K, and the "little jump" was over $40,000. If we get this thing, it better have an onboard coffee maker, microwave, and autopilot....
Welcome to the Forums PowderKeg!:drinkup What part of the industry do you work in?
PowderKeg, is that a $40,000, or a $4,000 spread for basically the same class machine in a newer series??? I mean, we all know inflation is coming right around the corner, but please, not like that. A rise like that would push the hourly rate for a 550 class Deere machine w/operator to what, well over $100?
The actual total increase was @ $49,000. There were increases in the cost of additional guarding, winch, plow and such (expected), and a slight drop in the gummint discount, so the actual cost increase on the base dozer package came to @ $40,000. I know, my jaw dropped too. I understand one of the K series differences is that the 550 and 650 now share the same frame, whereas the 450 and 550 J's shared frames. Of course that now puts me in the position of wanting a 650K instead of the 550... Thanks for the welcome! I've been lurking off 'n on for a good while, just finally found something to post about. I'm on the forestry side, working for the DoD - fire control, timber sale admin, forest road construction, you name it. Been either lighting or fighting fires off 'n on for 25 years+ with a couple state and fed agencies, along with stints with a paper company, logging for a short time, etc.