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CNKS
10-31-2003 19:50:40
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Re: sharing IH dealer experience in reply to Terry, 10-31-2003 08:08:52
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Dr. Evil has it right. IH had good engineers, the marketing people made them rush to market. As to the 560, the main problem was a 6 cylinder engine mated to an SM transmission and rear end. the rear end couldn't take the power. The head engineer who designed the tractor was fired by a new CEO, although he tried to get sales to hold back releasing the tractor until he could get the bugs worked out--not the engineers fault. I believe Deere became the #1 manufactuer in 1958, ironically the same year the 460/560 were introduced. Get a copy of the book "A Corporate Tragedy". Somewhat biased against IH, but probably mostly true. I am not that familiar with IH beyond the letter series, but I understand that IH got their act together with the 706, 806, 656, etc. Other series had their ups and downs, some good, some not so good. Their last series before the merger, the 5288, etc were good also, but along with strikes, recessions, oversupply and management problems, particularly in the late 70's early 80's, along with much better management at Deere, they could not survive. As to the competition with the "smaller" companies Allis, Oliver, Ford, Case, MM, MF,etc, Deere is the ONLY company that has not gone broke or merged with some other company. You have to give them credit for that.
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