Whatever happened to Claas Round Balers?

M

Mike

Member
As I passed a neighbours field this evening where they were baling his Hay up using 2 Claas round balers, (254 I think) it made me wonder why I havent seen a new one in years, where as they were a popular choice years ago
Did they fall way behind Welger and McHale in quality or what?
 
Mike said:
As I passed a neighbours field this evening where they were baling his Hay up using 2 Claas round balers, (254 I think) it made me wonder why I havent seen a new one in years, where as they were a popular choice years ago
Did they fall way behind Welger and McHale in quality or what?
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It would be like going into a hardware shop looking for cordless tools and the workzone one beside the milwaukee for the same price. No brainer
 
Claas biggest problem was that they didn't listen to the feedback from the people that used and repaired the machines.
Claas wouldn't hear the customers requests for stronger build quality, bigger bearings, stronger drive lines, greasable bearings and to do away with that prehistoric gib head key method of fitting sprockets etc.

It was a shame as Claas had a big share of the market in the 90's the machines were nice to use and the netting system was more reliable than others
They beefed up the newer machines eventually but it was too little too late in my opinion
 
The pick ups on the newer ones were to tight, as in the bars over the top they didn’t leave enough room between them and the pick up bands for bigger swaths to pass through and because they were rigid if a lump went up it got jammed in the pick up before it ever got to the rotor. No drop floors, a stupid b*stars of a bar to reverse the rotor to try push the lump back into the pick up so you could pull the fingers off yourself trying to get it out.
Back door valves couldn’t hold tight so bales were always different sizes if baling light swarths and the operator wasn’t watching to make sure the pressure didn’t drop back too much.
a stupid control box where you had to start baling the first bale and trip it manually then the rest would auto net on a good day, on a bad day they’d net whenever the hell they felt like it then wouldn’t net after you reset the knife etc.
The one thing I did like on them was the floating top 3 rollers that tightened the bales a bit quicker.
The 46 was a better baler in many ways, our 46 often baked beside a 255 and it would rake in stuff better and there was nothing between them bake for bale
 
Had a Claas 44, 62, 46 and 255 over the last 25 years. Only the 46 left now. 44 was an excellent baler that never cost a bearing in tens of thousands of bales. 62 was as good but realistically the bales were 5 and a half foot high so the lorry men wouldn't haul them. The 255 had a short stay as it made quite big bales too. The 46 has had a few bearings changed and the door pressure system tweaked but has a decent output for a handy hay and straw baler. I baled 250 bales of hay today with it in around 5 hours and it's not power hungry.
 
First net baler the father had was a claas it was the first and last claas here supposed to have been a bad yoke, I must have been complaining from that buggy…
 

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MF30 said:
Had a Claas 44, 62, 46 and 255 over the last 25 years. Only the 46 left now. 44 was an excellent baler that never cost a bearing in tens of thousands of bales. 62 was as good but realistically the bales were 5 and a half foot high so the lorry men wouldn't haul them. The 255 had a short stay as it made quite big bales too. The 46 has had a few bearings changed and the door pressure system tweaked but has a decent output for a handy hay and straw baler. I baled 250 bales of hay today with it in around 5 hours and it's not power hungry.
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Really? Uncle had 44's and 46's and they gave plenty of bother. He used to have a piece of plywood on the wall of the workshop with a diagram of the position of all the roller bearings drawn on it with a nail in the middle of them and always had a spare bearing hanging on every nail. He was baling a lot of silage though. They were miles behind modern balers in build quality, although a Welger was really the only competition they had at the time. He went to a Welger 235 and has stayed red ever since. I don't know the day nor the hour I saw a new Claas round baler.
 
What year did net come into play actually im starting to have my doubts about piloting the buggy that time ?
 
MF30 said:
Had a Claas 44, 62, 46 and 255 over the last 25 years. Only the 46 left now. 44 was an excellent baler that never cost a bearing in tens of thousands of bales. 62 was as good but realistically the bales were 5 and a half foot high so the lorry men wouldn't haul them. The 255 had a short stay as it made quite big bales too. The 46 has had a few bearings changed and the door pressure system tweaked but has a decent output for a handy hay and straw baler. I baled 250 bales of hay today with it in around 5 hours and it's not power hungry.
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Your 6640 was doing well with a 255!!
 
Net first appeared around here in 1994 on New Holland and Claas balers and was in more common use by 97/98
Contracting friend of mine bought a new 46 in 1992 , narrow pick up , twine only followed by NH then Krone and then Welger
 
TAFKAT said:
Really? Uncle had 44's and 46's and they gave plenty of bother. He used to have a piece of plywood on the wall of the workshop with a diagram of the position of all the roller bearings drawn on it with a nail in the middle of them and always had a spare bearing hanging on every nail. He was baling a lot of silage though. They were miles behind modern balers in build quality, although a Welger was really the only competition they had at the time. He went to a Welger 235 and has stayed red ever since. I don't know the day nor the hour I saw a new Claas round baler.
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I probably should have added that our 44 only baled around 300 bales of silage during its stay here, the rest was hay and straw which probably was the reason for its longevity.
 
Masseyrk662 said:
What year did net come into play actually im starting to have my doubts about piloting the buggy that time ?
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The guy i drove for had a new RP 200 in 1995 which had net although we didn't use it straight away, might of been two or three years and then it was difficult to persuade people to have it. Did the last of the RP 12's have it? Thought there was one not far away with it RP 12s maybe? Jeez it would be painful having to watch the string going on now!!
 
The 46 we had here was a 97 and had net on it. I think some of the 44’s had net too? @MF30 would probably know for definite?
 
They were too soft and wouldn't be built for the workloads nowadays.
There's lads picking more grass with balers now than some lads are with harvesters.
Picking up 30ft rows everyday you'd want a well built machine
 
drew said:
The 46 we had here was a 97 and had net on it. I think some of the 44’s had net too? @MF30 would probably know for definite?
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Yes some 44 balers had net. There was a climbing frame over the twinebox and you climbed up here to fit the roll of net on top of the baler. Looked very much like an afterthought compared to the 46 which was fully integrated into the original frame.
 
johndeere6920s said:
They were too soft and wouldn't be built for the workloads nowadays.
There's lads picking more grass with balers now than some lads are with harvesters.
Picking up 30ft rows everyday you'd want a well built machine
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When they were driven with low hp tractors they survived as the tractor power dropped off on a full bale but when 150 hp kept driving grass in something had to give.
 
They were the baler of choice by our contractor in the 90's, and he was making a serious quantity of bales too, but it was 390T's that were driving them, so there was only so much power going into them
 
I confirmed this morning that picture was 95 and was the first and last time net was used until 2001. apparently a lot of people didn’t like it originally and thought it would never take off
 
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