Comparison of 12 large tractors sold in Brazil

How do you know if an agricultural machine is of quality? This question can be answered in different ways, but always comes at a different time of answer. If you are in a hurry, you can choose to use the machine first and over time conclude about its quality. The problem involved in this alternative is that the process is time-consuming and expensive, because if the machine at the end of its use has poor performance, the producer will have spent a lot of money to reach this conclusion. For other rural producers to benefit from their bad experience, it will depend on communication between them, which is also not so easy, forming a general concept of the model and brand.

The second way is to trust the technical information and advertising marketing of companies and depend on the reliability of the information. In general, most companies are careful and provide reliable information to the consumer market. However, there are clear cases of overestimation of values. The third alternative is the intervention of public authorities in technical information, formalizing a system of evaluation, approval and certification of machines, based on a global standard that provides comparison between models.

In this sense, several countries have adopted this quality assessment system over the years. Since the beginning of the 47.473th century, the United States of America has adopted a system for evaluating and informing buyers of agricultural tractors. Brazil, through Decree No. 1959 of 1990, established the National Plan for the Agricultural Tractor Industry and provided that each manufacturer would be obliged to send, for evaluation, a tractor manufactured in the country. This system, which worked satisfactorily until XNUMX, was extinguished by the federal government and after that, this initiative was never resumed.

With many changes, over time the global system migrated from assessments made in each country, using its own criteria and with particular technical standards, to the adoption of a global standard, first ISO and more recently, the OECD Codes.

These codes were developed based on existing methodologies by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), an intergovernmental economic organization with 38 member countries, founded in 1961 to stimulate economic progress and world trade. The OECD headquarters are in Paris and were founded by the United States, France, the United Kingdom and Germany. Brazil joined the system on September 06, 2019.

Among many OECD actions, the one that most interests the field of agricultural mechanization was the creation of the Agricultural Tractors Program. In this program, the OECD provides ten codes, the first being a general explanatory text, another that deals with the assessment of quality and performance of tractors and eight codes referring to safety and ergonomics, specifically rollover protection structures (ROPS) and falling objects (FOPS). Currently, there are 30 stations accredited by the OECD around the world to evaluate tractors and more than 3.000 certified tractor models (2021 data).

Code 2, referring to the evaluation of tractor performance, is a protocol that contains a methodology for evaluating the engine by power take-off (TDP), hydraulic power, fuel consumption, maneuverability, center of gravity, braking, external noise and a test track, to measure traction power and fuel consumption.

The evaluation reports of all tractors that pass through official testing stations, distributed around the world, are made available in a standard format and can be consulted by anyone on the laboratories' website and in the OECD database.

To carry out a comparison between the models of large tractors offered on the Brazilian market, we used the Nebraska Tractor Test Laboratory (NTTL), in the USA, which is linked to the Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources, at the University of Nebraska. , in Lincoln. On this institution's website you can download test reports, searching by manufacturer, brand, model and type of chassis. We were careful to check which tested tractors are or were on offer in the Brazilian market between 2022 and 2024, ordering them by maximum engine power and by type of chassis, that is, auxiliary front-wheel drive (TDA), individual tracks and 4x4 integral articulated. We then organize comparison pairs, based on the equality or similarity of the engine's maximum power value.

We use two parameters to infer engine efficiency and two for power transmission. To differentiate engines, we use the amount of power produced per cylinder (hp/cylinder) and the weight/power ratio (kgf/hp). To demonstrate the efficiency in transmitting power to the wheels, we adopted the dynamic traction coefficient (kN/kg) and the traction efficiency (%) on a concrete track.

Thus, applying these criteria we were able to pair six pairs for comparisons between similar models. Check out the comparison on the following pages:

Case IH Magnum 340 X John Deere 8345R

John Deere 8370R X Massey Ferguson 8737S

Case IH Magnum 380 X Fendt 939 GEN Vario

Fendt 942 X John Deere 8R 410

John Deere 9RX 490 X Case IH Steiger 500 Quadtrac

Case IH Steiger 470 X John Deere 9R440

Jose Fernando Schlosser,
Marcelo Silveira de Farias,
Gilvan Moisés Bertollo,
Henrique Eguilhor Rodrigues,
Agrotec Lab - Federal University of Santa Maria - UFSM
Alexandre Russini,
Federal University of Pampa - Unipampa