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John Deere Company Informative - 2004 JD 6420 Catches Fire - 2004 John Deere 6420 4WD Tractor
2004 John Deere 6420 4WD Tractor
I farm about 1400 acres in NC. I have had numerous John Deere tractors with good success. In 2004 I traded a a late model 6410 for new 2004 JD 6420 and had good experience with it until January 2010. While bush hogging some pastures on my farm the 6420 caught fire in the cab and in the engine. We were able to extinguish the fire since we were fortunate to be near a shed with a hose. The entire plastic console melted around the steering column and the wiring harnesses that connect the on-board computers to the engine were destroyed. The John Deere dealer examined the tractor, which only had 985 hours, and blamed it on "trash accumulation" under the tractor. The repair price quoted was $34,100. John Deere took no responsibility for the damage other than offering a small discount on a new JD 6430 tractor. I do not know if other John Deere 6420 owners have experienced this problem or not. I have pictures of the damage if anyone is interested. This could have been catastrophic. If we had not been near a hose then the tractor would have been completely destroyed and we could have lost some of our buildings and our forests of lob-lolly pines nearby.
Comments:
Posted by Starlord on 2010-02-08:
You feel you have been badly mistreated because a six-year old tractor with 'trash accumulation' has caught fire. Regular maintenance includes proper cleaning, and checking electrical connections occasionally. If a connection works loose (quite possible over six years,) and a loose connection that creates heat, a fire is not hard to predict. I feel for you, but you can't expect to just run something till the wheels fall off and expect to get free service. Before you criticize me, I lived on a farm for many years as a child, and we had a John Deere Big A tractor. We were religious when it came to maintenance on all our gear, because it was a small farm, and if something broke down, we were unable to pay a lot to get it going, not to mention the losses just from being broke down. We kept the equipment running, and learned how to repair a lot of it ourselves.
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