As Jason and I find ourselves in what feels like an endless cycle of broken things I accidentally made a joke today. I was looking at our John Deere garden tractor, dead in the driveway yet again. Jason saw me looking at it and said "nothing runs like a Deere." (Surely everyone knows the John Deere slogan?) My response was "yes, nothing runs like a Deere - when it feels like running."
Then I moved on to the Ford slogan: "Built Ford Tough." I can hardly type that with a straight face. Apparently our Ford tractor didn't get that memo. Or maybe the real question here is exactly how tough - or not - is Ford tough? From what I can tell it is about as tough as I am when I see a snake.
Then there is our Duramax diesel truck. According to Chevrolet it is "Like a Rock." My response to that was yes, if built like a rock means it wants to be an inanimate object and sit there immobile all the time. If that is the case our truck has this rock thing down pat. I mean our truck is all over being a large, inanimate object these days. Like a rock indeed.
The sad part is that all of these things I am referring to are not old, have been meticulously maintained, and on top of that they were expensive. I would feel better about it if these were old, cheap pieces of junk (well apparently they are junk but I digress . . .) that never had any maintenance. Sometimes it feels like you just cannot win.
Jason was having so much fun with some of these slogans (much of which I cannot put in print) he even wrote up a few of his own thoughts on this topic. A two for one blog tonight!
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(from Jason) It seems sometimes like I'm surrounded by farm equipment that comes with catchy slogans attached. The reason for this is that it's a lot cheaper to come up with a catchy slogan than it is to actually build equipment that will run and keep running through years of normal farm wear.
Nothing Runs Like a Deere. Exactly, except it needs to be preceded by "Thankfully". When our diesel JD 455 lawn tractor gave up the ghost three weeks ago I brought my 35 year old Kubota B7100 (no slogan attached) that hasn't cut any grass for *two years* up here to replace it. Not only did it start right up, it actually did a much better job of cutting the grass that the JD ever did. So much for running like a Deere.
Chevy - Like a Rock - Well, this one's pretty accurate too. Rocks don't move without a lot of prodding and neither has our Chevy truck. At least not lately. It's spent ten of the last thirty days in the shop and would anyone care to guess it's location this evening ?
They may well be Built Ford Tough but what they aren't telling you is that Ford was the most sickly kid in it's class. I can't tell you the number of times our ancient, high hour Kubota M4950 loader tractor has come to the rescue when our Ford 7610 was under the weather - again.
Please feel free to share your modified slogans in the comments. We would love to have some more laughs on this subject!
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Lighty having a good roll . . .
. . . and showing off his results. Don't ever say that we don't keep them clean here at Paradigm Farms.
Baby, Tony and Homer
A typical scene that Jason and I get to enjoy every day. Oskar, Toledo, Kennedy, Rocky and Donovan
MyLight and Norman
Elfin and Grand were on a mission to go somewhere
Gibson and Lofty waiting for breakfast
Maisie showing off her good looks
Dutch and Renny waiting for breakfast
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4 comments:
When it rains it pours eh? Can't come up with anything as clever as your slogans, which are funny - unlike the inspiration for them. :(
I swear by our Kubota tractors. (mine is nicknamed 'orange crush')
Dad spends way less time fixing equipment now, compared to when we had Deeres. Way less.
I borrow a full sized Kubota for moving the manure mountains, and despite the owner's regrettable lack of maintenance + much rust it keeps on ticking.
For trucks I ♡ toyotas.
My brother always says about JD's "runs like a deer, smells like a john". FORD stands for Fix Or Repair Daily.
That said, the old Ford tractors used to be pretty good. Unfortunately, like a lot of things, as the years have gone on, the manufacturing quality has gone down.... Good luck!
Chris in KY
F O R D -
Fix Or Repair Daily
Found On Road Dead
I have to admit I'm chuckling, because we own both a Deere and a Ford and they both *KNOCK ON WOOD* have been very good to us... Now, granted, these are not farm vehicles but they do see plenty of use. We have a Deere L110 lawn tractor (your basic small, homeowner's model) that's 11 years old, and a '95 Ford F150 that's my husband's daily driver. Big Red (the latter, of course) especially doesn't owe us a thing. Her body is rusting and she's been misfiring lately, but she keeps on truckin'. If I recall correctly the Deere has needed nothing done in its lifetime except oil and gas. It did have a tire that kept going flat but that was easy to replace.
I know you guys put your motors through a LOT more wear n' tear than we ever could, so I hope everything is "feeling better" soon!
P.S. We bought the Deere through their in-house financing, and that is one credit card co. I never minded calling. You get a live person in WI every time and they were unfailingly nice, polite and helpful, even when I was calling to see if I could reverse a late fee - which they almost always did.
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