Fendt Fleet: Q&A with John Scobbie

We had a chat with John Scobbie of D Scobbie & Son regarding his fleet of Fendt tractors. D Scobbie & Son have been a customer of ours for 50 years, purchasing tractors and implements to support their busy contracting business.

John Scobbie with his Fendt 724

Can you tell us about yourself and what you do? 

I’m 49 years old and the business was started by my father about 50 years ago. We do a bit of everything – a lot of sowing, slurry, silage, dung spreading, square baling, round baling, seeding, and anything else people want us to do really.

What is the seasonality of your work?

Spring, summer and harvest are our busiest times. During the winter we can keep ticking over with slurry and dung spreading if we get a frosty spell. Winter is generally getting quieter, and summer is getting busier – its starting to become a very stop start business. It is definitely getting a lot more seasonal than it used to be.

What are the main challenges you are faced with?

Weather and getting part time staff in the summertime is getting more difficult. To be honest the biggest one is the weather and also paying the bills! It’s frightening how much everything has increased in price – in the last 10 years everything has doubled. Another big challenge we face is trying to explain to customers the cost of the machines and the cost of running them – they don’t really get it. Although recently we have noticed a change in attitudes as people are realising its cheaper to use us than buy their own machines. We do understand that there is a limit though to what farmers are able to pay. Unless they are getting a decent price they can’t give us a decent price, it’s as simple as that. We are all in it together.

Fendt 720 with the Scobbie branding!

Can you tell us about your Fendt fleet?

We have a 724 (21 plate), 720 (20 plate), two 718’s (23 plate and 18 plate) and a 716 (11 plate). The old Fendt 716 is the only tractor we have ever had that never broke down – not even once. The tractor worked 10,000 hours and never a single breakdown, it did get bits and bobs done to it, but it never actually stopped.

We are always sitting with one more tractor than what we need, so we always have one to fall back on. One of the main problems is if I have a tractor rained off at Kinross and I then need them to go to the West of Stirling, by the time they got all the way there you’ve lost half a day. So, we are always better to have one tractor more to be prepared.

The old Fendt 716

Have you always had Fendt tractors?

No, we had New Holland tractors for a long time, we actually had New Holland tractors up until last year. We had major problems with one tractor back in 2007/2008 it was an absolute nightmare, so this was when I bought my first Fendt. The first Fendt I bought was a 415 and we got an 820 in the same year – it did 10,000 hours. For that 10,000 hours do you know what that tractor cost me in repairs? Only £1500 and £400 of that was my fault – I drilled a hole through a wire! If anything has went wrong, I have been delighted with Fendt and what they have done to sort any problems, they don’t walk away from problems even if a tractor is out of warranty, they will still deal with it. They are very very good that way.

What are the main benefits of choosing Fendt?

Very happy with their service and reliability. Reliability is definitely better than what we had with New Holland. Definitely comfort as well, the screen is so much easier to use than other tractors. We had a CLAAS, and I could never get my head round the screen, the chopper is fine, but I struggled with the tractor. The GPS is very easy to use – it’s a doddle. I found the New Holland pretty awkward to use. The Fendt is so easy to use, its like an iPhone, really logical. Two of my tractors have FendtOne and they are really easy to use, once you get your head round it its utterly fine. You can go from an old one to a new one and it doesn’t take you long to get your head around it. You can also store settings in the Fendt, so if you’ve got someone going to drive a tractor that hasn’t driven one before they get used to it so quickly. I’ve had people that are used to driving New Holland’s, John Deere’s, Case etc and they’ve came to work a few days for me, and they get used to it pretty quickly.

Fendt 720 working hard!

Why do you choose Fendt over other brands?

Reliability definitely. They are more expensive, but once you’ve got one, you’re about the same price as other brands to change them over for a new one. I speak to people that have other brands and they are paying about the same as I am to change their tractors.

What jobs do you use your Fendt tractors for?

Pretty much everything apart from spraying and tattie work.

How long have you been a customer with us?

Roughly about 50 years. The first tractor we bought from you was in 2008 from Sam Mercer. We’ve since bought a Fendt 415, 820, 2x 724, 3x 718, 720 – 8 tractors in 16 years. The reason I switched to Fendt was due to two or three bad experiences with New Holland – it wasn’t the dealer they were superb. It was just a lack of reliability; it was a disaster.

We had a really good relationship with Reekie’s at the time because we had bought a lot of other machines before tractors. We bought a lot of implements from Sam including dung spreaders, sprayers, fertiliser spreaders, and god knows how many seeders. So, there was a lot of stuff that came from Reekie’s before tractors. It took Sam 26 years to sell us a tractor! He’s had 8 in 16 years since, so he’s done alright! I dare say there will also be another couple before he retires.

It’s Cupar we deal with, Sandy sorts everything out for us, the service is superb. Sandy is absolutely brilliant, and its great to see some young boys working hard there too.

What was your buying experience like?

It’s always been fine; we’ve always dealt with Sam, so it’s always been pretty easy.

Fendt 720 at work!

What’s the next machine you would like to purchase?

I’m not buying anything the now! We have been having a wee look at Kuhn Mergers but that’s really the only thing on the shopping list at the moment. Possibly also a bigger dribble bar.

What are your plans for the future?

That will depend on if my wee boy wants to come into the business. To be honest at the moment, just carry on as is and try to grow the business and do as much as we can. If my wee boy is interested, we will push on and go again but if he isn’t, then I’ll work as long as I can. I certainly won’t be packing it in anyway. My wee boy is only 9 so he’s not showing any signs of what he wants to do yet. When I was 9, I wanted to be a shepherd, then I wanted to be a joiner, then I wanted to be a professional rugby player. I ended up serving my time as a welder, then I decided I was going to work on the oil rigs and make a fortune, and then I came back and did this. So, trying to figure out what a young laddie wants to do is difficult, we aren’t going to push him at all, definitely not – he can make his own decisions. I would certainly love him to come in and push things forward but if he doesn’t want to that’s utterly fine, we would never push him.

Do you have any hobbies?

Drinking! Skiing – I try and go skiing often in Italy, I love it! I also like to go skiing up North if we get decent snow.  I also like to go walks up the Ochil Hills with the bairns. Apart from that I like going away for the odd night with the wife. We have a caravan, but I don’t get away much in it. I used to play rugby too.

I just work most of the time which is the problem, I just really enjoy my work. I enjoy doing what I do and I quite often go down to the workshop and start pottering about with stuff. It’s not unusual for me to not be able to sleep and be down at the workshop at 4 in the morning. Last summer, my father heard the grinder going in the workshop during the night and he phoned me – it was me resetting the knives in the forager! I had them all ground down, reset, and ready to go again for 7am! When your switched on you can’t sleep. I do love what I do but it can be really stressful because of the weather – it’s been awful recently. It will be difficult when the weather picks up because everyone will need us at the same time – we’ve got about 1300/1400 acres of grain to sow. It will be a case of going straight from the seeders to the mowers. By the 20^th of May it’s not unusual for me to have 500 acres of silage done. We cut between 3000/4000 acres of silage every year and we sow around 1700/1800 acres a year. We are also spreading millions of gallons of slurry; a lot of my customers are dairy farmers. We are really diverse as it’s such a mixed area and so spread out from east to west. Slurry is great now because we’ve got a remote-control pump, so I don’t need to sit there and man a pump, it’s a one-man operation. We just got that last year; the pump was £53,000 but its worth it long term as I can be in the workshop getting everything ready for springtime instead of manning a pump. I put a big emphasis on servicing, maintenance, and refurbishing here. I think nothing of taking a machine to bits in the wintertime and totally refurbishing. My seeder has been taken to bits and put back together again about three times – it’s 20 years old (built 2003) and it’s still going strong, it came from Reekie’s back in the day. It definitely pays to look after your stuff.

Hamilton Ross Group would like to thank John Scobbie and his family for all of the support over the years and we wish him all the best for the future!

Written by Kirsty Pettigrew, Group Marketing Assistant