Badger,

We've got an 8220 that we bought new in the spring of 2003........has been a damn good tractor with the exception of the Active seat. When it was new we had some stuff done to it and I drove it home the 40 miles or so from the welding shop. By the time I got home I could smell oil and what we found was one of the hydraulic lines going to the seat was never tightened = big mess in and under the cab of a brand new tractor. Was a major pain to fix but we needed it ASAP and I cleaned it up as best as I could. We've had the floor mat out three times to clean the oily grime off the pressurization fan that will vibrate your feet to numbness. Could have called the dealer on any of that really.

We've been battling that seat the entire time. It always wants to jack you up in the air. My brother and I are husky and my father and uncle are shorter guys, so that could be part of our problems. I'm thinking a shutoff switch on the power wire to the compressor would fix that. The seat really does provide a nice ride though- especially at higher speeds like on a grain cart where a typical air seat would buck you out.

Sometime last week it blew an o-ring under the floor on the seat accumulator and it was discovered on Friday. We'll probably end up taking the wheels off at least one side this winter to wash it out under there. - another big mess but at least it's not in the cab this time.

With exception to the seat, we are very happy with the tractor. We haven't done much heavy pulling with it until the last year or so. It has performed very well, and has excellent power for it's rating. It should have 2000 hours on it by the end of harvest this year- not a lot by the tillage guys' standards. We haven't had too much trouble with filters and we fill out of service tanks. Any of the filter problems that we likely have, are from that service tank. We avoided filters on the service tanks to speed fueling, but I think when we build our fuel trailer we will put a double 10 micron filter setup on it to avoid that.

Best part about it, and from reading past posts I know you will appreciate this- the metric tires.