Vermeer 1400xl = Lemon?

nuthin_special

nuthin_special

Location
Thunder Bay, Ontario
I'm now looking at the "vermeer yellow" in a new light. It's the closest thing out there to lemon colour.

What is your vote on the vermeer 1400? The predecessor to the 1500.

I just replaced the drum bearings figuring that was why the machine was rattling and causing engine mounts to break. 1 hour of operation after it was all put back together and all the engine mounts are broken again. WTF?

The machine shop pulled the drum out and tested the shaft, it's fine. The drum may need balancing. But i've also seen some other forums talking about the 1400 with the CAT engine rattling themselves into the scrapheap.

Anyone else had any experience with this? I'm going to redo the mounts, have the drum balanced (and pull the engine out to fix the cracked oil pan also resulting from the shaking) and then cross my fingers but if this problem keeps coming up, i'll have to look at fixing it with a new chipper.

All i've ever owned are two vermeer chippers so i can't compare to other brands but if i had to buy another machine today, it wouldn't be a vermeer.

Thoughts?

vince
 
I have my own opinion about Vermeer, that is why I own Brush Bandits.
If you are going to be forced to rent/demo a machine while yours is being fixed, try a few others. I prefer the disc to the drum. That is opinion too.
My BB 250 has run well for as long as I have owned it. Clean air, good fuel(diesel additive) and sharp knives with a daily preventitive maint program has kept it running well.
If you have another local company that has a different make/model chipper, maybe you could hire them as a sub to chip the material from your job to see if you like their machine.
Good luck and sorry for the headaches.
 
Vermeer is less than two miles from my house. I don't own one. They themselves laugh about how flimsy they are put together. Some love them, some hate them.
 
Just my two cents. It seems the 1800 is a good machine but the smaller machines have problems. I have talked to alot of guys that have had problems with vermeer. I have had problems with vibration before in my morbark and it was determined that the spindle was bent by a ridiculously small amount. My advice would be to take it to the dealer. They see those machines every day and know what to look for. I have yet to run a chipper that is perfect. Good luck!
 
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My advice would be to take it to the dealer.

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That is the main reason that I sold all my Vermeer stuff about 5 years ago. You are stuck using the dealer for many repairs. Their machines are never simple to fix. I have owned 3 Woodsman's and have never taken 1 to the dealer. They are simple machine and we can work on them in house. Same with my Carlton stump grinders. Vermeer also seems to charge huge amounts for their parts. I just got disgusted with it and moved on...
 
I got scammed by a vermeer dealer in NJ early on.. They were just dishonest, and I swore I'd never buy another vermeer anything.. I;ve been with BB, though I hear good things about Morbark and woodsman..
 
This is good information to know as we will be purchasing our first chipper pretty soon. I was always under the impression that vermeer was the best. Whats the difference between drum and disc?
 
Vermeer the best= NOT
crazy.gif


Morbark
Brush Bandit
Woodsman
Rayco

Any of the above beat the tar out of vermeer.
Vermeer- cheaply put together with a high price tag. I've had 2 or 3 and have used numerous others, so I share how I feel with knowledge. I also have had several Morbarks and Brush Bandits. Then I did sales for Rayco and Woodsman- I really liked them both after I was able to use them and see what they could handle.
 
THanks all for the information.

I know that i can blame many breakdowns that we've had on my poor mechanic's skills but the parade of faults and breakdowns seems never-ending. The nearest vermeer dealer is an 8 hour drive away so you can understand the difficulty in getting someone knowledgable to look at them.

There was an update kit to fix the engine shaking problem for the 1400's. ours is a 1400XL and apparently doesn't need updating. I'll get to the bottom of that one tomorrow.

It may be a good thing that i recently decided against adding another truck. Now i have some capital freed up to either pay for repairs or buy a new machine. And i still haven't had the trucks inspected yet! And, i'm not even going into what's wrong with our 1000xl.


H4: the mounts will be replaced more likely than repaired. 350 more smackers for vermeer!

vince
v
 
I have had a 1400xl for 2800 hours and 2 1230's 2000 hours some small problems and there are some design flaws but all together they a good machines. Maintenance and inspection is key to any equipment. They are built lighter and that is one reason we use them. I can not complain about the product and we have used all of the other chippers.
 
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