TRACTOR TEST: If you want something with a little more spec, splendour and finesse than the standard Farmall has to offer, then there’s always the Pro version, complete with its four-step powershift and other extra goodies aimed at tempting owners into the Case IH camp. We test the top dog in the threemodel range, the 84kW/114hp Farmall 115U Pro.
When the smaller Case IH CS died a death more than two years ago, there was no direct replacement in the Farmall family so you either had to opt for a Maxxum or go shopping elsewhere. To plug the gap the Saint Valentin engineers have come up with the Austrian-bred Farmall U Pro, which certainly has a whiff of Steyr about it.
Sitting under the bonnet is the now familiar 3.4-litre, four-pot FPT motor with commonrail injection. Cooled external EGR and a DPF do their bit to save the planet and make it Stage IIIB compliant. Outputs are 73kW/99hp, 79/kW/107hp and 84kW/114hp, all to the ECE R120 standard.
To see how the top model in the range, the Farmall 115 U Pro, lives up to the claimed stats we hitched it up to the DLG dyno. Working at its rated speed of 2,200rpm, 72.3kW/96.6hp found its way to the shaft. Engine output climbed to 75.3kW/101hp at 1,900rpm — an excellent result, especially when you consider that the Case IH brochure doesn’t mention any extra power. We were confused that the Case IH operator’s manual approves 540 and 540E for a maximum output of just 59kW/80hp.
The maximum torque of 425Nm was reached at 1,500rpm, which translates into a rise of nearly 36% as speed drops by 32%. These are sound results; equally as good are the 121% start off torque and a constant power range of 25%.
