Following on from our April test on the John Deere 6R150, many of the good and bad points apply in equal measure to the 6R185, which shares the same cab, operation etc.
Yet there are differences. For starters, there's the engine. Instead of four cylinders, the 185 has a six-pot, 6.8litre Deere Power Systems motor under its shiny green bonnet. And the PVS abbreviation in the engine designation indicates that instead of two inline turbos (PSS), the charger sports variable geometry.
We were keen to see what this and the extra displacement brought to the performance party, so we asked the DLG to hitch up the test tractor to its dyno.
But a quick note on the cooling pack: unlike the 6R150, Deere splits the radiator pack. The intercooler on the higher-horsepower 6R tractors sits almost horizontally above the other rads and is supplied with air from below by a hydraulic-drive fan — relatively elaborate but effective, according to John Deere.
Almost a 40hp boost
On the DLG dyno, only 112.2kW/150.5hp of the promised 136kW/185hp engine power arrived at the back-end at nominal speed. It's a good thing that the claimed 14kW/18hp of extra power was a good deal higher when the pto
