John Deere 327 baler

My brother is looking at a Deere 327 baler. I don't know a whole lot about Deere balers, but I was wondering if any of you have used one and if you could give me some pointers on what to look at on it, or to stay away from it. Any help much appreciated.

Hey..

My son and I bale about 20,000 bales per year. We bought the 327 when it was about 5 years old and have never regretted it. By now it has probably made over 300,000 bales and is still our main line machine. Ours has the #30 thrower that fills the cage wagons. We can get much fuller wagons with that thrower than the belt thrower on the similar NH machine. Sometimes when I am going to the field, I'll pull 2 wagons (empty) in tandem behind the baler. Just for entertainment a few times I've pulled the double wagons onto the field and set the range on the thrower to throw the bales in the second wagon. I doubt it will throw that far now, but it is a darn good baler. We do all our own repair work, so it has not been back to the dealer in the 18 or more years we've owned it. I don't think there is any such thing as a "no maintanence" baler. But this one has been pretty good.

About 10 years ago we had the chance to buy its bigger brother 328 baler. It is basically the same, but a wider pickup and a bit more capacity and about 7 years newer. It has been good too, but the #40 thrower has given more trouble with its thinner but higher strength steel. Stress cracks develop and then the throw arms break at the top. But we have done a few hundred thousand bales with this one too, and it has never gone back to the JD shop.

Paul in MN

had one for several years and it was a very good unit. Just not real high capacity but a very good baler

I am mechanically challenged. Did not grow up on a farm, but had family that farmed.

I bought a 327 in 2004 when I started haying. It has been through 5 seasons without a problem. Look at the knotters to see how much wear there is. But honestly other than breaking a few shear bolts in 2004(operator error), it has run pretty flawlessly. Mine has a weak knot every 100 bales or so. It ties fine, but then busts when stacking the hay in the barn(not on wagon thankfully). Again this may be operator error.

If I were buying a baler tomorrow it would be another 327. Note I only hay 20 acres and have a budget to stick to... In addition if I am stacking by myself, it can chuck out a bale faster than I can stack them all(about 1 every 15-20 seconds), so I don't need more capacity.

Thanks for the help on this. I just wanted to make sure they weren't something that was plagued with problems. He's only going to be cutting 20 acres a year so capacity isn't much of an issue. We go and look at it this weekend.