Anyone thinking that a second-hand Väderstad TopDown will save huge sums over buying new might be in for quite a shock. The TopDown is a fashionable bit of kit, with used demand typically outstripping supply — in other words, the perfect formula for strong second-hand prices. James de Havilland reports
The first question to address is why it has taken us so long to provide a used guide to Väderstad’s TopDown cultivator. After all, the first profi TopDown driving impression was published way back in September 2003, with a subsequent seven-page practical test of the 5.0m TopDown appearing a year later, in profi 12/04.
The answer to our foot dragging is that the TopDown initially struggled to make a sales impact. This wasn’t so much to do with the cultivator itself but more in establishing just how it could fit into a min-till regime — something that takes time.
Another issue relates to the straw harrow. Our first outing with a pre-production 4.0m TopDown 442 saw the test machine arrive
with a Carrier-style straw harrow up front. Then by the time we tried the production 5.0m TopDown 500, the harrow had vanished
— indeed it wasn’t even listed as an option. Yet the Carrier, which incorporates essentially the same disc set-up as the TopDown up front, is now often sold new with a harrow on its nose. Bizarre. Those out of the Väderstad equipment loop could certainly
be excused for finding this odd.
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