Well, after running our 590 for a season, I have to say I was pretty impressed. We've run a 480 and then a 480r for a combined 6 years and averaged about 17a/sep. hour. The 590 came it at 20.5a/hour, so it was a good 20% more then the 480/480r, we don't use a cart, or unload on the go. The biggest gain in capacity over the 480 seemed to be in wheat and barley. The new cleaning system made it easier to set in dry conditions. The 590 struggled in super dry 10% winter wheat, I was down to 15a/hr, which was disappointing, but that was the first time I had ever combined wheat that dry and it was only for a few days, I was getting rotor and sieve loss. Once we got into august, we never encountered those conditions again. I suspect that the updated cranks we installed for the canola harvest would help in super dry conditions, I'll find out next year.

I really enjoyed the larger hopper and faster unload. The electric rotor plate adjustment was really nice, it allowed for fine-tuning during the day as conditions changed. I ran at 100% power a lot of the time, so I guess you can say I appreciated the extra horsepower. The new 2-speed tranny was great, it gave me an extra 1mph in field gear, which was needed in canola. Its also a bit faster on the road and it automatically throttles back when you put it in road gear.

We went with an insight yield monitor rather then the standard lexion yield and moisture. I would strongly recommend that anyone purchasing a new 500 series go with the insight, what a great tool.

There were things I didn't like about the 590. The turning radius is poor, you would have to run one to understand what I'm talking about. All the lights except for the headlights shut off when you put it in road gear, which makes it hard to go down the road at night, I'm sure you can override it, I just don't know how. We had a couple of stupid breakdowns, that ended up costing us about 3 days total. Our local dealer brought us out a demo 590, but it was still frustrating. One of the injectors went at 90 hours and then a hanger bearing bracket on the unload broke, looked like a poor weld, but anyways it bent the flighting and took out a couple of gear boxes, thank goodness it was on warranty, what are the chances of those two breakdowns occurring? In the six years with the 480/480r we only lost 1.5 days total, with the 590 we're past that in 1 year.

In 35-40 bus canola we were picking up a 30ft. swath at 7-8.5mph. 40ft. cut of 80bus barley at 4.5-5.5mph, 40-50bus HRS at 4.5-6.5 depending on conditions, variety, field etc. 25bus flax we did at bwtween 5 and 7mph.

I'm not loyal to any brand of equipment, and I've tried to be objective in my evaluation. The 590 has tremendous capacity, but the lexions in spite of the jetstream cleaning system, do not shine in super dry wheat. I mean its not like the 590 was down to 9600 capacity in the 10% wheat, it just wasn't impressive in those conditions. We did dry barley and canola with no problems, even wheat in the 13s and 14s was fine. I look forward to another season with the 590, next year we might try a cart, but I'm not yet convinced it makes sense with one machine, although if you look at the speeds I was travelling there is obviously some room to improve our efficiency. Our travel speeds do not line up with the 20.5ac/hr we averaged at the end of the season. We spend too much time dumping, driving over to the truck and turning.

Fuel consumption ranged from about 0.8-1.2usgal/acre, similar to the 480.

As was the case with the 480, I appreciate that if you eat a rock (and we did!), your damage is minimal, in fact we didn't even know we had put one through until we did the 100hr. oil changes, we bent a slat and a rub bar, no downtime from it.

If I can think of anything more I'll let you know.