Prinoth vs. PB, round two

Prinoth vs. PB, round two

Postby admin on 16 Sep 2009, 12:52

First off, a huge apology is in order to WINCHCAT, who started the other thread. As a result of my little argument with CanadianBombar, the thread took a pretty rough tone. Let's start over hear, keeping in mind that this is an OPINION THREAD. EVERYONE IS ENTITLED TO AN OPINION!

So, the question is, do you prefer Prinoth or PB? Why?
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Re: Prinoth vs. PB, round two

Postby snowwizard on 16 Sep 2009, 16:22

Please keep in mind this is just my opinion. 30 plus years experience here. Both tractors are very nice tractors. They will work on any mountain that grooms alpine piste. Both will have their own problems at one time or another. I've work with the new 500 by Prinoth, Bison and Bison X. Do not really like the new cab with the seat in the middle, again just an opinion. The new PB 400 with sticks and the alpine flex tiller is a nice set up for PB. Going back the BR 275 was a real night mare. The place I used to work at called them the penalty box. The winch on this tractor was to be least desired. I do give them credit in making some nice changes with the new Prinoth. In picking a winch tractor PB has been way ahead of Prinoth or Bombardier.
PB I think was the true leader in grooming through the late 70's to mid 90's. PB had the edge for sure during these times. Still one of the best tractors I was totally impressed with was the old style PB 300. It was like a D8 on snow. PB had the edge with their splitter box, drive pumps and tracks, which Prinoth has changed to. The BR's and Prinoth took a foot hold with the stick operating controls. PB had the yoke. Now PB has sticks as a option. Again from my opinion the PB was more of a true operator’s tractor. Sticks were easier to train new operators and to control. Now today it mostly just personal preference now, but the new PB 400 I was totally impressed with it last season.
These tractors have come along ways in this time frame. Be thankful for both for making these machines a joy to operate today. I remember the first blade tractor I every used was a Thiokol Spryte with an 8 way blade. Tractors did not have blades on them. Mogul Planers, Powder makers and rolls were the tools of the day. Remember Thiokol had a nice tractor in their day. The Spryte, Packmaster and the 3700 were a few models they had. Try pulling an implement behind you and keep it out of your tracks. Again enjoy what you have today because grooming was an adventure today it’s just cruising around and listening to tunes. Oh and leaving a good skiing or riding surface.
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Re: Prinoth vs. PB, round two

Postby Canadianbombar on 16 Sep 2009, 17:24

snowwizard wrote:Please keep in mind this is just my opinion. 30 plus years experience here. Both tractors are very nice tractors. They will work on any mountain that grooms alpine piste. Both will have their own problems at one time or another. I've work with the new 500 by Prinoth, Bison and Bison X. Do not really like the new cab with the seat in the middle, again just an opinion. The new PB 400 with sticks and the alpine flex tiller is a nice set up for PB. Going back the BR 275 was a real night mare. The place I used to work at called them the penalty box. The winch on this tractor was to be least desired. I do give them credit in making some nice changes with the new Prinoth. In picking a winch tractor PB has been way ahead of Prinoth or Bombardier.
PB I think was the true leader in grooming through the late 70's to mid 90's. PB had the edge for sure during these times. Still one of the best tractors I was totally impressed with was the old style PB 300. It was like a D8 on snow. PB had the edge with their splitter box, drive pumps and tracks, which Prinoth has changed to. The BR's and Prinoth took a foot hold with the stick operating controls. PB had the yoke. Now PB has sticks as a option. Again from my opinion the PB was more of a true operator’s tractor. Sticks were easier to train new operators and to control. Now today it mostly just personal preference now, but the new PB 400 I was totally impressed with it last season.
These tractors have come along ways in this time frame. Be thankful for both for making these machines a joy to operate today. I remember the first blade tractor I every used was a Thiokol Spryte with an 8 way blade. Tractors did not have blades on them. Mogul Planers, Powder makers and rolls were the tools of the day. Remember Thiokol had a nice tractor in their day. The Spryte, Packmaster and the 3700 were a few models they had. Try pulling an implement behind you and keep it out of your tracks. Again enjoy what you have today because grooming was an adventure today it’s just cruising around and listening to tunes. Oh and leaving a good skiing or riding surface.


LOL...The penalty Box...I love it. I spent quite a bit of time in the penalty box last season and I can't say really say it was all that bad. We had an MP and an ME......the ME was hard on your wrist as it was bent all night due to the sticks being between your legs...that was the worst of it I would say. I wish Patrick had focused in on PB being the innovater of hydostatic cats in the last thread...as that's one thing that is undeniable..
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Re: Prinoth vs. PB, round two

Postby WINCHCAT on 18 Sep 2009, 12:22

my dad has been running them and fixing them for 30 years, he has been in a OLD DMC 2 LMC's then a br275 and a 350. i started running cat when i was 7 it was a lmc i must admit it was a very simple cat to both run and fix. but now that i'm in a 350 i dont know if i want that old lmc back. so anyway, i looked at a pb 300 that a resort had and i dont know if i really care for em' the only good thing is that i would be amazed to see a crack in the frame where as the prinoths, we have that problem all the time. so in the end i would stick with yellow :D
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Re: Prinoth vs. PB, round two

Postby snowwizard on 27 Sep 2009, 11:48

The PistenBully success story: 15,000 groomers

In December 2006, the 15,000th groomer rolled off the production line at PistenBully Kässbohrer Geländefahrzeug AG. That is an astonishing achievement – and one that was beyond the wildest dreams of the three production engineers Walter Sautter, Josef Haumann and Erwin Kasberger, whose names are inextricably linked with the PistenBully success story.




The first series PistenBully

Today Walter Sautter is in charge of production. In 1968, in the second year of his apprenticeship, he was called to the wooden shed that housed the test bench at Karl Kässbohrer Fahrzeugwerke. “Initially the idea was described as a ‘snow roller’,” says Walter Sautter, who also remembers the secrecy that shrouded all the work in the shed in those days. “The fact that the vehicle to be developed would shape the next forty years of my working life is something I wouldn’t have thought possible at the time,” he continues.
The original idea for a PistenBully came to Karl Kässbohrer when he was on a skiing holiday at Seiser Alm in South Tyrol. He was annoyed because the ski area’s home-grown snow groomer had given up the ghost and could not be repaired. Together with his brother Otto, he instructed their design engineer Walter Haug to develop an oversnow vehicle with the technology to meet market requirements for snow grooming work. In June 1968 Haug started on the first drawings, and since then he has been known as the creator of the PistenBully. In 1968 mechanized snow grooming had been available for less than ten years. In 1960 the first pictures were shown on television of US army dozers being used to prepare the trails for the 8th Winter Olympics in Squaw Valley in the Sierra Nevada. The decision to become a player on this new market was not to be taken lightly, as there was already plenty of competition, with about ten companies and a number of amateur design engineers already active in the field.

In all cases the basic concept was fairly similar:
a petrol engine, joystick steering with steering brakes, a gear shift, and disc or drum brakes. Kässbohrer, however, adopted a different approach. Initially the vehicle had front-wheel drive and a 120 hp Daimler-Benz petrol engine, but it also had a hydrostatic travel drive, a steering wheel, a spacious cab and a big rear deck. The first prototype was tested at a military tank testing facility near Ulm in December 1968, and small-series production began in 1969. The five vehicles built in the PistenBully 32.120 B series still had the 120 hp 6-cylinder engine, but in the meantime the concept had been changed to rear-wheel drive. “After that it was decided to switch to diesel engines, because at higher altitudes there was too little combustion air for the petrol engines,” Walter Sautter remembers. In 1971 the new groomer from Ulm had to prove what it could do in Flaine in the Haute Savoie, and the PistenBully rose to the challenge.
The 39.145 D scored in particular with its hydrostatic travel drive. While vehicles with a gear shift had problems on the steeper slopes because of the discontinuous power flow, the PistenBully – with its stepless speed control – was able to adjust perfectly to differences in the terrain and snow conditions and climbed the slopes like a mountain goat. That made it clear that the PistenBully was based on a concept with a future. Also in 1971, Erwin Wieland – at the time Regional Sales Manager for Setra coaches – took over the task of organizing sales for the PistenBully. He was also to play a decisive role in shaping the history of the PistenBully over the next thirty years. In the meantime there was no let up in development work, and the 145 was launched in the same year. That was followed by a first tilt-cab version in the form of the 170 D. This big step forward in terms of maintenance-friendly design was largely the work of Josef Haumann, who is now in charge of track engineering. At the time he was welding the self-supporting ribbed frame for the PistenBully in the metalworking shop. The breakthrough on the international market came in 1972 with the Winter Olympics in Sapporo, where the PistenBully was chosen to groom the trails. That was also the year in which Erwin Kasberger, who had been in charge of production together with Walter Sautter for the last twenty years, completed his training at Kässbohrer.

Over the decades, the role of the Sautter-Haumann-Kasberger trio has always been central to the PistenBully saga – including the times when the PistenBully group was something of a Cinderella at Kässbohrer Fahrzeugwerke: “We were not exactly taken seriously in those days and we often came in for some condescending treatment,” says Erwin Kasberger. “We were even told that the others were having to subsidize us,” Josef Haumann adds. “But that wasn’t true; we have never been in the red. And in terms of status, thing quickly changed anyhow,” Sautter stresses with obvious satisfaction. By then the PistenBully was turning in an unstoppable performance. In 1979, within ten years of the first presentation, more than 2,000 vehicles were in operation in 35 different countries. That first decade also produced a long list of innovative features that were added step by step. The second series PistenBully, for example, had a compactor board and front blade. That was following by a crosscountry tracksetter and – in 1976 – a tiller.

In the mid-1980s, the PistenBully 060 D - 110 and the successor models 150 D und 160 D became the biggest selling x-c trail groomer worldwide. Then came the unveiling of the 200 DW as the first groomer with an overhead winch for working on steep slopes. Talking of winches, when the first winch groomer was delivered to the Zugspitze, Walter Sautter and Josef Haumann had to get their tools out to dismantle the PistenBully at the top station at Schneefernerhaus to get it out of the tunnel. Once out of the tunnel, they then had to drive the groomer down a very steep slope to reach the intended working area. “For that reason the snow was not blasted out of the slope as usual so that we could ride down on it in the groomer,” says Sautter. Subsequent deliveries to the Zugspitze were equally dramatic. On one occasion, when there was too
little snow on the ground, an abseiling technique had to be employed to get the PistenBully down the slope.

Another time Josef Haumann worked himself into a sweat in the Zugspitze tunnel because everyone was waiting for his return before they could finally blast the snow. Things like that weld individuals together as a team. “We were as thick as thieves!” says Erwin Kasberger in this connection. That did not change in 1994 when the Allterrain Vehicle Division at the former Karl Kässbohrer Fahrzeugwerke GmbH was transformed into an independent company – on the contrary. And the PistenBully success story also continued, with the 10,000th vehicle coming off the assembly line in 1997. By then PistenBullys were to be found in 52 countries on all six continents of the world.

Among other things, the 1990s saw the appearance of the 300, which offered a combination of outstanding hill-climbing capabilities, low maintenance requirements and automatic track tensioning. That reminds Josef Haumann in the track production department of the early days: “In the beginning, when we did a demonstration for a customer we had to do everything manually, and it took two hours to fit the tracks. That was enough to make anyone sweat.” In 1998 the Kässbohrer Geländefahrzeug AG went public; the company’s shares were first listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange on 16 September. Four years later the company moved into new premises in Laupheim. 2002 also saw the market launch of the PistenBully 300 Polar – the most powerful PistenBully of all times with a 455 hp engine. Which their favorite is among all the various models is something the PistenBully trio cannot really say. “The 170 D was the first to have a nice round face, although the looks were not really a key issue until the 240 came along.” At all events, they are highly enthusiastic about the current PistenBully 600: “A top machine in every respect,” says
Erwin Kasberger speaking for all three of them. Walter Sautter, Josef Haumann and Erwin Kasberger grew up with the PistenBully. Or is it the other way round? One thing is for sure: the growth rates are impressive; 15,000 PistenBullys is a lot of groomers!
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Re: Prinoth vs. PB, round two

Postby WINCHCAT on 27 Sep 2009, 16:40

i'm sure prinoth has a few more than 15,000 kickin around. but what ever i still like prinoth more
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Re: Prinoth vs. PB, round two

Postby danmackvail1 on 26 Oct 2009, 23:02

350. Been in a sherpa 4 years now, have dabbled in the 300, 400, and 600 pb winches. Am a huge fan of the sherpa based on: pulling power, range of pull (being able to pull 300 over the side and not feel scared), visibility, and controll (sticks). I definatly enjoy the egronomics of pb very solid, quiet easy to work long shifts in but in terms of productivity the 350 seems to acomplish more. honestly this debate will go on as long as there are more than one type of cat in production. They do the same thing....push snow, till it out, and make skiers happy.
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Re: Prinoth vs. PB, round two

Postby Tom400CFI on 27 Oct 2009, 15:09

danmackvail1 wrote:but in terms of productivity the 350 seems to acomplish more.

Always watch out for the SOTP conclusions. We were completely CONVINCED about one model "over" another w/regard to productivity. Once we started accurately measuring their results, the objective data shocked and surprised us. Didn't align w/what our butt-o-meter had told us, at all.
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Re: Prinoth vs. PB, round two

Postby WINCHCAT on 04 Nov 2009, 23:44

well some people say PB's do a better job tilling but some say BR's do better. but i do think you can do more pushing with a yellow cat. pb's have a stronger frame. i would be amazed to see a crack in a pb frame. were as a BR we are always welding on it. i like the stile and controles on the 350s i hate having a steering wheel right in front of me while i'm working
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Re: Prinoth vs. PB, round two

Postby Canadianbombar on 24 Dec 2009, 21:05

I think I'm slowly becoming a PB convert. The older PB tiller kills PR's in wet snow. I think my ideal cat now would be a 300 with sticks and track speed pot. The steering wheels are a joke and just plain dangerous in a tobogan.
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