Canadian cross boarder shopping (Long)

[DeKay]

Hi all. First time post, long time lurker. I just recently became a member of the JD clan through a different route than most. This post might be of interest to other Canadians looking at buying some green paint and saving some money in the process.

Earlier this summer I finally decided to get myself a tractor to help out on our 25 acres. The old JD 216 just wasn't up to the task anymore. Thanks to this site and others, I narrowed my search pretty quickly to the JD 2305 and Kubota 2350. I eventually decided on the 2305, primarily for the fact that taking the various implements on and off was so simple (gotta love that 200CX and that iMatch system).

Anyhoo, I thought I'd get a ballpark price from the Kubota dealer and that went a lot as I would have expected. He noted the items I wanted, came up with a price, and knocked some percentage off of list to give me a number that didn't look too bad. Then I crossed the street (literally) to my local JD dealer and they put together a price for me. The difference was they were sticking to their list price.

Me: "This is more than I was hoping to spend. Is there some way we can get this price down?"
JD: "Well, you don't need to buy that tiller right away. That would take the price down."
Me: "That's not what I meant."

So, the 2305 was my first choice but the Kubota was a significant saving. Option 1 was to cave and pay the significant extra $$$ for the 2305 to a dealer who was not prepared to deal. Option 2 was to save the coin and settle for the Kubota.

That was when I came across this post from (the now unbanned!) JDCAN in which he talked about buying a tractor from a US dealer and bringing it in across the border. So I got ahold of Javan at Mutton Power Equipment and I was amazed at the cost differences I was seeing. After a bunch of emails back and forth, here is what I calculated.

Exchange Rate	1.065			
                Local Dealer  Mutton(US$)  Mutton (C$)	Savings
2305 Tractor      12,500.00
62" Mower          2,500.00
200CX Loader       3,400.00
Subtotal	  18,400.00   13,399.00    14,269.94   4,130.06
Plus Tiller	   2,500.00    1,799.00     1,915.94     584.06
Plus iMatch	     400.00      250.00       266.25     133.75
Plus Block Heater    200.00      110.00       117.15      82.85
Plus Grill Guard     220.00      169.00       179.98      40.02
Plus Ballast Box     250.00      199.00       211.94      38.06
Cash Discount	    -500.00        0.00         0.00    -500.00
Shipping	       0.00    1,450.00     1,544.25  -1,544.25
Total	          21,470.00   17,376.00    18,505.44   2,964.56
GST	           1,288.20    1,042.56     1,110.33     177.87
PST	           1,073.50        0.00         0.00   1,073.50
Grand Total	  23,831.70   18,418.56    19,615.77   4,215.93

                                         Total Savings   17.69%

Now that is a serious chunk of change. A couple things the sharp eyed Canadian might catch though:

• You didn't account for duties! These bad boys are duty free. Thank you NAFTA.
• You didn't account for brokerage! Yeah, I had my companies broker do the paperwork and haven't gotten the bill yet. But I was told it will be around $40. Not much impact on the bottom line.

So I made another visit to my dealer with wife in tow, spreadsheet in pocket, and chequebook in hand. My wife buzzed the tractor around the lot, after which I said to the dealer that we should go inside and talk further. I pulled out my spreadsheet folded in half, showing my itemized list and his prices. He confirmed the prices were pretty much bang on. Then I unfolded the paper to show the difference between what he was asking and what I could get it for. He was astounded at the delta. I explained I wanted him to meet me somewhere in the middle, as there were some tax costs in there he couldn't do anything about (even though I was on the hook for way more in shipping than he would have been), and that there were some advantages to buying local. But the best he could offer was

• knocking off the tire recycling fee (A whopping $4 per tire. There are only four tires! Do the math!)
• rounding down to the nearest $50 increment

As a friend of mine later said, making an offer like that is like leaving a 17 cent tip in a restaurant.

So then the BS started to fly. Here are my local dealer's claims vs. reality.

• You won't have any warranty in Canada for a tractor bought in the US. Totally bogus. JD's warranty is valid per region. North America is a single region (see here). Or you can call JD's warranty center at 1-866-993-3373. Ask for Cynthia
• The tractor won't be set up. All the attachments will be in crates. Bogus again, as the (hopefully) attached picture of the the tractor as it showed up on the delivery truck illustrates. Javan also mentioned that JD mandates that their dealers do all of this setup.

So it was pretty obvious that my dealer wouldn't deal. He had his chance. I called Javan at Mutton the next day to get my order in. I received the tractor three weeks later with one hour on the hour meter, all labels attached, all manuals provided, and with the tractor and all implements in perfect condition.

Regrets? The only regret I had was the shipper let me down. It took two weeks from pickup to delivery. One week of that was sitting in the nearest city a half hour drive away. Very frustrating, but no fault of the good folks at Mutton. Would I do it again? In a heartbeat.

By the way, props to JDCAN who gave me a call and put my mind at ease for going this route. His approach and experience was very similar to mine. Only problem was he worked hard to convince me I should go with the 2520!!! But I stayed with the 2305 and I'm happy I did. Now that I've got it, I see that it fits my needs perfectly.

Hope all this info helps somebody else north of the 49th parallel...

 

[Ductape]

Great story. I'm with you as far as giving the local guy an opportunity to get into the same ballpark. Always best to do business locally when possible. That being said.... saving four thousand dollars is substantial ! Just my opinion, but i think i'd stay away from the local guy should you need work under warranty. Find another JD dealer within a reasonable distance. You may find that, though they will fix it under warranty..... you might be waiting an awful long time to get your tractor back.

Happy tractoring !!
Scott

 

[JDCAN]

Dekay glad I was able to help. After chatting with you on the telephone and being amazed how similar our shopping experienced had been when dealing with JD dealers in Canada, I am happy to hear you got the machine you wanted.

Also what did I tell you about Mutton? They really deliver the goods and are really nice people to deal with. Awesome prices and great service.

The pictures look great. The rig looks great and the dog looks even happier.

Welcome to the JD SUB-COMP CLUB. I am sure you are loving it. And with all that loot you saved you have to be loving it even more.

Enjoy m8

 

[Tig]

I did not think it would be PST exempt. Are you sure the province won't be sending you a letter looking for their cut? <un-intentional pun

 

[JDCAN]

Great story. I'm with you as far as giving the local guy an opportunity to get into the same ballpark. Always best to do business locally when possible. That being said.... saving four thousand dollars is substantial ! Just my opinion, but i think i'd stay away from the local guy should you need work under warranty. Find another JD dealer within a reasonable distance. You may find that, though they will fix it under warranty..... you might be waiting an awful long time to get your tractor back.

Happy tractoring !!
Scott

Ductape I was in contact with my local dealer for over 1 month. Even when they lost the sale to Mutton in USA when I called for my service they had no problem dealing with me. The service people treated me great and told me it's too bad I never bought it from them but they are still happy to help.

I think that is what separates the JD brand from other tractor brands; I found the dealer support to be far better with JD than the others. Not saying that is the case, but I felt JD had a better network of support sort of thing going on.

Warranty is warranty and if you are an authorized JD dealer you have to up hold the brand commitment. Reading some of the horror stories from others in here in regards to their local dealers is a bad thing to hear, but most dealers are probably pretty legit and good people.

When I called JD USA to confirm the warranty still being valid in Canada if I imported from USA to Canada, they asked me why I would do that. When I told them the savings I would get, they outright said they don't blame me for buying from USA.

I don’t feel I will have any problems with support especially since I own a John Deere.

 

[JDCAN]

I did not think it would be PST exempt. Are you sure the province won't be sending you a letter looking for their cut? <un-intentional pun

Hey Tig as my broker put it " It's like a car when you import it into Canada you don't pay the P.S.T. until you bring the car to your local Driver registration depot and get it plated and road worthy" That is when PST is applied, Tractors are not needed to be registered like cars. Unless you plan on driving it like a car on the roads plated and insured P.S.T would not be applied.

Lastly the province is plenty happy they still got 6% G.S.T tax on a USA sale/import. Gravytrain

 

[DeKay]

I did not think it would be PST exempt. Are you sure the province won't be sending you a letter looking for their cut? <un-intentional pun

PST exempt, for sure. And you can Tig that to the bank!

 

[GordNovo]

Hi DeKay, great post!!! I thought about doing the same when i was buying mine, especially now that the dollars are near parity. Instead, I really grinded the local dealer down to the point where I was only saving a few hundred bucks.

Another tidbit of info for those looking to save $$ while buying in Canada: If you're running some sort of a business you likely qualify to save on the PST since the tractor may be classified as being used for "agricultural" purpose. All your dealer needs is your section/township/range, and voila, no PST! Plus, anyone who's buying the tractor for use with their business would know that the GST is fully refundable via the government's input tax credit (if you're business is GST registered, of course). There are a lot of different kinds of businesses where you could justify having a tractor around.

Saving both of these taxes, brought the CND price down by 13% here in my province.

PS> Hey DeKay, where are you located. That looks like awfully flat land around you. PM me. You might be close by.

GordNovo

 

[JDCAN]

Hi DeKay, great post!!! I thought about doing the same when i was buying mine, especially now that the dollars are near parity. Instead, I really grinded the local dealer down to the point where I was only saving a few hundred bucks.

Another tidbit of info for those looking to save $$ while buying in Canada: If you're running some sort of a business you likely qualify to save on the PST since the tractor may be classified as being used for "agricultural" purpose. All your dealer needs is your section/township/range, and voila, no PST! Plus, anyone who's buying the tractor for use with their business would know that the GST is fully refundable via the government's input tax credit (if you're business is GST registered, of course). There are a lot of different kinds of businesses where you could justify having a tractor around.

Saving both of these taxes, brought the CND price down by 13% here in my province.

PS> Hey DeKay, where are you located. That looks like awfully flat land around you. PM me. You might be close by.

GordNovo

GordNovo not a 100 percent true. Any business can't just claim PST exempt. If you are a video store renting videos are you going to claim pst exempt for "agricultural" purpose?? I mean sure you could file that but when they come and audit you that will not qualify. If you declare PST exempt for "agricultural" purpose you better be in the business of something to do with "agricultural" purposes. You will find yourself in some trouble. Once again sure you can BS and lie and file bogus claims but the chances of an audit are high and can land you in some heat.

And in regards to the GST, you can't write that full amount off in 1 fiscal quater, even tho you pay it all at once. You get to write off that amount over a period of 4 to 5 years.

Also you can't write off 100% of the purchase price if some of the use is for personal. That includes the GST charge. If 50% is for business and 50% is for pleasure, most legit accountants would advise you not to declare 100 percent of it. If they do in a scenario like that, get a new accountant. If you keep the tractor parked at your work and never bring it home and use it mostly for work only, then knock yourself out and write the full amount off.

 

[canoetrpr]

Excellent post. Good to know of a US dealer that will deal hassle free with Canadians and good on JD for honouring the warranty across North America.

I'm still not sure I get why PST is not payed at the border. I've chatted with others that have bought Kubotas over the border and it sounded to me like they paid PST and GST.