My JD dealer experience

[CHDinCT]

Glad you cleared things up, but I find it hard to believe that a person that trades his machine in and settles the deal on a new tractor, would then even try to sell it privately. Even if the private add was old, if someone called me on it, I'd simply tell them I traded it in and to whom so they could follow up with the dealer if they were still interested. At the very least, I'd be honest with the inquirer and tell them I was in the process of trading it in and would need to talk to the trade-in dealer to make sure I could sell it privately. What I'm getting at is why the private seller, who now doesn't own his old tractor, would never mention it was traded or in the process of being traded in, when you called him. The whole situation still seems odd to me.

[OCD]

I knew the private seller had been talking to the dealer about trades, did not know a "deal" had been set. I do not know the details, but I would imagine that he had some kind of option to try and sell privately if possible for a certain amount of time. I mean, we are talking big numbers here, at least to me. And in all fairness, I would not expect the seller to fully disclose his actions at the dealer, he wants to get as much money as he can for the machine, as greensouth would want to get for their machine. And, I would want the same. I, of course, here wanted to pay as "little" as I could for it as I was the buyer. If greensouth let him have that kind of option then good business, if he did not have that option and they let him have it back, better business. I actually paid about the same that greensouth had it listed for, so I probably would have done better $$$ wise to buy from greensouth, if I had known. Or could have offered less on my offer, my fault there. I still think I paid a "fair" price and knew exactly what I was getting and also got a better feel for the machine history.

If I had done my homework well enough I would have seen the listing in tractorhouse myself prior to purchase. But, it was in the 40-100HP range, and I was limiting searches to <40 HP (the machine if 44HP, 35 PTO). The machine was also listed the day before I made the deal with the seller, so apparently then it was GS machine and he was able to opt out and sell privately. Just took some time for all things to get caught up and sorted. Again, no harm done.

[Paystar]

Wasn't going to post this before, but since we're on the topic. I went to a dealer (we'll leave un-named....NH....woops) to look into purchasing a specific model. Well the salesman was out but a service guy tried to help me. He didn't know any details on the model so he went in the office, found a really nice book and gave it to me. It covered all the models in full detail with pics. Went home, started to read it. It was the dealers sales reference guide. First paragraph in it....."This is strictly confidential. Do not disclose any of this with your customers or allow them to see this guide." Then it goes on with all the "tricks" to fool and deceive your potential clients to make them believe you have a superior product. Things like how to "read" your customer, and how to focus in on that and the ways to make your product superior in the areas he is interested in. There's a lot more too. I couldn't believe what I was reading, it made me loose all respect for this brand.
But it makes you wonder if they all use these tactics??

[MossRoad]

Moderator's note:

There were two identical threads by the original poster in two different forums. I merged them into this one thread and left a redirect in the other forum.

[mred]

Maybe this is naive but wouldn't it be nice if we spoke more openly about good and poor dealer experiences with this level of detail. For it to work it would be necessary to hear both sides of the story. The goal being more informed decisions about the dealer we choose. Consumer reports for tractor dealers ?