I'm not sure how other lines do their freight, but New Holland's is subsidized. Dealers on the east coast have to pay a portion of the freight expense associated with sending NH's to the west coast, for example. The actual cost of a tractor should not be much different for dealers in a different area, but other factors do contribute. The cost of living is much higher, say, in NY than in NC, for example. The other side of that though, is that all dealers set their own shop rate for warranty and then tell NH what that rate is. Ours is $65/hr for large equipment, but I know of a dealer in VA that is $80/hr for the same work. It's not really that he's trying to rip people off-he may just have more expenses than we do in our area. Our point of view was that if you can set your rate to cover your expenses then why not honor the dealer's agreement to warranty any NH piece of equipment regardless of where it was purchased? You are correct though-in general a dealer will lose on warranty work over time no matter their location. Our perspective, though, was why not do that warranty work, break even or lose a little, and then try to win the customer over for the future or to get their parts and service business? We've done it several times.
We basically had no choice being so close to Corriher-we either had to compete with the low pricing/high volume approach or we'd be out of business.
Yes, NH did tell us that the main complaints were from dealers in the northeast. They showed us all the letters and emails, etc. that those dealers sent in. I don't blame them for being upset, but it's not like we went into it to target the northeast. We advertised, people from all over the USA called, and we sold them equipment. We were allowed to do that based on the NH dealer's agreement, and like I said, at that point in time it was play the game your competition plays or get run out of town. We only felt like we could bow out when NH really stepped up the pressure.
I guess I should clarify: NH does not have territories now. We still can and do sell parts and equipment out of state, it was just the advertising that had to change. I would guess that roughly 30% of our sales are still out of state customers...
If I missed anyone's question please let me know.