How close is your dealer? And how important is that to you?

Another question came to mind. How close is your dealer to you? And how important is that to you?

I live in suburban Dallas, TX, but my property where my tractor is going to be located is 120 road miles away in SE Oklahoma.
I pass by JD, Kubota, Mahindra and New Holland dealers on my way to the property, but even then they are 30+ miles away.
The nearest Massey-Ferguson dealer is about 30 miles beyond my property. And the nearest Kioti dealer is about 20 miles from my house in the opposite direction from my property.

I expect to do all my maintenance myself, but should the distance to the dealer really make much difference to me?

Thanks!

Martin

Depends how far you want to drive for parts and supplies. Also depends on how good they are in general with customer service.

The John Deere dealer is 30 min away but I avoid dealing with them because the owner is a Idiot.

The Massey dealer is 45min away across the border. They are great to deal with. Is family owned and operated and everyone there is able to help you and they have most parts in stock.

I am spoiled. With in three miles there is JD, Kubota, Yanmar, New Holland and Mahindra. With the exception of the Mahindra dealer I use them all at one point or another and they provide great service. With that selection close by it would be crazy to go else where.

It does not matter to me. I have always thought some on TBN over rate the importance of dealers. I bought my tractor used and have two Mahindria dealers within twenty miles. Both sell me filters. Now I have found my preferred dealer in that the owner is a nice guy and I would rather give him my money. If at some point I decide to buy a new tractor he gets first shot but niceness only goes so far if his price is too high.

The dealer I buy my tractors from is 85 miles away. The place I have my tractor serviced is 17 miles away. The service place is a Kubota dealer too, but they only sell new tractors from one of their other branches - which is 45 miles away. There are other brands closer - but I like Orange...

My dealer is 13 miles away, but in another state. I thought having a dealer close was important, but in reality it isn't.

The nearest dealer is 250 miles, one way. Yep. I'm in the Boonies. I order parts from them and they ship to me. The 900 mile service will take some planning.

My dealer is 34 miles away and a pleasure to do business with. They carry Kubota as well as NH and have a big service department. The town (Farmington, MO) has many related businesses, so I can bundle a bunch of errands whenever I need to see the dealer.

There are other farm equipment dealers 20 or 30 miles away in other directions, too, but none significantly closer. So far the distance has not created any problems, and it didn't figure in my choice of brand.

I've found that any DEERE dealer can order any Deere part. Some parts like filters are common across the whole company line. So lawn & garden or construction dealers are a source for tractor parts.

The construction dealer is close, so I get parts for the lawn mower, tractor & backhoe in one stop shopping. Speed of delivery is a function of how much shipping you're willing to pay. Parts brought in via regular stock orders are free. The downtime on large Deere machines is measured in hours so parts delivery in a breakdown is too. It costs though ...