Another Kioti Dealer Gone

[Gods Country]

Any chance Daedong is putting their eggs in the Bobcat basket looking for brand recognition?

 

[Mousefield]

#1 reason why I never even gave Kioti any consideration when buying. No dealer close and no history.

Bought my CK35 HST Kioti from the USA and imported it myself. The dealer is about 600+ miles away, plus a 2 hour ferry ride. Didn't stop me, the Kioti is a great tractor. :thumbsup: I had one minor issue with the Woods backhoe and two with the Kioti (micro switch) (o- ring) All 3 times the dealer dealt with it promptly. With the Woods we got a local tractor mechanic to swap out a swing cylinder were the C clip had popped out. Shop is only 15 minutes away and he came to my place to do the work. The O-ring same tractor mechanic came out and the micro switch I changed myself. So having a local dealer is nice but not always necessary.

 

[offshore]

[. I have known dealers who have claimed no fault when closed and they get the public g. They must pay their bills! They had even sold tractors and not paid for them. They would use the money for something else like vacations! I am not saying that the dealer in this thread has done any of this but that there are always things that we don't know and shouldn't know as the general public.[/QUOTE]

I'm sure this statement is true in some cases , but quite confident it does not apply in this situation .
I have been doing business with the batchelders for years and as a vendor I never had financial issues.
With that said I am also a kioti owner and have owned the other orange tractor and a green one too but I took a chance with kioti because of batchelders reputation for fair and friendly service after the sale !
I felt compelled to contact kioti and voice my displeasure with being left hanging and having to ship my tractor 2 hours away for warranty work and pay heavy pick up and delivery charges ,I explained that I would continue to use batchelder sales for my regular service work.
kioti's public relations dept actually responded with a threat , they said they would void my warranty !
I like my kioti it has been a decent tractor but I have totally lost my confidence in who is " behind " kioti tractor therefor I will be purchasing another tractor from the batchelders this time though it will be the a new yanmar/cub LX series :thumbsup:

 

[Dargo]

#1 reason why I never even gave Kioti any consideration when buying. No dealer close and no history.

I'm somewhat similar but not really. Poor IslandTractor is probably tired of hearing me opine about only having roadside yard barn dealers in my area which are now all gone. IMHO, Kioti made a mistake by allowing those sorts of dealers have a franchise. To be honest, based solely on the look of the sellers, I assumed they were junk and never gave them a thought; especially when all 4 of the dealers went away.

However, I've read way too many posts about people being very well pleased with their Kioti to still think they are just a junk Kubota knockoff. I still firmly believe that Kioti definitely copied Kubota and tried to ride their coattails into the market. I still recall some saying that they were the same machine and parts would interchange. Now, similar to Kia and Hyundai, Kioti is very well able to stand on their own. As such, I believe Kioti corporate realized that in some places they had too many stores and in other places they had bad stores. However, I cannot figure their process at preening dealers. I've read of too many quality dealers having their franchise pulled. I don't understand.

It's disheartening because I won't drive 2 hours to a dealer when I have nearly every other brand I could dream of within a half an hour from me. To be honest, I'd be surprised if one of the established dealers in my area doesn't have Kioti tractors show up on their lot in the near future. Still, I'm sorry to read of good dealers losing the line due to mistakes made by Kioti in their past franchising practices. Hopefully they'll get their distribution network the way they want it soon. I'm not in a huge market by any means, however, there are many thousands of tractors owned and operated in my area and probably less than a dozen of them are Kioti tractors. Something seems wrong with that picture when it comes to Kioti franchising.

 

[rdhintz]

Is there any truth to the rumor that Bobcat bought Kioti. I talked to the Bobcat dealer at a Sportmans show in SLC and the salesman was telling me this.

 

[wallace]

[. I have known dealers who have claimed no fault when closed and they get the public g. They must pay their bills! They had even sold tractors and not paid for them. They would use the money for something else like vacations! I am not saying that the dealer in this thread has done any of this but that there are always things that we don't know and shouldn't know as the general public.

I'm sure this statement is true in some cases , but quite confident it does not apply in this situation .
I have been doing business with the batchelders for years and as a vendor I never had financial issues.
With that said I am also a kioti owner and have owned the other orange tractor and a green one too but I took a chance with kioti because of batchelders reputation for fair and friendly service after the sale !
I felt compelled to contact kioti and voice my displeasure with being left hanging and having to ship my tractor 2 hours away for warranty work and pay heavy pick up and delivery charges ,I explained that I would continue to use batchelder sales for my regular service work.
kioti's public relations dept actually responded with a threat , they said they would void my warranty ! I like my kioti it has been a decent tractor but I have totally lost my confidence in who is " behind " kioti tractor therefor I will be purchasing another tractor from the batchelders this time though it will be the a new yanmar/cub LX series :thumbsup:[/QUOTE]

Wow they really said this!!!
Making statement like this will self destruct any business!

 

[offshore]

Wow they really said this!!!
Making statement like this will self destruct any business![/QUOTE]

I am preparing a sworn statement to give to the batchelders ,
You would think kioti's representative would have a little more finess when dealing with an upset customer. Its too bad , kioti has a good product but after this I would not recommend them based soley on my experiance with them

 

[Hoosier Hay Man]

It is basicaly a brand purity issue. It seems to be a stratagy alot the majors are doing. They don't like to have a dealer with multiple competing brands on the same lot. Kioti seems to be signing onto the same stratagy. I don't agree with their thinking completely but it is the trend. In our area Agco, Deere and CNH dealers are consolidating and closing stores all of the time. They don't like to see those dealers with competing shortline equipment either.
I like the smaller shops and it doesn't bother me a dealer has competing brands I can compare. Now if I were in charge of marketing I can see where they wouldn't like dealers having competing brands together. If you can read thru this article in Rural Lifestyle Dealer magazine you will see where Kioti Corporate stands. Rural Lifestyle Dealer - Perspectives on the Rural Lifestyle Market: Small Tractor Manufacturers - Kioti Tractor

 

[sweettractors]

1 Kioti dealer to support all of Ky does seem like a good marketing strategy. Ky dealers were smart enough to have dropped Kioti before they screwed us all. Talk to O'bryan Sales in Owensboro, Ky about the kind of people Kioti Cooperate are to deal with. He really got the short end of the stick and was probably their best volume dealer. Heck, They even took his website. Ken Sweet

 

[Dmace]

kioti's public relations dept actually responded with a threat , they said they would void my warranty!

Wow they really said this!!!
Making statement like this will self destruct any business!

I have yet to find any company that will allow a non-franchise to perform work on something under warranty without voiding it. If I brought a brand new John Deere to a Kubota dealer for work I guarantee John Deere would try voiding my warranty. This doesn't seem any different. It's not just tractors, would you bring your $60k Ford to a ACE transmission shop and expect Ford to still honor it's drivetrain warranty?