Asssment of Korean Tractor Manufacturers

[Maka]

Thanks Batwing. I love the T353 and feel it is a good machine. Problem for TYM in my opinion is the continual cycle of dealers who drop the product. Pretty soon they have no one becomeing dealers and because of a lack of dealers buyers move else where.

TYM can change this but they wont get to many chances. It will be hard for TYM as they are relatively small palyer against the others.

 

[Maka]

Hey Dave, great post. I agree with you. Good to see you again.

 

[batwing]

Before I bought my TYM I was looking to buy a John Deer or a Kubota from a very good dealer close to us until I heard they may be closing because John Deer was giving them a hard time. They had a great following but have closed. I heard Henry Ford said he would give every one a model T if he could sell all the parts, seems like any company would make a great effort to have the parts. I would think this would be a big plus on the bottom line.
Ron

 

[TSO]

I owned Kioti and LS. Both were good tractors. My Kioti had a steering/shaft assembly replaced because of a bad seal (warranty, 2 weeks) at around 50hrs and an o- ring in one of the loader couplers go bad. Otherwise, solid machine till 250hrs when I sold it.

I had no problems with either of the 2 LS tractors I owned for a year, 50hrs & 150hrs, other than a blown headlight fuse, which I fixed by inserting a slightly higher rated fuse, and which was later discovered to be the right fix from LS.

I think the Branson tractors look very nice, and if I had a dealer near me, and the loader on the largest HST CUT model lifted higher, it would have been worth looking at. From pictures, the cab looked very nice. I also read somewhere that Kukje (Branson's parent co) had built some tractors for JD, but I'm not sure where I'd read that. I don't know how much staying power they'll have at this point.

TYM seems more committed to selling to other OEM's than building their own brand here. If Cabella's starts offering the TYM tractors at an actually competitive price, that should really help them move some units.

Personally I'd rate them as:

1) Kioti
2) LS
3) TYM
4) Branson

1) Kioti builds their own tractors, pretty much all components from the ground up. They even developed their own tier 4 engine (after making their own tier 3 engines as well) instead of shopping around for someone else's. Kioti made some actual advanced improvements on their "new" tractors... The DK to NX update actually added some nice features that sets them apart from the other Korean players: added linked pedal on HST, added stall guard, updated their cruise control, added external lift cylinders on 3pt, etc. LS & TYM barely changed a thing besides the engines (which neither builds now). For these reasons, I feel Kioti is looking to the future more than the others, and will ultimately be more successful. My only gripe about them is their name (never liked the name Kioti, tho Daedong doesn't sound that great either lol).

LS: LS' current saving grace is that they are very affordable, and that they currently have sales outlets with Case-NH. Obviously, LS' strategy in the US has always been centered on sales to other OEM's... FarmTrac, Montana, McCormick (back before McCormick went to Daedong), and now Case-NH. I was much more impressed with LS when they were building their own Mitsubishi engines... Now they are buying tier 4 from Shibaura. And while I don't have anything bad to say about Shibaura (I own one in my Hustler ZT mower) it somehow instills less confidence (from me) in LS as its'own brand than when they were using their own engines. Now, I've heard different reasons on why they switched to Shibaura (especially when Mitsubishi has tier 4 engines available), but my gut tells me it was because Case-NH wanted to get back to Shibaura engines. And that tells me that LS might be worried more about the Case-NH contract than their own LS sales. That's just a theory. But hey, if I was selling tractors, I'd be happy selling them to another OEM supplier, as it would bee much easier than advertising and supporting your own sales.

TYM: TYM is like the "almost" brand in my opinion. They seem to build a good product, they seem to have the capacity to make as many as needed for their OEM buyers, but they never seem to take the next step to build their own branding here. Although, they did send a rep to this site to spread info, which I personally feel mixed about. TYM was buying engines for their tier 3 tractors (mostly Perkins) and now are buying tier 4 from Yanmar. Which doesn't say anything other than they're not committed to building their own. The fact that LS has more history here and more capital backing them, is the main reason I'm putting TYM behind LS.

Branson: I'm sure they'll sell units in the areas where they have dealer representation, but I don't see anyone traveling to buy one. A better dealer network is what they'll need. And even though they don't make their own engines, they put a big name engine in there (Cummins) which I think would help sell some units all by itself, if only they had dealers.

..............

Ultimately, I don't think this market will support all 4 companies here, at least, not while selling under their own name. You can only live on table scraps so long ... So I would expect one of them to phase out of independent sales in the near future.

And for what it's worth, from my own personal experience, I feel that the Massey (Iseki) compacts are better than any of these 4 brands we're discussing. I feel that Kioti is closest at this point, but needs to step up their materials quality, especially inside their cabs. The plastics feel really thin and cheap compared to the Massey. And the tiny little buckets they throw onto the loaders needs an up-sizing. (And ironically, my tier 3 Massey has an in-house Iseki diesel which I'm really happy with, while they now install tier 4 Mitsubishi engines in their new tractors ... Time will tell how that will work out)

Anyhow, those are my thoughts

 

[KiwiBro]

I was much more impressed with LS when they were building their own Mitsubishi engines... Now they are buying tier 4 from Shibaura. And while I don't have anything bad to say about Shibaura (I own one in my Hustler ZT mower) it somehow instills less confidence (from me) in LS as its'own brand than when they were using their own engines.

It's been about 6 months since they opened their own T4 engine plant with about 60,000 unit capacity. I noted with some interest the LS XU5065 T4 model tractor uses the Shibaura engine and not their own. This is a particularly suitable tractor for my needs but it makes me wonder which engines they are building in their new plant. Perhaps they are piggy-backing on the engine order volumes the deal with Case provides while the new engine plant gets up to speed (it was a reported $500m deal), and maybe in the 2015 models onwards, at least LS and perhaps maybe even the contract Case models will be LS Mtron engines?

Or maybe the new engine plant is geared for the smaller engines, but I read somewhere it was the 30-70HP engines the plant was targeting, so a 65-70HP engine is not out of its planned scope.

Does anyone know? Thanks in advance.

 

[cford36]

Didn't LS say that they were switching back to their Mitsubishi engine in 2015. I thought someone posted an article about it.

 

[KiwiBro]

Wow. That would be interesting. They have been at least 3 years at the R&D to produce their Mtron engines, if my understanding is correct. The impression I had was they were not keen on using the Mitsi design under license at the new plant. But perhaps i got my wires crossed, and they just spent 3 years designing the actual plant rather than engines and were always going to keep making Mitsis under license?

 

[Buggs67]

I bought my Kioti because it was the best value for the $$$ within reasonable distance.
Find a KIOTI Dealer | Kioti Tractors this is the result when I plug in my zip to their dealer locator. 5 dealers out to 40+ miles. That being said they do seem to be dealer-centric from my (limited) experience. That could be good as it will encourage dealers to remain with the brand.

I like that Kioti make all their components. It speaks to being in it for the long haul, and it's that attitude and excellent engineering that made the Japanese car companies a powerful force. I also like that they are not doing a lot of re-badging. I don't like buying a product and finding out it's really an XYZ.

And while Kioti may not be an outstanding name for a tractor, LS is worse. Seems like it should stand for something. Like ...Land Stomper. Or Lil Stud. Anyone have a better LS name?

 

[DavesTractor]

And while Kioti may not be an outstanding name for a tractor, LS is worse. Seems like it should stand for something. Like ...Land Stomper. Or Lil Stud. Anyone have a better LS name?

I think the tractor makes the name, not the other way around. Kioti seems like as good of a name as any. We all respect Kubota, but if you disconnect what you know of them today and were bringing in a brand new line of tractors from Asia, would you call them Kubota? Yet it worked. Even John Deere is an odd name for a tractor, but that brand name is worth a ton at this point.

An GE isn't so catchy, nor is Textron. Names are an odd thing. Even with people, if you admire someone with a particular name, it's a good name.

Just my thoughts regarding brand names. I thought Montana was a good sounding name for as tractor, and Branson sounds tough and American. But there has to be long term substance behind the name for it to really have value. It takes time.

 

[Buggs67]

I think the tractor makes the name, not the other way around.

Absolutely. Just responding to a post saying Kioti isn't a tractor name. When I was looking at LS I was wondering what it stood for (like JD or MF). I hope Kioti is the best Korean (or any) tractor around, since that's what I have. And I'm happy with it so far.