John Deere's poor dealership decision making IMO.

[Cahaba Valley Farm]

How many charity dealerships should JD, NH, Kubota, Mahindra, etc, etc have?

Kindness to the customer? To me that usually equates to good quality, dependable products at a fair price, and sold by knowledgeable sales staff, with a superior service department in a pleasant environment. What does it mean to you?

Yeah and you definitely won't be getting that with what Deere is doing.

 

[Cahaba Valley Farm]

People who complain about the price of parts have no idea of the money the manufacturer has tied up with parts sitting in warehouses on shelves. I can go into my dealer and get a part for a 25-year-old piece of equipment. That part has been sitting on a shelf since the piece of equipment was replaced with a new model and the parts all changed. If you don't understand the cost of money, you should take the time to learn about the costs to have money tied up in a static asset. Yeah, parts are expensive. One of the reasons is having them sit on a shelf for and an undetermined amount of time is a COST. I've never found the Deere parts to be excessive in comparison to other brands of tractors.

My Ford and New Holland parts were expensive, and hardly a bargain compared to the same type of parts from Deere. I get the idea that some of you think manufacturers are really charities hiding behind agricultural equipment. I never complain about parts' cost if I can get the piece of equipment functional. It's far more expensive to have the equipment sitting unused than to pay the parts' cost. For parts needing to be ordered, I've never waited for more than five days to get the part, in most cases, the wait has been 2-3 days. That kind of parts service COSTS MONEY to setup and maintain.

Agreed. It's one the biggest problems that exists with Korean made tractors. They have a lot of problems with parts support.

As for Deere running dealers out of business, AGCO does exactly the same thing. My local Deere dealer was a Hesston dealer for years. Then AGCO bought Hesston. He sold about two million dollars a year in Hesston equipment - AGCO told him that wasn't good enough, and closed his Hesston dealership. Now, the nearest Hesston dealer is 250 miles away. I'm sure you can figure out - no one buys Hesston equipment where I live as there is no longer a local dealer.

That is unbelievable.

 

[Kyle_in_Tex]

I completely agree with you and the OP. Consolidating all the local dealerships under one umbrella is no good for anyone other than JD. It's the death of customer service. All it does is create unnecessary bureaucracy and runs off all the good sales people and veterans in the industry that are worth their salt. What you're left with is incompetent, lazy, low information morons that don't even know what size engine is under the hood of their biggest selling tractor (SMH)

Actually our former family-owned dealership still employees most of the original people that were there in the beginning. They are all good people

 

[TyBoo]

I don't know which large outfits are the subject of this discussion in other areas of the country, but the major JD dealer here in the Pacific Northwest seems to have very good customer service and prices. I can't see how their buying up the independent dealerships has impacted the local economies all that much. They keep most of the employees who choose to stay and it seems to me they hire more to keep up with the increased business.

The independent JD dealer a few miles from me, where I have spent a whole bunch of money in the past 30 years, is still very busy and must be doing quite well because they didn't seem to care if I bought my latest new tractor from them since they added $300 to the quote when it came time to order. Their quote was already higher than the big outfit that was 60 miles away and the only quibbling I did was for the amount added in bad faith. The sales person told me, no kidding, that if $300 was that important to me I should probably go somewhere else. So I did.

After making the deal with the big outfit in the next state, I asked for a bunch of service supplies to be added to the sale price so I would not have to pay that state's sales tax. I got enough filters and hydraulic oil for two services on both the new 2025r and the diesel lawn tractor I already had. Those parts came to over $400 list. When I didn't see them on the final invoice I told the salesman he hadn't added them and he told me they were gratis, and thanks for the business.

Just this week I bought a Frontier root grapple from them and got it for 25% off list price without dickering, although I think the ten fresh dungeness crab I had given to the sales manager the week before had something to do with it.

So in the end I saved close to $2k by going to Papé. I am all for supporting the local guys, but I am a retired guy whose money is important, too.

 

[Cahaba Valley Farm]

Actually our former family-owned dealership still employees most of the original people that were there in the beginning. They are all good people

I'm glad to hear that and I hope it will stay that way :thumbsup:

 

[Cahaba Valley Farm]

I don't know which large outfits are the subject of this discussion in other areas of the country, but the major JD dealer here in the Pacific Northwest seems to have very good customer service and prices. I can't see how their buying up the independent dealerships has impacted the local economies all that much. They keep most of the employees who choose to stay and it seems to me they hire more to keep up with the increased business.

The independent JD dealer a few miles from me, where I have spent a whole bunch of money in the past 30 years, is still very busy and must be doing quite well because they didn't seem to care if I bought my latest new tractor from them since they added $300 to the quote when it came time to order. Their quote was already higher than the big outfit that was 60 miles away and the only quibbling I did was for the amount added in bad faith. The sales person told me, no kidding, that if $300 was that important to me I should probably go somewhere else. So I did.

After making the deal with the big outfit in the next state, I asked for a bunch of service supplies to be added to the sale price so I would not have to pay that state's sales tax. I got enough filters and hydraulic oil for two services on both the new 2025r and the diesel lawn tractor I already had. Those parts came to over $400 list. When I didn't see them on the final invoice I told the salesman he hadn't added them and he told me they were gratis, and thanks for the business.

Just this week I bought a Frontier root grapple from them and got it for 25% off list price without dickering, although I think the ten fresh dungeness crab I had given to the sales manager the week before had something to do with it.

So in the end I saved close to $2k by going to Papé. I am all for supporting the local guys, but I am a retired guy whose money is important, too.

If you have had a great buying experience from the big consolidated Deere dealership in your local area then that is great and I hope it continues to be that way. I can not argue with your or anybody else experience. If this business model does work well in other areas of the country then I would like to know about it and learn what is making it successful. However, I can tell you in my local area it has not worked out that way. Most of these Deere dealerships have turned into moron central.

 

[two_bit_score]

It's also a very greedy company and has horrible customer service.

Enjoy your opinion. You are entitled to it.

I’ve had great service and reception from my JD dealer as well as others I’ve dealt with.

 

[Cahaba Valley Farm]

Enjoy your opinion. You are entitled to it.

I’ve had great service and reception from my JD dealer as well as others I’ve dealt with.

My statement was in reference to JD's national customer service.

 

[two_bit_score]

My statement was in reference to JD's national customer service.

You obviously have an ax to grind with JD. What did they do? Fire you? Repossess the tractor you bought but couldn’t afford? Did your wife run off with a JD exec? Are you a failed dealer who couldn’t hack it? Just need attention and don’t know a positive way to get it?

Brand bashing on here is not entirely unheard of but yours goes to the extreme. Usually there is an underlying cause for such animosity.

There is help for your troubles. Maybe not here but somewhere.

 

[RickB]

You obviously have an ax to grind with JD. What did they do? Fire you? Repossess the tractor you bought but couldn’t afford? Did your wife run off with a JD exec? Are you a failed dealer who couldn’t hack it? Just need attention and don’t know a positive way to get it?

Brand bashing on here is not entirely unheard of but yours goes to the extreme. Usually there is an underlying cause for such animosity.

There is help for your troubles. Maybe not here but somewhere.

He has a parallel attack on Kubota in a different thread. A few of us have added him to our ignore list. The results are refreshing.