Sad news, looks like I'm an orphan now

[ray66v]

My local dealer had been in business for 80 years, so they weren't in much danger of going out of business.

They just stopped selling my brand.

Now, after several dealers in nearby counties were bought out, or closed, my nearest dealer is 90 miles away.

When you make a decision to buy, don't put a lot weight on the fact that your neighborhood dealer will there for you.

It's business.

 

[Texasmark]

If you are mechanically inclined, have a decent shop with adequate tools, have a service manual (which came with my new red tractors), and you have the credit/debit card and UPS you really don't need a dealer. My parts, including side glass in the door and right window...broken due to rock strikes from my drum mower, come from Plainview, Tx. warehouse. Most items are stocked there and are quick delivery. Some odd ball parts have to come from Korea but that's like a 10 day wait. The glass panels were in stock and had one in 3 days the other in about a week.

 

[BadDecisions]

And I _could_ have done the component replacement on my new $1,500 2-way radio when the display went bad easily enough...I work on electronic stuff for a living, it's easy enough to do. But half the reason I bought NEW was for the warranty attached to it, so that I'M not the one footing the bill for $600 worth of replacement parts on a 2 month old radio. Or, I'M not the one footing the bill for the broken transaxle on the above tractor. I'm not talking about whether one chooses to buy a 10 year old, long out of warranty tractor. Same as when I bought my 8N - I'm not counting a local supply of parts for it, though knowing Napa can get most service parts within a day did help sway me in that direction vs some random cheaper, but newer gray market or other import tractor. Same as how I spent more money on new implements from a local dealer - I feel confident that if I need parts for them, I'm not going to be spending 6 hours on Google trying to figure out what guy in BFE is actually importing parts, and waiting 3 weeks for him to finally send me something that may or may not fit since that company has changed which sweatshop in China is making them 20 times in the past 5 years....like half the crap I've bought at Harbor Freight. Been a few times that something I bought 3 months prior no longer has parts available because the supplier has changed half a dozen times since I bought it.

There's not a whole lot of companies out there that will send warranty parts to an end user for replacement outside of large commercial entities when they're not designed to be easily swapped parts (irony - there's some equipment that I have for personal use which is 100% identical to what my employer uses in the field..the manufacturer sent me parts to fix a warrantied failure in said equipment in my employer's use, yet refused to send me the same parts, for the same failure, for the unit that I personally own...claiming that they can only be replaced by "authorized service personnel", and if I did replace them myself, warranty would be void...)

My point largely being that if I owned a new Deere, Case, or other "big" name tractor, there's usually several dealers in each major area to service them and deal with warranty issues. That's often not the case with the "small" brands, and often if the one dealer closes shop, the owners are up the proverbial creek. Is Branson going to send me a replacement engine free of charge under warranty if it lets go, or require me to truck it to some other dealer, potentially hundreds of miles away, for service work? My radios are a bit different, yes, in that I can fairly easily box them up and send them away for repair. A bit harder to ship out a multi-thousands of pounds tractor for such events...

 

[Cougsfan]

Just this morning I loaned my inferior "small" brand tractor to a guy who has one of those wonderful, high quality "big" name tractors that as been broken down for a week waiting for one of those wonderful nearby dealers to come trailer it back to their shop and use their wonderfully rapid and fantastic warranty program to figure out why the plugged dpf won't regen on it's own. Meanwhile, it rained on his hay on the ground that he needed to bail last week. Somehow, BadDecisions, your whole security blanket logic pattern sounds a lot better in theory than it sometimes works in reality.

By the way, that Hercules drill I bought 7 years ago at Harbor Freight is still working just great. Best drill I have ever owned and I have owned several top name brands. I just bought a second, back up battery for it last month (the original battery still works fine). Still in stock, hasn't changed.

I don't mean to sound too sarcastic, but my point is that way too many people have unsupported beliefs about quality of products and service from big name dealers that aren't necessarily true. That doesn't mean the lesser known brands are always better, they can be anywhere between excellent to horrible. But the big name guys are not at all a guarantee of good products and/or service... They are certainly capable of not meeting your expectations.

It also bothers me that people rank on anything made in China. Undoubtedly some real crap is made in China (some of it is sold at Harbor Freight). But some real crap is made elsewhere too, including the USA. Most likely many of the quality products one might rave about are indeed made in China or some other third world "sweat shop". Regardless of your view on international trade, these days if you wish to avoid buying anything Chinese you had best go live in a cave and seal the entrance. Hopefully one day we will judge things on their own true merit and not on preconceived prejudices based on where they are made.

 

[K5lwq]

Very well said Cougsfan!

 

[Diggin It]

My point largely being that if I owned a new Deere, Case, or other "big" name tractor, there's usually several dealers in each major area to service them and deal with warranty issues.

You'll find that increasingly, that is not the case. Many areas may have more than one location of a corporatized dealer franchise where the employees all toe the same line which isn't always in the best interest of small machine owners. I may have 5 green shops, 3 red shops and 3 orange shops of two different shades, but each is owned by one company. If I have trouble at one green shop, it's a pretty safe bet the trouble will also be at the other 4 green shops.

My blue shop is farther away which can be a problem since I don't have a truck and trailer, but it's a family owned shop that is dedicated to the customer, not the paint color.

 

[mred2]

True Diggin It. And a lot of the green parts are made by Branson or others.

 

[Semi retired]

I stopped by my Branson dealer this week to ask him a question. When I pulled up, I noticed his front lot was bare... and his side yard was also bare... when I pulled up to the door, I noticed a note taped to the inside of the window. I originally thought he was either remodeling, or relocating... Nope. According to the note, he's out of business. He does give the location information of a "truck repair" shop 100 miles away that can do repair work. They are not a dealer though.

Now a flood of mixed emotions come over me all at once, surprise, shock, and worry.

First off, I really like this guy. He's the reason I bought this brand, nice guy, good customer service, just a guy you enjoy working with, goes the extra mile, etc. None of the other dealers in town would have cared if I dropped dead or not, let alone if I bought a tractor or not. They acted like they did me a favor by having the front door unlocked so I could walk in. But my Branson guy, is a younger guy (ok, younger than me), and I know he's still got some young kids at home, I've seen them in the dealership over school breaks. I actually hope he's ok, and that nothing has happened to him health wise or similar that forced this change on him. Hope his family is ok too. I've thought about calling him, I have his personal phone number (yes, he's that kind of guy), but I don't want to pester him or embarrass him. Just wondering if he's "ok". This closure affects real people and in a negative way, I'm sure, so it's not just about "poor me, and my tractor". Hope that makes sense here?

Now this does obviously leave me with the reality that there's not currently a Branson dealer in the state of ND. The closest one is Sioux Falls, SD, which is 300 miles away. I know I can order parts, filters, etc from other Branson dealers online (and I will have to do this at some point this summer, service is coming due), but I also admit that I enjoyed the "security blanket" of having my dealer in town in case something goes wrong, or (more likely) I do something dumb, and need a repair done (I'm still under warranty).

I also hesitated to post this at all, as there seems to be a "troll fest" that lingers about on TBN with folks eager to disdain the smaller brands whenever the chance comes up. Yes Branson has had problems historically with their dealer network, and dealership support. I think they hired a new corporate guy last year that was supposed to take this on. I do hope they shore up this side of their business strategy soon (not just for my sake, lol). But it seems a shame to have such a great product with such poor corporate network support.

My tractor didn't suddenly stop being a great tractor, and I plan on keeping it. It's done everything I've asked of it so far. Funny thing is, it looks like we're going to be moving soon to a 40 acre place, and I was toying with the idea of what my options were if I can't get one of my new neighbors to hay my 30 acres of pasture for me. One of the things I was going to pick my dealer's brain over when I stopped by. For some reason, the idea of a 2400H and 7845 combo was entering my head... Lol.

Anyway, I wasn't going to turn away from, or try to hide, the "bad" info here. We Branson owners need to stick together, and share information, both good and bad, when it surfaces. So, I'm passing this on, not to be negative, or to say "I'm MAD" (I'm not), but it's about free flow of information and news. And I think we should do our best to keep each other informed when we can.

I may call my old dealer sometime in the next few weeks, just to see if he's ok. He's on my mind. I hope he and his "guys" were able to transition easily into something else. I hate to see good folks out of work.

Peace.

 

[Semi retired]

I stopped by my Branson dealer this week to ask him a question. When I pulled up, I noticed his front lot was bare... and his side yard was also bare... when I pulled up to the door, I noticed a note taped to the inside of the window. I originally thought he was either remodeling, or relocating... Nope. According to the note, he's out of business. He does give the location information of a "truck repair" shop 100 miles away that can do repair work. They are not a dealer though.

Now a flood of mixed emotions come over me all at once, surprise, shock, and worry.

First off, I really like this guy. He's the reason I bought this brand, nice guy, good customer service, just a guy you enjoy working with, goes the extra mile, etc. None of the other dealers in town would have cared if I dropped dead or not, let alone if I bought a tractor or not. They acted like they did me a favor by having the front door unlocked so I could walk in. But my Branson guy, is a younger guy (ok, younger than me), and I know he's still got some young kids at home, I've seen them in the dealership over school breaks. I actually hope he's ok, and that nothing has happened to him health wise or similar that forced this change on him. Hope his family is ok too. I've thought about calling him, I have his personal phone number (yes, he's that kind of guy), but I don't want to pester him or embarrass him. Just wondering if he's "ok". This closure affects real people and in a negative way, I'm sure, so it's not just about "poor me, and my tractor". Hope that makes sense here?

Now this does obviously leave me with the reality that there's not currently a Branson dealer in the state of ND. The closest one is Sioux Falls, SD, which is 300 miles away. I know I can order parts, filters, etc from other Branson dealers online (and I will have to do this at some point this summer, service is coming due), but I also admit that I enjoyed the "security blanket" of having my dealer in town in case something goes wrong, or (more likely) I do something dumb, and need a repair done (I'm still under warranty).

I also hesitated to post this at all, as there seems to be a "troll fest" that lingers about on TBN with folks eager to disdain the smaller brands whenever the chance comes up. Yes Branson has had problems historically with their dealer network, and dealership support. I think they hired a new corporate guy last year that was supposed to take this on. I do hope they shore up this side of their business strategy soon (not just for my sake, lol). But it seems a shame to have such a great product with such poor corporate network support.

My tractor didn't suddenly stop being a great tractor, and I plan on keeping it. It's done everything I've asked of it so far. Funny thing is, it looks like we're going to be moving soon to a 40 acre place, and I was toying with the idea of what my options were if I can't get one of my new neighbors to hay my 30 acres of pasture for me. One of the things I was going to pick my dealer's brain over when I stopped by. For some reason, the idea of a 2400H and 7845 combo was entering my head... Lol.

Anyway, I wasn't going to turn away from, or try to hide, the "bad" info here. We Branson owners need to stick together, and share information, both good and bad, when it surfaces. So, I'm passing this on, not to be negative, or to say "I'm MAD" (I'm not), but it's about free flow of information and news. And I think we should do our best to keep each other informed when we can.

I may call my old dealer sometime in the next few weeks, just to see if he's ok. He's on my mind. I hope he and his "guys" were able to transition easily into something else. I hate to see good folks out of work.

Peace.

 

[Semi retired]

Hello Slim, just joined, I think, this site. Not sure if you’ll get this but going to try. I too was saddened to see Mr. Bitz close his doors. Really liked him as a dealer and a person. Was honest as the day is long. Anyway I’d like to know what your doing to replace his business to get parts or service. Just had an issue with my tractors hydraulics and think I know what the problem is but no idea where to try and get parts. I’m in Bismarck also. If you do get this my number is 701-301-7569 if you get this and would care to compare notes