Another NH dealer closing?

[MiserableOldFart]

Wow, reading all this stuff is a bit scary. We had local dealers here for New Holland, Cub Cadet, John Deere, Kubota and some I'm probably not remembering. They are gone. When I bought my NH in 2006, it was from the closest dealer, 26 miles away. They went out of business, came back morphed into a MF dealer. The closest NH dealer was then 50 miles away, but they since opened a branch about 25 miles from here. The idea of having anything like a "local" dealer in any rural area today is pretty much history. Like car dealerships, they are shutting down the small guys and consolidating into places that sell a LOT of tractors, not a couple in the summer. As a result, there is nothing close, and unless you happened to buy from the right dealer and / or your tractor is almost new, you're out of luck as far as the original dealer. I have a car and a truck, alright, they're 10 and 24 years old respectively, but both of those dealers went out within four or five years of my buying them too.

 

[murphy1244]

Theres a lot more to it then I know but the dealers know roughly how many tractors they expect to sell and at how much profit they need. My local Kubota dealer was going to sell me a tractor for $44k, when I told him the dealer the next county over (but distance wise not that much furthur) was at $42,500 so I had to pass he was shocked. He pulled the actual invoice to show me what the tractor really costs them which was around $41k. The other dealer however sells a lot more tractors and can afford to make less per unit then this dealer does. This guy is small and the other dealer is quite large with a couple stores in a larger market.

He sells more cause his prices are less!!

 

[RickB]

He sells more cause his prices are less!!

The dealer who sells more also buys for less.

 

[Robert_in_NY]

He sells more cause his prices are less!!

Not really, he sells more because they have been there a long time, are a very large dealer, are closer to the city where more of the small landowners have more money, is on a major road straight out of Buffalo, is also surrounded by farm land. And that is just one of their stores.

The smaller dealer is fairly new. They were a trailer dealer who started selling Kubota around 5-7 years ago in an area that is just outside of a very poor, failing small city of Jamestown, surrounded by swamps and wooded hills. The smaller dealer needs to charge more even with a smaller operating expense simply because they can't sell as many tractors.

Yeah, they can sell a tractor and make $1500 but of that money they still need to setup and deliver the tractor as well as cover any warranty loss they may incur. And with the tractor I was buying both dealers had to drive (1.5 hours for the large dealer, 3 hours for the small) some distance to pick it up and bring it back to add the rest of the items I needed on it. Kubota was willing to help with some of the cost of getting it but not all of it. The small dealer had to make a special trip to get it, the larger dealer combined it with picking up another tractor. So how can a small dealer sell tractors at such a little profit and stay in business?

 

[Robert_in_NY]

The dealer who sells more also buys for less.

Everything favors the larger dealerships

 

[HenryFordPower]

The dealer who sells more also buys for less.

Not true. All dealers buy from CNH or their wholesaler at the same price. Its federally mandated. Robinson Patman Act.

 

[HenryFordPower]

Not true. All dealers buy from CNH or their wholesaler at the same price. Its federally mandated. Robinson Patman Act.

On this note, I will say that monthly programming plays into the bottom line, and in most cases targets are set for particular regions on particular product lines at particular times. This can affect a dealer's sell price.

I guess how my above post should have read was that the supplier invoice for like products is always the same dealer to dealer. Invoice dating is also important here as price increases do occur. The only way that invoice price on identical units are not the same is if one unit is invoiced at a published ( meaning all dealers know) price increase. Price increases usually only occur once per year.

The Robinson Patman Act is strictly enforced with CNH. Every dealer is offered the same wholesale price. There is also no " volume discount" for NH whole goods. As stated above though, programming is always different region to region and time to time.

 

[big lar]

Just came across this discussion, so it may be dated , but want to pass it on; depending on where you are in New Engalnd. Klem's in Spencer, Mass. have been a Ford/NH dealer for over 60 years. Do carry Mahandrin now too but have a real service shop for all work on Ford/NH stuff. A lot closer than going to New York.

 

[sawtooth]

First, I agree with point #1 100%. Point #2, I wish we were aware of from the start. Our original dealer told us when we bought it that it wouldn't be a problem to take it to any NH dealer for warranty work. When we did just that, the dealer we took it to said they couldn't do the work and it needed to be brought back to the orignal dealer. I was originally under the impression that the new tractor industry was like the new car industry where you could take it to any named dealer for repair without a problem. With the tractor, we found out that a different dealer than where it was purchased doing any warranty work was only paid 60 % from NH, which makes perfect sense as to why they wouldn't want to be bothered with a large engine repair. Thanks for your insight.

Even with automobiles it can be the same story just depends on dealer. All dealers tend to help their customers first just some more than others. Your always better off to pay a little more and buy local IF you plan to use their service. I almost always find that through negotiations i can get close to my best price found elsewhere.