John Deere Spring Open Houses-2002...

RichZ · Mar 6, 2002

aarrgh!!! Another one during the week!!

And this Friday, I have to take a train down to NYC for a meeting!! I have to do that once each month. A 2 3/4 hour train ride each way, followed by a wild Manhattan cab ride to a meeting on Fifth Ave, all for a stupid 2 hour meeting. All at the expense of the New York State taxpayers. Your government dollars working for you!!

Rich
"What a long strange trip it's been."

rancar · Mar 6, 2002

Ah, Rich. This is good news. Now, I know I'm not the only one that attends those stupid 2-hr NYC meetings. Well, make the best of it. At least pick up a good sub at Don Pepe's or a dozen Krispy Kremes at Penn Station for the train trip back. /w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif

rancar · Mar 6, 2002

Rich --

Reason Allen Farm Equipment has their open houses on Wednesdays is the fact they are primarily an Ag dealer, not Commercial, not Consumer. Farmers are their predominant customers. Farmers can more easily get away from the farm between AM and PM milkings for the weekday open house. Saturdays are tough for them as they like to stay home with the families. They also have it in March before the Spring planting season begins. Farmers apparently spend their free time in late winter between milkings repairing their machinery, attending equipment auctions, or attending open houses. Allen had an open house on a Saturday some years ago. Only 90 people showed up. Their Wednesday open houses bring in about 300-350 people. This then is the reason for their Wednesday open house.

rancar · Mar 6, 2002

John --

You sure it's Friday. I was down there today, spoke to John Scofield in Sales and he made mention of their open house tomorrow, March 7. But, maybe he was mistaken.

Davis had some real nice equipment on the lot. They had a 4710 but it was already sold. John Scofield may tempt me with a 4700 w/ PowerReverser and 460 FEL that he has in stock but my dream machine is really the 4710. I'll wait until he sends me his price packages.

BTW, thanks for references to Knightes and KC-Canary. I have these two, Davis, and Allen all working up price packages for me. Should have them in by the weekend. Should be interesting to see what they all present. Most impressed so far with Davis and KC-Canary, but price at the end will likely be the determining factor.

Regards,
Bob Ancar
Cambridge, NY

Anonymous Poster · Mar 7, 2002

Bob,

I'll confirm it again this am... {maybe 2 days...?}

What happened @ Allen's open house...?

rancar · Mar 7, 2002

John -- Gary Sherman, Sales Manager,gave brief noon time talk on new JD machines and/or new changes in old models, primarily the big ag models that I couldn't relate to, a bit of a talk on new Spring JD Credit financing rates. Alot of farmers showed up....again, couldn't relate.....asked questions on Ag tractors and related equipment. Didn't even stay for the free lunch. Drove right on down then to Chatham to talk to the folks at Davis.

Bob

RichZ · Mar 7, 2002

Yeah, Bob! Isn't working for New York State great??!!/w3tcompact/icons/crazy.gif All this travel is such a waste of taxpayer dollars. Albany is supposed to be the state capital, but the bigwigs like to set up meetings in NYC. We should keep each other posted of when we have to go down for meetings. If we're really lucky, we may have them the same day sometime, and we could take the train together.

It's always such a culture shock for me, to be in my barn feeding the animals early in the morning, and be walking around in Manhattan later in the day! It's a real looonnng day!

Hey, what are the odds of us both living in the same town, both working for the state (as planners no less!), both into old houses and antiques, and of course, both into tractors??!! Pretty cosmic!!! Now you gotta tell me, you wouldn't be a Deadhead would you?

Rich
"What a long strange trip it's been."

Anonymous Poster · Mar 7, 2002

Bob,

Yep... confirmed tomorrow Open House {Friday 10-3...}

Davis Tractor and Turf
Chatham, NY

I'll try to shoot down there for a few minutes lunch time... about 17 miles from me...

Anonymous Poster · Mar 7, 2002

Open House May 3-4-5-2002
Fri, Sat, Sun
8-6/8-5/12-4 hours

Clifton Park Lawn & Leisure
1917 Route 9
Clifton Park, NY
518 877-5059

rancar · Mar 7, 2002

John -- Davis has some real nice 4000 and 5000 series machines on the lot. It was like a day and night difference between them and Allen (they had very little to look at). But, you may need more than a few minutes to browse. /w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif On the surface, I liked these guys at Davis. They had a clean store (eg, real nice assortment of Stihl chainsaws -- my favorite), clean shop, and nice ordered yard where they had the machines lined up in a row. John Scofield also seemed to know his stuff. He anticipated my questions before I was even able to ask them. He suggested options that I had in mind before I even mentioned them (eg, nice steal plate welded to upper flange of FEL bucket upon which three bucket hooks are welded ----- just like the pictures I've seen here at TBN).

I'm also working closely with Mark Brucker @ KC-Canary. He's appears very responsive and he's promising a nice, well-delineated, item by item breakdown of prices on the shopping list I gave him. It may be a real hard decision to choose between these two dealers if the prices they come back with are comparable.

I'll be doing up a post on my shopping experience with the four dealers I mentioned after I've inked a deal with the winner. This is quite a learning experience. /w3tcompact/icons/eyes.gif

Let us know what you think of Davis.

Regards,
Bob Ancar