Don't generally disagree w/ rScotty, however the cash purchase is overated in some cases. Case in point: Few years ago, my kubota financing required NO money down, O percent- 60 months, even the sales tax was using kubota' s money. At that time cash vs finance price of machine was the same. Manufacturers have since become a little smarter, baking in a finance fee.
That's OK. Sometimes I disagree with myself....and as an example, when we bought the
M59 in 2008, my wife and I had been looking for months and knew we had found the right tractor. We had already been to JD, NH, Cat, and Case - and finally now we found what we liked best at Kubota. That sure surprised us! A Japanese tractor! Imagine that!! But no denying it was just what we were looking for. And seemed well made.
So we sat down with the dealer to enjoy the laidback farmstyle dickering on price and options that is so much a part of rural culture in the US. Both the dealer and I both knew that unless things went way wrong between us it was obvious that I was going to buy that particular tractor off their lot. But of course it was way less obvious as to just what the extras would be, and what would and wouldn't be included, or for that matter for how much total money. As well as just how the sales & service contract would read. Those are the fun parts of buying anything big.
We had gotten it all figured out and the sales contract written up to our mutual satisfaction and I'm actually opening my checkbook when the dealer asked if I would rather use the 0% financing instead of cash. uh...what??
For the slightest discount we would have paid cash. We expected to do so. It was frankly very hard for that dealer to convince me that cash vs Kubota's 0% financing really didn't make any difference to him, and that Kubota was entirely on the level with the 0%, 60 month financing - But after awhile he did. and well, shucks... to us that 0% financing sure looked a lot like a kind of ultimate disaster insurance all in itself. So we went with the financing & dutifully sent off checks every month for 5 years.
And they really did finance the entire price including tax at 0% for 60 months right to the penny. BTW, they had no problem accepting our rural homeowners insurance to cover the tractor used on the property.
To this day I'm not sure what advantage that Kubota felt like they were getting out of that deal by financing us. But on our side we sure did OK. Nice tractor, too.
But that kind of deal has got to be the exception...., or is it?
rScotty
