Service Bulletin: "FC6187-Hydrostat Pedal Returning to Neutral

[ScottAW]

Received the same letter dated Jan 12, 2010.

Called my dealer on Jan 20th to inquire. Was told by my sales rep then that AGCO was only covering the cost to repair the tractor, and would not cover the cost of sending a guy out in the field to do the repair on-site, nor the cost to transport the tractor to/from the dealer's shop. He said he had the first repair scheduled for this past Friday, and would try to find out just what level of a job it was and whether or not he could simply ship me the parts and I could perform the upgrade myself.

On that same say I called AGCO customer service to complain about the fact that for a safety recall that they were making it the responsibility of the owner to bring the tractor to the dealer. This is absurd that for a safety recall the manufacturer is expecting the customer to absorb the costs for a mistake that they made. I know that for warranty work my dealer in the past has transported the tractor for me, free of charge, and told me it was part of the warranty service. The customer service rep recorded my complaint, and "escalated" my call, and said I would receive a call back within 2-3 business days. Never received a call.

I called my dealer again today to find out what the deal was. So apparently AGCO is allowing the dealers 2-1/2 hours of labor to do this repair, which involves removing the entire rear fender/housing, and it is quite a tasks. They spent 4 hours doing the repair on the first tractor that they did the recall fix on. The dealer is also saying now that they are not allowed to simply ship the parts to the customer and let the customer do the work.

So as it stands now, parts are on order, and when they come in I'll have to get an appt. scheduled. However, it looks like I am being force to spend my time/money to address this safety recall.

So I called AGCO customer service again. In case you need the phone number, it is 1-877-525-4384. Another customer rep this time, she saw my previous call, that it was escalated, and that nothing was done. She had no manager to transfer me to, and said all she could do was escalate my call again, and that I should receive a call back within 2-3 business days.

What a joke. I love my Massey tractor, but the customer service is horrible, and what AGCO is doing the dealers and their customers to address this safety recall issue is quite irresponsible. Depending on what evolves, I think I will be making a call to the Attorney General and Better Business Bureau.

 

[wrangler6831]

I understand that this problem is a RECALL and is the manufacturers problem but how can anyone expect the dealer to come out and fix the problem on site. I have never seen any of the automakers do anything like that. Maybe if this was a piece of HEAVY equipment then sure but were not talking a 50K to 70K dollar machine here. I have one and have to travel over 120 miles to the dealer to get this service done but I knew that going in and still bought a Massey. I could have went with Deere or Kubota and had dealers right here in town. Good luck trying to get them to service it on site but I feel that is sort of unrealistic.


Rich

 

[MFRED]

Scott,
Travel time is usually allowed in the case of a mandatory uptade. However usually not for standard warranty work. If your dealer comes out it is figured to be for customer convinence, standard across brands I'm pretty sure. If you don't get charged, thank your dealer.
Quite frankly, your dealer should be working with you, there should have been no need to call AGCO. Can you imagine how many people have these GC tractors, how many do you think are calling in? How many of these updates does your dealer have to do? Maybe he's a little bitter about the whole deal. As with any other job, it will get quicker after he does a few. I bet he can hit that 2 1/2 hour mark.
I think you need to calm down before you go calling everyone, maybe if they never fix your tractor, make some calls. Let the dealer get familiar with the update. I'm pretty sure you'll be happy with your dealer and the tractor again.

 

[ScottAW]

Scott,
Travel time is usually allowed in the case of a mandatory uptade.

Wouldn't a safety recall be considered a mandatory update though?

Also, the story is a little more evolved than what I originally typed. First aspect would be that the dealer the tractor was purchased from is no longer in business, so I switched to another dealer for parts and service, and when I purchased the snow blower last fall.

Second, when I called the other day the service manager told me I was going to be held up from having the recall done for at least a few months because I did not purchase the tractor from him, and he was intent on servicing those who did first. That seemed a little wrong, given that this was a safety recall, that I was now using them for business because the other dealership went out of business. Only reason I used the first dealer was because he was closer to me, and I wanted to give the local guy support. The service manager talked to my sales guy, and when he came back on the phone he admitted he should not have said that to me and was incorrect in stating that. So, that certainly did not help things.

Lastly, my first dealer was the one that performed a few on-site repairs, and apparently went the extra mile to ensure customer satisfaction. He had told me things like on-site work or trucking the tractor to the shop for warranty work was part of the warranty. Was he right or wrong, I don't know - it's just what I have experienced to date so far and I thought that was par for warranty work. So when the safety recall comes about and things have taken a big flip-flop, it throws me a curve and makes me raise an eyebrow. Having also grown on up a farm where most warranty work was on-site for larger equipment, I guess I am accustomed to that as well.

Also, my calls to AGCO have not been directed towards the dealer, rather just the opposite. I pointed out that it was wrong for AGCO not to cover the dealer's expenses of covering the safety recall. It's the usual bull crap similar to where auto mfgs do not always reimburse dealers for warranty work. Service shops get caught with their pants down when they do repair work that they think falls under warranty work, only to have it scrutinized and denied by the mfg. It's a shame that the world has evolved to bean counting and running poor businesses like this. AGCO was also part of the reason my first dealer shut down. Similar to how the auto mfgs closed dealerships that were not turning over enough volume, AGCO shut down a bunch of small town, farming town, dealers that did not have the volume of the larger dealerships.

OK, I'm getting off the soap box...

 

[pfc-tyler]

Wouldn't a safety recall be considered a mandatory update though?

Also, the story is a little more evolved than what I originally typed. First aspect would be that the dealer the tractor was purchased from is no longer in business, so I switched to another dealer for parts and service, and when I purchased the snow blower last fall.

Second, when I called the other day the service manager told me I was going to be held up from having the recall done for at least a few months because I did not purchase the tractor from him, and he was intent on servicing those who did first. That seemed a little wrong, given that this was a safety recall, that I was now using them for business because the other dealership went out of business. Only reason I used the first dealer was because he was closer to me, and I wanted to give the local guy support. The service manager talked to my sales guy, and when he came back on the phone he admitted he should not have said that to me and was incorrect in stating that. So, that certainly did not help things.

Lastly, my first dealer was the one that performed a few on-site repairs, and apparently went the extra mile to ensure customer satisfaction. He had told me things like on-site work or trucking the tractor to the shop for warranty work was part of the warranty. Was he right or wrong, I don't know - it's just what I have experienced to date so far and I thought that was par for warranty work. So when the safety recall comes about and things have taken a big flip-flop, it throws me a curve and makes me raise an eyebrow. Having also grown on up a farm where most warranty work was on-site for larger equipment, I guess I am accustomed to that as well.

Also, my calls to AGCO have not been directed towards the dealer, rather just the opposite. I pointed out that it was wrong for AGCO not to cover the dealer's expenses of covering the safety recall. It's the usual bull crap similar to where auto mfgs do not always reimburse dealers for warranty work. Service shops get caught with their pants down when they do repair work that they think falls under warranty work, only to have it scrutinized and denied by the mfg. It's a shame that the world has evolved to bean counting and running poor businesses like this. AGCO was also part of the reason my first dealer shut down. Similar to how the auto mfgs closed dealerships that were not turning over enough volume, AGCO shut down a bunch of small town, farming town, dealers that did not have the volume of the larger dealerships.

OK, I'm getting off the soap box...

A FC is a field campaign and is a mandatory repair, similar to a recall in the automotive world.

A SB is a service bulletin used for information only.

A FC generally gives 1 hour travel time to the dealer on registered units. A FC must be accomplished by a certain date or dealer statuses are affected.

For those of you who live further than 50 kms or 30 miles from your dealer and the dealer came and did this on site should be appreciative of the dealer for this. Because we do not recover these costs. I agree with the above post that Agco should pay for the entire travel time required, but they dont. I think they do this because it would be abused, and dealers would claim more than required. Sometimes after we perform enough of these the travel time works out in the end, some are less than 1 hour and some are more and sometimes it balances out.

For some reason I cannot view this FC on my home computer, I was going to tell you what the allowances for travel time and the flat rate for this job is because I cannot remember.

The are 2 versions to this campaign depending on serial number. One version is only a spring replacement and the other is a much bigger job. The second version requires removing the floor pan, etc.

My guys have done 3 so far, 2 requiring springs and 1 requiring the floor pan. I did not watch them so I dont know exactly what was involved.

The furthest update I have to do from my dealership is approx 150 kms. So a 300 km round trip and I plan on doing this no cost to the customer. It just depends on your dealer and the service they will provide.

 

[Jaylegger]

I had the recall procedure performed on my GC2600 today. I was at just under 50 hours so I scheduled the service (included with purchase) and recall be performed during the same visit. Both were done in about 3 hours, give or take, on my site which is about 130km from my very accommodating dealer (I removed the cab night before). The tech prefers to remove everything from the bonnet on back (I believe he mentioned they've done about 30) as the job goes a little quicker and easier that way. Anyways, I really don't have anything to add except some senseless jabberin about nothing. Here's a photo of the naked machine.

 

[MAHINDRA OF OHIO]

OKEY THIS IS HOW IS SOULD WORK FOR ALL OF YOU! Massey Ferguson will pay one extra hour for travel time for sold units
Now.... When we pickup our customers unit for the update we will remove equipment and install your equipment @ no charge to you when your tractor returns less then one week.
The parts and labor are covered 100% plus we even wash and grease your tractor. This all cost my customers $0.00
And we look the tractor over to see if it needs anything else.


If anybody in Medina, Wayne, Summit, lorain, Cleveland area in Ohio would like there tractor done please give me a call and we will take care of your GC2400-GC2610 that falls in the update ser # range no charge
We are backed up 2 weeks!
Thanks, James Kiefer
Kiefer Equipment Co
Medina Ohio 330-421-5347

 

[irvingj]

Jaylegger... GAAH! Get some clothes on that beast!

 

[radioman]

Tapping on the opposite pedal will stop a tractor that creeps.

Same thing happens with my kubota BX model. Does anyone have a copy to post here of the bulletion and exactly what needs to be done to fix it ?

 

[boutym]

Old thread, but I have a 2013 2610 and the pedals more often than not will not return to neutral if you push them more than about 1" of travel. Both fwd and rev do this. It's done it since new and my contention is that the dealer should fix/transport at no cost because this should have been taken care of during dealer prep. The dealer has refused and will no longer respond to my inquiries. I've contact AGCO directly twice and no response from them either. I wonder if something happened and I sued the **** out of them they would wake up?