I went shopping for my first tractor expecting to buy a cheap used model for mowing the field part of my lot. I did not know anything about tractors, implements, tph or fels. I was pretty much clueless except that I knew the brands Ford, Deere, MF, and IH as farmer quality equipment. I had heard of Mahindra, Yanmar, Kubota, Cub Cadet, Ariens, Ingersoll, New Holland, Allis Chambers, and White; but knew little about their quality.
I went to find a dealership to learn a little about what I should look for and just happened to stop at a Kubota dealership. I planned to pick their brains and then look for the used tractor on Craigslist.
I ran into a salesman who despite having other things going on at the time, and being the only salesman on duty that saturday afternoon, answered all of my questions eagerly and gave me a lot of good advice about things I had not even considered. He showed me several of the units on the lot and told me why they would or would not be suitable for me. We settled on a range of models that met the minimum and maximum limits of my requirements.
Afterwards, I started reading reviews on the various tractor sites and forums, including this one. I decided that Kubota had every bit as good a reputation for quality at Deere, Ford, Massey, etc. I got as comfortable with the idea of owning a Kubota as any other model. I visited a couple other dealerships to get a feel for their product lines that matched up to what the Kubota dealership had recommended. I decided that I liked the feel of the Kubota seats more than the Mahindra. I did not get an opportunity to sit in a Deere due to my work schedule and the Deere dealership hours.
I went back to the Kubota dealership to talk price so I would have a good idea of what new costs were so I could better identify a good used price. Then the dealer sprung the 0 down 0% interest financing on me. Suddenly, the cost of a new unit got a LOT cheaper.
I did some comparative shopping, got some quotes and advertised packages from dealers and took a look at used unit prices on CL and Ebay and saw that a used unit with not a lot of hours or needing repairs were not far off the new unit prices. I could save a couple grand at best on a tractor less than 10 years old.
The Mahindra was my lowest package price, but only by a few hundred and I did not like the feel as much. The Deere was almost 15K more than the Kubota and did not include as many implements. So the Deere was priced at 176% of the Kubota price, but for less quantity and nothing to show any specific quality boost.
I went back to the Kubota dealer and found the dealer just as easy to work with as before. He looked over my comparable deals and we discussed some implements we had not discussed before. I asked for a deal I figured was fair, suggesting that I would take good used implements in the deal for the items without moving parts. He countered back with the same price but all new implements instead of used. How could I refuse that?
I have been very pleased with my equipment, have heard on one lower priced deal ($400 lower but in a different area of the country and not exactly the same implement group). I can't complain a bit about my support or the communication from my dealer since the sale.
I did not buy Deere simply due to price and lack of anything from the Deere dealership to win me from the competition. I still think Deere makes good tractors and might even provide good support for all I know.
