warranty question

john_bud · Oct 8, 2008

Good point, jerks deserve to loose.

jb

LBrown59 · Oct 8, 2008

HVACDIESEL said:
Hello I am in the process of purchasing a BX-24. It is coming from a different state.Usually I dont do this sort of thing, but there is a big price difference.Has anybody had trouble getting warranty work done from a non selling dealer.

What State ?

mattman · Oct 9, 2008

How is warranty work costing a dealership money?? The dealership gets paid for the labor and a small amount for the parts they put on. Also there is the chance to win the owner of the tractor over by doing them a good job on the warranty work in a timely manner. If the dealership treats the owner poorly and slowly they will probably not come back and will tell others of the poor service they received. I would think any dealership would go out of their way to acquire customers. The word of mouth is a very powerful form of advertising. It does not take alot of bad press in smaller towns to eat away at a dealerships good name. my 2 cents

MessickFarmEqu · Oct 10, 2008

mattman said:
How is warranty work costing a dealership money?? The dealership gets paid for the labor and a small amount for the parts they put on. Also there is the chance to win the owner of the tractor over by doing them a good job on the warranty work in a timely manner. If the dealership treats the owner poorly and slowly they will probably not come back and will tell others of the poor service they received. I would think any dealership would go out of their way to acquire customers. The word of mouth is a very powerful form of advertising. It does not take alot of bad press in smaller towns to eat away at a dealerships good name. my 2 cents

We get paid a flat rate for warranty repairs. If the vendor decides something takes 20 minutes and it takes you two hours... you get paid for 20 minutes. The problem is that most of the flat rate times assume you know exactly what the problem is and are standing there with the tools in hand ready to go. Most of the time its nearly impossible. This is kinda the norm in our industry. There are machines that we end up loosing money on simply because of unpaid expenses of warranty repairs.

This is not my personal opinion, or our business practices... but I can explain the outlook of some of my peers. You would think that dealers would buck up and try to prove themselves, but the prevailing attitude would be that if this person screwed you once, they'll do it again. From their perspective not only did you take your business elsewhere, now your back and expecting them to provide costly service to you. Good service and good people are not a cheap commodity. So to the business your warranty repair could cost them a substantial amount of money, way more than the $30 they are going to make selling you filters, or the $150 they'll make on a 3pt implement, which since you've now tagged yourself as someone who buys on price the opinion will be that you'll probably end up going to tractor supply anyway to buy the chinese junk they sell for $75 less than your quality brand... again, not our practice... but I understand where the dealers who do this are coming from.

Again, the persons attitude really goes a long way towards forging a good business relationship. Even from the service aspect, if your kind and express yourself calmly rather than make a scene your alot more likely to get people to want to help you out. You'll be remebered as someone they want to take care of, rather than that guy with the broken tractor. As a customer, it never pays to be ugly. You can be forceful and persistant... but being a jerk does not ever help your cause in sales or service.

mattman · Oct 10, 2008

Does the vendor allow any extra time for diagnostic time? I would think they would rather have the tech check out the problem very carefully to be sure the problem was fixed right the first time. Is all the labor times one sided toward being fixed quicker than what is actually possible?

I will probably buy out of state to keep from having to pay sales tax. Arkansas will eat you alive on sales tax.