What does "take it to the dealer" mean for you?

[CliffordK]

Most of my equipment is very far out of warranty, and I have no doubt if a project is too big to do myself, then it would cost a fortune at a shop, likely several times the value of the piece of equipment.

Fortunately I don't think I have a single tractor that actually has a place to plug a computer in, so there are no issues with "right to repair", or proprietary software.

Mom decided to buy a little Kubota, and within a couple of months it blew an oil seal near the PTO. I offered to take it to the dealer, but she was able to get them to come out and pick it up for warranty service, and then to bring it back. I don't know if there was an extra surcharge.

 

[WinterDeere]

Mom decided to buy a little Kubota, and within a couple of months it blew an oil seal near the PTO. I offered to take it to the dealer, but she was able to get them to come out and pick it up for warranty service, and then to bring it back. I don't know if there was an extra surcharge.

Classic "bathtub curve", known by every engineer and service manager, nearly all failures are either "infantile" or "old age" with very little in-between.

My Deere 3033R also blew a seal when just a few weeks old, but unfortunately it was buried so deep that even removing seat, I couldn't find the source of the leak. Dealer came out, picked it up, repaired, and had it back to me within 3-4 days... no charge. They said it was a factory assembly error, but I'd had some dealer-installed hydraulic options added to the machine the prior week, so I debate whether they were just covering an error on their end.

 

[mx842]

So my 2009 John Deere 4320 started to run rough. I couldn’t figure it out so I took it to the dealer. They drained all the diesel out I had just put in and put more diesel in. They called me a couple days later and said they couldn’t figure it out and they called the John Deere techs and they said they wanted to run a bunch of tests. I asked how much it would cost. All they said was it is really expensive. I just went an picked it up and brought it home after paying a $719 dollar bill for basically nothing. It was a joke.

I feel your pain.

 

[Handloader109]

If only... I ve got the little badged Cabelas TYM. No dealer exists. Tym won't touch it. Lucky I can turn a wrench still

 

[kioti28527]

We regularly hear people say "take it to your dealer", or "it's under warranty, so call the dealer". To actually do any of that, what's involved for you? For me, it's a lot of work, a lot of $$, and a lot of time, so really it's the step of last resort. Here are some examples:

My Kubota dealer is 45min to an hr away. I could trailer my tractor or small excavator there, but that will consume roughly 6 hrs to get the trailer ready, load up, drive an hr (it will take the full hour pulling a heavy load), unload, drive home, and unhook and stow the trailer, then do it all again to pick the machine up once it's fixed. My larger excavator would have to be trucked, so I'd guess $500 each way, or $1000 total, and I can't get a tractor trailer in to my place, so I'd have to track the machine out to a location to meet the truck, which of course means the machine needs to work enough to move it around. And I'd still have to make at least one round trip to the dealer to go over the problem and make sure they know what's needed. So that's 3 hrs.

Then there is the actual dealer work. Most are very backed up, so a good chance your machine will sit for a week, if not multiple weeks before it's even looked at. Then any repairs will take at least another week because they will need parts and nobody seems to stock anything other than maintenance and common wear parts. And if their first "guess" at what to replace doesn't work, then you can stay another week while the guess again, and maybe again and again. And of course there is the possibility that the dealer won't be able to reproduce or actually fix the problem, and that you get the machine home and the problem still exists.

Mobile service is an option, but very expensive with billable travel and work time. But it is an option for spending $$ rather than spending your own time. But scheduling and time to repair isn't any better, and possibly worse.

The bottom line is that you will be out 3-6 hrs of personal work time, and up to $1000 in trucking, plus loss of use for weeks to months.

It's mostly the same for my Deere. The dealer is only about 20 minutes away which is a plus, but the tractor would have to be trucked. And from what I can tell they have zero direct experience with 6 series tractors, and only limited experience with 5 series.

All this is probably the biggest reason why I always end up doing work on the machines myself. It takes less of my personal time, and gets things running again faster.

Seems you would save money with a mobile mechanic,i know here in an eastern nc farming community that ive never seen a harvester or large tractor being trailered to a service dept but multiple times have seen mobile mechanics and a service truck out in the middle of a field where they broke down because in most cases you are not going to get that machine loaded where its broken down

 

[BravoXray]

To me, take it to the dealer means it's going to cost 10 times what it should, and it won't be done correctly.

 

[WinterDeere]

To me, take it to the dealer means it's going to cost 10 times what it should, and it won't be done correctly.

To be fair, it will be done correctly, but they'll break at least one other thing in the course of that repair.

 

[akadave]

Bend over.

 

[BravoXray]

To be fair, it will be done correctly, but they'll break at least one other thing in the course of that repair.

The two times that I took a vehicle to a dealer for repair, the problem wasn't fixed, even though I told them what the problem was. In one case an ignition module and in the other case fuel pump. In the case of the fuel pump problem, charged me $245 for replacing the fuel pump relay that wasn't bad.

 

[bigtiller]

It sounds like some of you guys have lousy dealers.
Or are the problems just a one-off situation?