I see less and less in my country. Years ago, they were #2 behind ford in my area. I never hear any complaints from owners. They look to be well built. Am I missing something?
Greetings Messmaker,
You ask a very legitimate question - but I want to highlight something of your own statement: "they were #2 behind ford in my area". So how big is "ford tractors" now ???
Jeff made a very good point in his post - which I'd like to elaborate on. Massey - in the old days made biiiiiiiig equipment. Farmers in many areas had hundreds and hundreds of acres and the quantities of farmers in states like Minnesota and Wisconsin were huge. Now back in the early 1980s something changed about farming - and we saw massive auctions in the mid 80's as many family farms were lost to major financial breakdowns of the systems that borrowed to them. Where once a 1000 acre farm stood - 500 acres of used farm equipment would get auctioned . . . and then do it again.
Kubota never had to deal with that issue - but Massey did as did numerous others that have names in history books but not on today's dealer signs.
And then again the farm equipment business for dealers was doing well in the 2000s until what ??? - 2010/2011 - when suddenly dealers couldn't sell big equipment and the only ones to keep their doors open and their sales force even seeing people were selling small cuts and scuts that they'd previously laughed at having.
You see dealers and salespeople "can" tend to get lazy. Easy fast sales on 100,000+ dollar units is intoxicating versus selling 10,000 to 25,000 dollar units. Farmers weren't buying big implements either because they had no money for it and exports were way down in price per.
I don't know about other parts of the U.S. - but in the upper midwest like Wisconsin - 2013 saw AGCO go to many dealers who used AGCO products - but not Massey - and said - "if you don't represent at least some Massey tractor product by 2014 - you don't get any AGCO company activity. And we saw numerous dealers suddenly carrying the GC products in later 2014 along with their Kubota or some other brands.
Now here is a true but funny story. I had been into a local dealer like that in early 2015. They had two GC's sitting outside and a long time salesman for them knew less about the product and the accessories and options - than I did. In fact, we sat at his desk with his computer on in front of him and I asked about XXXX and he couldn't even find that option. I asked abo0ut XXX and he couldn't even give me a price on that option. What he wanted was to sell me what he knew which wasn't about GC product. So later I went to the dealer I ended up buying from - and they were selling GC's quickly and they were looking for a GC1705 to sell and I suggested to the sales guy they contact XXX dealer because they had one sitting outside for 9 months already - and they did and the unit was transferred. But then when they tried to get the other unit from that dealer - that dealer wouldn't part with it because they couldn't understand how my dealer was selling them so quickly LOL.
The point I'd make is - dealers had very comfortable businesses in the 70's but very tough businesses in the 80s and then it got better again in the mid 90s till the 2010 (???) time frame. During those hard time - many farms became 1 big farm instead. and consumption of big equipment dropped considerably because they didn't have lots of individual buyers.
AGCO (Massey) was slow to adapt to all the changes as the owner's changed hands. Meanwhile Kubota has either perfect timing or perfect luck or both because they created a marketplace that previously didn't really exist - and the retiring baby boomer generations fueled it.
Like everything else - there is ever more competition today on a world market basis and dealers that can adapt are doing OK and some dealers are struggling (even John Deere franchises). And one of the biggest problems that exists - is most of this newer equipment doesn't wear out - and smaller lower cost tractor product can do more than ever.
I think if you look on a national basis - you'll see MAssey is doing pretty well as a product group - but when you read on TBN - you can understand new users think they need to buy a product 10 minutes from their location. I dont' think its a correct concept - but that is what many often suggest to them. I know we have in Western WI a fair number of implement dealers - but had I not been willing to drive 115 miles - I wouldn't be nearly as happy as I am. Right product - good dealer - acceptable pricing - good backup - in that priority order for me.
