Experience at Kubota dealer - central Florida

[Lineman North Florida]

Kubota states that their franchises are independently owned so your water carrier may have some leaks as well. Not all company business models are the same.
There is price gouging going on but because one or 15 does it, doesn't mean it is indicative through out the seller market.
I'd rather not stroke with the brush so broadly knowing what I know.

As far as I know nobody asked you to broad stroke, I gave an example of my firsthand experience with 3 different big Kubota dealers within 80 miles of me and not one of them was even close to what I was able to buy for after a little road trip and shopping around, I stand by my original statement, " You can't hardly deal with a lot of these corporate dealers". Maybe I should have added unless you have money to throw away, most of us don't , I am confident that there are some good large corporate dealerships, but that wasn't my experience.

 

[arrow]

As far as I know nobody asked you to broad stroke, I gave an example of my firsthand experience with 3 different big Kubota dealers within 80 miles of me and not one of them was even close to what I was able to buy for after a little road trip and shopping around, I stand by my original statement, " You can't hardly deal with a lot of these corporate dealers". Maybe I should have added unless you have money to throw away, most of us don't , I am confident that there are some good large corporate dealerships, but that wasn't my experience.

Size of dealership does not equate to "corporate". As a matter of fact, a well healed individual might have more than one dealership. You're way off there if you think size has anything to do with this. Kubota states their dealerships are privately and individually franchised. So unless Kubota reps don't know what they're talking about, where are you getting "Kubota Corporate Dealership" from?
If you shopped around and found a smaller dealership, that dealer gave you a break dependent on 1. old pricing on stock already landed. 2. necessity of a sale dependent on floor planning. 3. Lower overhead to compensate for. 4. Same model but differentiation dependent on regulations at time of build.

Walk a mile for a moment: If you had something that cost you 75K as an owner of a delaership and the thing had an msrp of 90K. You as the owner would know what you would have to get to continue to make a profit or even break even. Some dealerships need all they can get. Some are "profiteering" and getting more than sticker. If you sell this one, how long will it take before you get a replacement to buy and then sell? What creditors are breathing down your neck? What financial nut do you have to break? How much do you have to up salaries as a result of trying to get help or keeping the help you have? If you have 6 employees, that is much easier to deal with in this regard than if you had 30.

Some dealerships rely on mass marketing and sell a ton of stuff. If supplies have dwindled where it takes 4 to 6 months for you to get another tractor, your supply line has "dried up". If you gave people substantial breaks in pricing before in order to move product because your volume was always high and replenished, what happens when your supply line vanishes as you knew it?

"Corporate" in this case has nothing to do with it. It is what the owner of that dealership deems necessary to stay in business and continue to stand behind their employees.

 

[RidgeHiker]

It might be useful to contact the dealer again, ask to speak with the CEO or someone in management and sincerely explain what your experience with them was like and how it left you feeling. You could email the text from your original post above. If they care about their reputation they may bend over backwards to work with you (or not). Might be worth a try if they are your closest dealer and you want to try an experiment to see where it leads. They may not be as bad a dealer as it initially looks (or then again....).

 

[Cahaba Valley Farm]

I've always thought of Kubota as the brand that every other brand competes against in small to mid sized tractors. Every time I've wanted to buy something, I looked at them online, read all I could about them here on TBN, then went to the Kubota dealership to see what they had, and what it would cost. I did this for my first tractor, my zero turn, my UTV, and even last year when looking for a cabbed tractor. In every case, the sales guy talking me out of buying from them. He wasn't consistent in his knowledge of what I was looking at, he couldn't tell me what Kubota had to offer over the competition, and his pricing was always along the lines of take it or leave it. So I went to another brand and bought something other then Kubota. One day I'll probably own a Kubota, but I doubt it will be brand new from the dealer.

What was the other "brand" that you went with?

 

[Cahaba Valley Farm]

Sales is where you sink or swim and the ones that do it well know their product and deliver…

Unfortunately the bar to entry is low so just about anyone can get hired on commission.

Window Stickers on cars made window shopping easier…

Too bad it is so hard to even get a price out of many dealers selling tractors.

My best and worst Dealer experience is with Kubota…

Best was my selling dealer but that small family dealer is no more.

Worst is when I went to buy a post hole digger and was asked where I bought my tractor and since it was not from them I was told they would not sell to me… honestly what happened.

Called Kubota and was told Dealers are Independent…

My current Dealer is good but got off to not so good start.

Coming back from the mountains I had my nephew with me age 10… we were looking to buy L3800.

The owners wife said children not allowed on the sale lot and I could look but the boy would have to remain in the car…

Now the boy is the one with the most tractor hours and also the one that does the daily greasing, etc…

Yeah I have to agree that was a really crappy experience. Neither of which makes any sense to me.

 

[Cahaba Valley Farm]

Size of dealership does not equate to "corporate". As a matter of fact, a well healed individual might have more than one dealership. You're way off there if you think size has anything to do with this. Kubota states their dealerships are privately and individually franchised. So unless Kubota reps don't know what they're talking about, where are you getting "Kubota Corporate Dealership" from?
If you shopped around and found a smaller dealership, that dealer gave you a break dependent on 1. old pricing on stock already landed. 2. necessity of a sale dependent on floor planning. 3. Lower overhead to compensate for. 4. Same model but differentiation dependent on regulations at time of build.

Walk a mile for a moment: If you had something that cost you 75K as an owner of a delaership and the thing had an msrp of 90K. You as the owner would know what you would have to get to continue to make a profit or even break even. Some dealerships need all they can get. Some are "profiteering" and getting more than sticker. If you sell this one, how long will it take before you get a replacement to buy and then sell? What creditors are breathing down your neck? What financial nut do you have to break? How much do you have to up salaries as a result of trying to get help or keeping the help you have? If you have 6 employees, that is much easier to deal with in this regard than if you had 30.

Some dealerships rely on mass marketing and sell a ton of stuff. If supplies have dwindled where it takes 4 to 6 months for you to get another tractor, your supply line has "dried up". If you gave people substantial breaks in pricing before in order to move product because your volume was always high and replenished, what happens when your supply line vanishes as you knew it?

"Corporate" in this case has nothing to do with it. It is what the owner of that dealership deems necessary to stay in business and continue to stand behind their employees.

You make some valid points. I had another insider tell me the same thing. However, don't complain when the customer buys from the dealer in the next county over because he beat your price by a considerable margin.

 

[Cahaba Valley Farm]

It might be useful to contact the dealer again, ask to speak with the CEO or someone in management and sincerely explain what your experience with them was like and how it left you feeling. You could email the text from your original post above. If they care about their reputation they may bend over backwards to work with you (or not). Might be worth a try if they are your closest dealer and you want to try an experiment to see where it leads. They may not be as bad a dealer as it initially looks (or then again....).

No, what he needs to do is get some other quotes right now. The owner of that dealer will not see this in the same manner as the OP. This is all about leverage. If he can locate another dealer with a better offer then he is in the position to challenge the other dealers price. If not then he may need to consider another brand.

 

[m1garand762]

Shop around. When I bought my last machine I shopped every dealer within half a days drive. My local dealer who is less than 5 miles from my house was the highest by a lot of money (thousands).I took him his quote and my best quote and said meet it or beat it if you don’t want me to go on a road trip. He sold it to me for $500 less than the best price I had gotten

 

[TimberFarm]

Shop around. When I bought my last machine I shopped every dealer within half a days drive. My local dealer who is less than 5 miles from my house was the highest by a lot of money (thousands).I took him his quote and my best quote and said meet it or beat it if you don’t want me to go on a road trip. He sold it to me for $500 less than the best price I had gotten

So that tells me he was out to rake you over the coals in the beginning.
Had he put the argument up of he can't sell it that cheap, he would have matched the price. The fact that he took off another $500 on top of beating them...

 

[IndyJay]

Not necessarily. You're thinking is that the "website" is constantly manned. Not so. Corporations usually hire that out and differentiations about who is manning those websites (or if at all especially w this covid stuff) can be rather large.
We had info that wasn't altered on the website for 2 months.

May be true for Dealer sites but large Corp sites are typically well managed internally as a part of Sales & Marketing strategy.

 

[EddieWalker]

What was the other "brand" that you went with?

Massey Ferguson 4707

 

[IndyJay]

What was the other "brand" that you went with?

I had similar eperience, the other brand that I went with was Kioti.

 

[Jchonline]

I would walk away. Find another Kubota or brand you want and go with that.

 

[Reddogs]

Sales is where you sink or swim and the ones that do it well know their product and deliver…

Unfortunately the bar to entry is low so just about anyone can get hired on commission.

Window Stickers on cars made window shopping easier…

Too bad it is so hard to even get a price out of many dealers selling tractors.

My best and worst Dealer experience is with Kubota…

Best was my selling dealer but that small family dealer is no more.

Worst is when I went to buy a post hole digger and was asked where I bought my tractor and since it was not from them I was told they would not sell to me… honestly what happened.

Called Kubota and was told Dealers are Independent…

My current Dealer is good but got off to not so good start.

Coming back from the mountains I had my nephew with me age 10… we were looking to buy L3800.

The owners wife said children not allowed on the sale lot and I could look but the boy would have to remain in the car…

Now the boy is the one with the most tractor hours and also the one that does the daily greasing, etc…

We need to put in a thread on which are the best and most honest dealers in all states as that is the only answer to these types of issues. Give em the business and shut em down...

 

[ultrarunner]

I have found TBN Dealer Advertisers helpful in my parts searches but no idea on sales...

 

[WADFL]

Look, the original dealer that wrote the quote is a new dealer to tractors. They've been a dealer in industrial equipment for a while. There have been some learning pains as they took on the tractor lines, as to dealing with consumers vs. businesses. Let's cut them a little slack here since the facts aren't fully known - we don't want to assume they're being dishonest.

Large businesses buying I/C equipment often pay pre-negotiated prices and get rebates back based on total EOY spend, so that could be another plausible explanation as to why the pricing was done this way.

Unfortunately, like John Deere, Kubota has, at least in Florida, consolidated many of the mom-n-pops into larger servicing organizations. The mom-n-pop place I bought my Kubota from is no longer, and FCE is now my servicing dealer.

 

[MHarryE]

I retired and began farming between 2 much larger farms, my cousin and my nephew. My cousin bleeds green, had a long time business relationship with our closest Deere dealer (2 hours). When they were forced into buyout by a large corporate dealership, my cousin said his transaction prices went up about 10%. In addition he says service work declined. The rear crank seal on his largest Deere, 170HP, began leaking and needed to be split. Replacement was during winter to be ready for planting. In less than 10 hours the replacement began leaking bad enough to need immediate replacement so split again. One advantage of the corporate dealership is the old single business would not have been able to react with the speed that the corporation could trucking my cousin's tractor to one of their places with mechanics available.

 

[stso9d]

As usual, I researched all the tractors in the 3,000 to 5,000 lbs class, the attachments, and implements. After this, I decided to buy a Kubota MX6000 with everything I needed and some wants.

I went into the Kubota website and did a quote, printed it, and took that together with the NCHA id to the dealer.

With google in hand searched for Kubota dealers in my area, drove there, and arrived at around 11:45 am.
I was greeted by what I was later told, the CEO of the entire franchise.
Then I was handed over to one of their sales agents.
I explained what I was looking for. He took me to where they had a sample of the MX6000. I drove the tractor and got impressed by the turning radius and some of the features.
Then we proceed to go inside to work on the numbers.

I gave him the quote from the Kubota Website.
He immediately said they should be able to match or beat those prices, to which I was pleased, then said they might have everything on hand to put this package together.
I asked him if they honor the NCHA discount that is posted on the Kubota website, to which he replied, “Yes”.

Things were moving along. Then he told me that it would take him until 3:00 pm to finish everything for me and that he would send it via email.
I was okay with that and left the place to go home and pass by my bank to make sure everything was in order.

After some time, I decided to go back to the dealers and try to put the order in.
I arrived at 3:35 pm. To this point, I haven’t received anything from the Sales Agent, but I encounter him in the lobby.

He told me he hadn’t had any time to work on my quote.
I asked him if we could get it done now.
He said “yes” and proceeded to his computer.
At around 4:15 pm, I asked him if I could drive the tractor one more time. He gave me the keys and continued to work.
When I went back inside, he talked with one of his coworkers about things not being there and waiting for some orders, etc. Which, to me, was suspicious since he previously mentioned that they might have everything on hand, but I didn’t put too much thought into it.
Looking confused and a little nervous, he asked his coworker again about pricing, the cutting association discount, etc.

It took him until 5:00 pm to complete the quote. By then, the dealer was closing.
To my surprise, the pricing, in most cases, didn’t match at all the Kubota website price.
In some instances, he had a big marked-up.
For example, on the Kubota website, rear weights cost $326 per set; being that they weigh 103lbs each is a little more than what I would like to pay, but whatever,. A set of three is $978. But this sales agent is asking $2,834.25 for a 3 set rear weights…Just with this, I could tell something was off.
Something similar could be said about the cost of the FEL.
They bundle the price of the loader, the bucket, the rod level indicator, and the grill guard. On the Kubota web everything adds up to $6,698.00, their price before “NCHA” discount is $9,735.63.
The applied discount was not even 10%,

He got more nervous, told me he had to talk with his VP, etc.
He contradicted himself on multiple occasions.
Now I don’t feel comfortable buying anything from that dealer.

Part of me wants to go to war and try to get them to honor the right price and the 20% discount, but I'm sure that would destroy the long-term relationship.
I'm also thinking of exploring other options.

I will give it some thought, a close friend of mine had some issues getting the NCHA discount, but he got it in the end.

Like others (and you) i always try to avoid how I will pay until the end. i have nothing to add other than that is a nice tractor that will outlive us both. A little (lot) envy for my part...

 

[arrow]

May be true for Dealer sites but large Corp sites are typically well managed internally as a part of Sales & Marketing strategy.

Typically perhaps. But we are experiencing the results of an atypical time. I am talking about Mahindra and our dealership's experience. There were lag times created because of undermanned staffing of web controllers as well as corporate communication for the same reasons as with those controllers.
Covid hit this area very hard.
Dealer sites are more instantaneous than what we experienced with corporate sites.

 

[arrow]

You make some valid points. I had another insider tell me the same thing. However, don't complain when the customer buys from the dealer in the next county over because he beat your price by a considerable margin.

and who's complaining? People do what they need to do. People who own businesses are people as well including your neighbors who work for them.