Another Kioti Dealer Gone

[Gods Country]

Any chance Daedong is putting their eggs in the Bobcat basket looking for brand recognition?

 

[Mousefield]

#1 reason why I never even gave Kioti any consideration when buying. No dealer close and no history.

Bought my CK35 HST Kioti from the USA and imported it myself. The dealer is about 600+ miles away, plus a 2 hour ferry ride. Didn't stop me, the Kioti is a great tractor. :thumbsup: I had one minor issue with the Woods backhoe and two with the Kioti (micro switch) (o- ring) All 3 times the dealer dealt with it promptly. With the Woods we got a local tractor mechanic to swap out a swing cylinder were the C clip had popped out. Shop is only 15 minutes away and he came to my place to do the work. The O-ring same tractor mechanic came out and the micro switch I changed myself. So having a local dealer is nice but not always necessary.

 

[offshore]

[. I have known dealers who have claimed no fault when closed and they get the public g. They must pay their bills! They had even sold tractors and not paid for them. They would use the money for something else like vacations! I am not saying that the dealer in this thread has done any of this but that there are always things that we don't know and shouldn't know as the general public.[/QUOTE]

I'm sure this statement is true in some cases , but quite confident it does not apply in this situation .
I have been doing business with the batchelders for years and as a vendor I never had financial issues.
With that said I am also a kioti owner and have owned the other orange tractor and a green one too but I took a chance with kioti because of batchelders reputation for fair and friendly service after the sale !
I felt compelled to contact kioti and voice my displeasure with being left hanging and having to ship my tractor 2 hours away for warranty work and pay heavy pick up and delivery charges ,I explained that I would continue to use batchelder sales for my regular service work.
kioti's public relations dept actually responded with a threat , they said they would void my warranty !
I like my kioti it has been a decent tractor but I have totally lost my confidence in who is " behind " kioti tractor therefor I will be purchasing another tractor from the batchelders this time though it will be the a new yanmar/cub LX series :thumbsup:

 

[Dargo]

#1 reason why I never even gave Kioti any consideration when buying. No dealer close and no history.

I'm somewhat similar but not really. Poor IslandTractor is probably tired of hearing me opine about only having roadside yard barn dealers in my area which are now all gone. IMHO, Kioti made a mistake by allowing those sorts of dealers have a franchise. To be honest, based solely on the look of the sellers, I assumed they were junk and never gave them a thought; especially when all 4 of the dealers went away.

However, I've read way too many posts about people being very well pleased with their Kioti to still think they are just a junk Kubota knockoff. I still firmly believe that Kioti definitely copied Kubota and tried to ride their coattails into the market. I still recall some saying that they were the same machine and parts would interchange. Now, similar to Kia and Hyundai, Kioti is very well able to stand on their own. As such, I believe Kioti corporate realized that in some places they had too many stores and in other places they had bad stores. However, I cannot figure their process at preening dealers. I've read of too many quality dealers having their franchise pulled. I don't understand.

It's disheartening because I won't drive 2 hours to a dealer when I have nearly every other brand I could dream of within a half an hour from me. To be honest, I'd be surprised if one of the established dealers in my area doesn't have Kioti tractors show up on their lot in the near future. Still, I'm sorry to read of good dealers losing the line due to mistakes made by Kioti in their past franchising practices. Hopefully they'll get their distribution network the way they want it soon. I'm not in a huge market by any means, however, there are many thousands of tractors owned and operated in my area and probably less than a dozen of them are Kioti tractors. Something seems wrong with that picture when it comes to Kioti franchising.

 

[rdhintz]

Is there any truth to the rumor that Bobcat bought Kioti. I talked to the Bobcat dealer at a Sportmans show in SLC and the salesman was telling me this.

 

[offshore]

Wow they really said this!!!
Making statement like this will self destruct any business![/QUOTE]

I am preparing a sworn statement to give to the batchelders ,
You would think kioti's representative would have a little more finess when dealing with an upset customer. Its too bad , kioti has a good product but after this I would not recommend them based soley on my experiance with them

 

[Hoosier Hay Man]

It is basicaly a brand purity issue. It seems to be a stratagy alot the majors are doing. They don't like to have a dealer with multiple competing brands on the same lot. Kioti seems to be signing onto the same stratagy. I don't agree with their thinking completely but it is the trend. In our area Agco, Deere and CNH dealers are consolidating and closing stores all of the time. They don't like to see those dealers with competing shortline equipment either.
I like the smaller shops and it doesn't bother me a dealer has competing brands I can compare. Now if I were in charge of marketing I can see where they wouldn't like dealers having competing brands together. If you can read thru this article in Rural Lifestyle Dealer magazine you will see where Kioti Corporate stands. Rural Lifestyle Dealer - Perspectives on the Rural Lifestyle Market: Small Tractor Manufacturers - Kioti Tractor

 

[sweettractors]

1 Kioti dealer to support all of Ky does seem like a good marketing strategy. Ky dealers were smart enough to have dropped Kioti before they screwed us all. Talk to O'bryan Sales in Owensboro, Ky about the kind of people Kioti Cooperate are to deal with. He really got the short end of the stick and was probably their best volume dealer. Heck, They even took his website. Ken Sweet

 

[Dmace]

kioti's public relations dept actually responded with a threat , they said they would void my warranty!

Wow they really said this!!!
Making statement like this will self destruct any business!

I have yet to find any company that will allow a non-franchise to perform work on something under warranty without voiding it. If I brought a brand new John Deere to a Kubota dealer for work I guarantee John Deere would try voiding my warranty. This doesn't seem any different. It's not just tractors, would you bring your $60k Ford to a ACE transmission shop and expect Ford to still honor it's drivetrain warranty?

 

[Dargo]

1 Kioti dealer to support all of Ky does seem like a good marketing strategy. Ky dealers were smart enough to have dropped Kioti before they screwed us all. Talk to O'bryan Sales in Owensboro, Ky about the kind of people Kioti Cooperate are to deal with. He really got the short end of the stick and was probably their best volume dealer. Heck, They even took his website. Ken Sweet

Who is left in KY? Owensboro was the closest dealer to me, a bit over an hour or so away, but the last time I went there was several years ago and they only had 1 or 2 Kioti's in stock and were really pushing Branson hard over Kioti. Nothing personal to the Branson people, but I was not impressed when comparing. As a matter of fact, it was longer than that ago. That was long before they had a 90 hp tractor and I wanted to look at the 65 hp Kioti. All he had was a DK45 and with similar options, except Kioti doesn't have hydro (or at least didn't at that time in the DK45), I ended up buying a brand new Kubota 5030HSTC for almost $5000 less than what I was priced for a DK45. Unless they changed greatly, I would have expected him to lose Kioti.

I just looked, and I don't have a Kioti dealer within 100 miles of me. No wonder I don't see any around me. Like I said earlier, where I live is about the largest metro area within about a 100 mile radius of me. The metro area is about a quarter million people and no representation by Kioti; weird. Bummer too.

 

[stonechip]

I guess this is a good place for people to vent and it is nice to see so many opinions on this matter. The one problem I see with many post is the impression that Kioti is the only comapny that closes dealers and it is never the dealers fault. I am not am not for or aginst either dog in this fight but each time I have read back in different post we always condem the MFG. I worked for a "green" dealer long back and they were told on numerous times the things they had to do to survive. They would do a few things to look as if they were changing but in the long run they were not so they lost the battle a they closed. I remember the general public opinion was bashing the MFG but if the truth were known the MFG had played ball for a long time and finally enough was enough.

Again, I am not saying Bachelder (sp) deserves to have or not have Kioti but I think we all can jump on the bashing band wagon fairly quickly. I believe every dealer deserves a fair shot with whatever product they sell as long as it is for the best of them and the MFG. I would hate to see a potential new kioti buyer in another dealers area see this thread and it affect their buying decision. Then the other dealers start loosing sales and then more dealers fail.

Since I don't really own any tractor or need one I read for fun but it is really nice to see independent family businesses still opening up or expanding, even if it is an ATV shop that now wants to sell tractors. The nice thing is there is nothing so complex on one of these tractors that their mechanic could not learn to repair and be quite good at it. I know nothing about rocket science but I am quite familiar with tractors and it is not rocket science.

Bottom line for me, I enjoy reading all of these post and I wish Bachelder (sp) all the best as well as Kioti. I hope they both do extremely well even though it will not be together. Who knows maybe the dealer will be much better off without them in the long run!

 

[Coyote machine]

Ductape, I don't think you are reading between the lines. I think you have interpreted correctly. JD has pushed this so why shouldn't other brands. I do not know the dealer or kioti but it seems to me that everyone always bashes the mfg in these cases without knowing any of the facts! Maybe they just plain didn't get along but I would think that there are two sides to this story just as every other one. It would be my guess that there is more to the reason some dealers are let go than what we hear and it should be kept between the dealer and the mfg. No doubt it is sad that this dealer is gone but bashing the mfg or dealer gets us nowhere. I have known dealers who have claimed no fault when closed and they get the public on there side feeling for them when actually it was there fault all along. They must pay their bills! They had even sold tractors and not paid for them. They would use the money for something else like vacations! I am not saying that the dealer in this thread has done any of this but that there are always things that we don't know and shouldn't know as the general public.

You say you don't know the dealer or Kioti, AND you definitely don't know me either- I AM basing my opinion on the facts as presented; the letter from Kioti stating the dealer had "oversaturated the market...", and having seen Wallace loose his Kioti dealership about the same time last year. Plus I do know what it means when a manufacturer decides to try everything and anything to gain market share, such as rebadging their equipment and selling it as Bobcat, or McCormick, Landini or whatever manufacturer they can strike a deal with to gain more and more market; like a high school science project gone wrong. Basically a corporate lack of connectedness can be fatal to any company these days. Just look at banking or the stock brokerages for a quick example. Less transparency? I think not. We all got screwed because there was not enough oversight and the crooks took advantage because they could.
Fact is the public - US, consumers should know more - we're the ones who invested our money in the product, and consequently the company. If they pull dealers because of some misguided sense of what they want the company to be they could miss the boat altogether and sink the entire ship.

And as far as voiding a customer's warranty due to someone else servicing the equipment that is a bogus concept too. Cars can be serviced by anyone qualified to do so. I know because I ran a foreign auto repair business for many years and we serviced any and all makes and models. I did NOT do warranty specific work like replacing failed warranty related parts etc., UNLESS the dealer authorized me to do so for them in certain circumstances. ANY ASE mechanic and or individual owner can service their own car, as we are able to service our tractors; and a transmission shop could service an under warranty transmission, if in need of service -however they would not likely do warranty related failure of components replacement unless given authorization by the manufacturer or dealer.

No one is slamming the manufacturer or any dealers in this thread, some, like me may be telling it like we feel it is going down regarding the manufacturer and corporate thinking mentality. I in particular am closely watching what Kioti does because it could adversely affect my ability to get service/parts/etc. And I don't want to find out the tractor I bought has an insane corporate philosophy that may bring the company to its knees- that would be bad for all.

 

[Hoosier Hay Man]

How many Deere dealers do you see selling red, orange or any other color tractor. You don't. I am not sure it is an insane strategy to try to find dealers not selling competing brands. It may not be liked by all but it is not all that uncommon. I think this thing is simple that Kioti wants its dealers to focus on selling Kioti. Some will like it and some won't. Both of mine local Deere dealers went thru consolidation over the last 2 years. I buy parts at the new dealer. My local Agco dealer went out as well. They gave his contracts to the only CAT dealer in the state. I was picking up baler parts for my brother on their last day. Sad indeed.
Here is an interesting article on the majors consolidations and stratigies.
Farm Equipment - Planning for Profits - Dealer Consolidation: A Year of Changes


ftp://ftp.cba.uri.edu/Classes/Sheinin/MBA%20505/Articles/April/Why%20Deere%20Is%20Weeding%20Out%20Dealers%20Even%20as%20Farms%20Boom%20-%20WSJ_com.htm

I know one thing being a dealer these days is not for the weak at heart. I do understand the brand purity issues but as long as they don't forget they could lose customer loyality in the process.

 

[TripleR]

How many Deere dealers do you see selling red, orange or any other color tractor. You don't. I am not sure it is an insane strategy to try to find dealers not selling competing brands. It may not be liked by all but it is not all that uncommon. I think this thing is simple that Kioti wants its dealers to focus on selling Kioti. Some will like it and some won't. Both of mine local Deere dealers went thru consolidation over the last 2 years. I buy parts at the new dealer. My local Agco dealer went out as well. They gave his contracts to the only CAT dealer in the state. I was picking up baler parts for my brother on their last day. Sad indeed.
Here is an interesting article on the majors consolidations and strategies.

I know one thing being a dealer these days is not for the weak at heart. I do understand the brand purity issues but as long as they don't forget they could lose customer loyalty in the process.

It appears that consideration needs to be related to the area. I don't believe any dealership other than John Deere can survive in my area by just selling Kubotas. One sells Case and the other sells New Holland. You can buy a John Deere SCUT to a big Ag machine, but Kioti, Kubota etc. really can't cover this range and income from other sales help keep the doors open.

 

[MtnViewRanch]

How many Deere dealers do you see selling red, orange or any other color tractor. You don't. I am not sure it is an insane strategy to try to find dealers not selling competing brands. It may not be liked by all but it is not all that uncommon. I think this thing is simple that Kioti wants its dealers to focus on selling Kioti. Some will like it and some won't. Both of mine local Deere dealers went thru consolidation over the last 2 years. I buy parts at the new dealer. My local Agco dealer went out as well. They gave his contracts to the only CAT dealer in the state. I was picking up baler parts for my brother on their last day. Sad indeed.
Here is an interesting article on the majors consolidations and stratigies.
Farm Equipment - Planning for Profits - Dealer Consolidation: A Year of Changes


ftp://ftp.cba.uri.edu/Classes/Sheinin/MBA%20505/Articles/April/Why%20Deere%20Is%20Weeding%20Out%20Dealers%20Even%20as%20Farms%20Boom%20-%20WSJ_com.htm

I know one thing being a dealer these days is not for the weak at heart. I do understand the brand purity issues but as long as they don't forget they could lose customer loyality in the process.

1 of the 3 local Deere dealers also sells Massey's in my area. I have read of many other Deere dealers mentioned on TBN that sell other brands also. I don't think that John Deere is a Deere only company. If they are then they have some pruning to do.

 

[Coyote machine]

It occurs to me after reading some of Deere's recent practices that what we're talking about is mostly about not breaking something that works. By this I mean that if Kioti is working well as currently setup then don't fix it 'till it's broken.
Shaking things up or changing the status quo, as corporate marketing strategy people often do to justify their continued existence, is a surefire way to sink an otherwise floating ship. Kioti, and as mentioned, other smaller brands than the big dogs can try to carve out more market share, however doing it by pissing off existing loyal customers and cutting dealers for no logical reason, (at least none any of us are being made aware of as consumers or for that matter dealers) is sheer lunacy IMHO. Now if there are dealers out there playing with the tractor inventory, or the money they owe Kioti, then by all means, fix it or cut 'em loose. That type of situation would be largely a franchise infringement on contract issue and Kioti could and would likely take appropriate action as warranted.
AND I'm NOT saying that has been going on; and even if it had I would not likely be aware of it, nor would most of us. I am saying IF it has been going on now or in the future I would hope Kioti would do what is necessary to remedy the problem.

 

[offshore]

I have yet to find any company that will allow a non-franchise to perform work on something under warranty without voiding it. If I brought a brand new John Deere to a Kubota dealer for work I guarantee John Deere would try voiding my warranty. This doesn't seem any different. It's not just tractors, would you bring your $60k Ford to a ACE transmission shop and expect Ford to still honor it's drivetrain warranty?

lets get this strait , we know that any non-authorised dealer performing warranty work on a tractor will void the warranty , this is not what they said , they said if you continue having SERVICE WORK done they will void my warranty!
So if i continue doing business with a dealer who has serviced my tractor faithfully , and has kioti certified techs I am penalised ?
I also found out that my nearest " franchised "dealer does not have kioti certified tech's on hand or a service department ,but I can trust them with my 35,000 dollar tractor ? yeah right !

 

[capt jack]

Kioti has a public relations dept. ???? I have one (DK55) I bought used CHEAP, it's a good machine, but I would NEVER buy a new one and put up with how Kioti treats customers and dealers. I have 2 Kubotas I did buy new because i know that dealer will still be here. Kioti says its a Korean company, but I believe its run by a guy named Gadhafi in Libya