Anybody remember the NorCal importer-wholesaler SactoTractors?

[California]

Mid 2000's, Lee at SactoTractors told me they were importing/wholesaling some 200 to 400 reconditioned tractors per month, mostly Yanmars, from his family's large recon factory in Saigon.

SactoTractors sold me the minor pieces I needed to get my YM240 back to original good running condition. Mostly minor stuff like headlights, knob covers, dash indicator lights, all salvaged off their many warranty returns parked out back. All with flawless museum-quality paint jobs, and typically a rod through the block.

I also bought there a new Howse rotary mower and box blade, and a used Yanmar-Japan rototiller that was specifically matched to YM2000 - the twin to my US YM240. It's the last green one in this photo. They even threw in a new set of tines.

I was reminded of them today when I ran across this: We Have Engines Song

Lee's sister and co-owner Vanessa, could have sold refrigerators to the Eskimos. She almost had me convinced to take a few tractors for resale to just see how it went. Vanessa was more subtle than this modern simile but just as persuasive. "Please, follow me!" (zig-zagging through the crowded tractors to her office ...) Clean forgot what I had asked about.

I think it was the excessive warranty returns that buried their business. They were honest and supported their retailers - and it killed them. Last time I asked about Lee, Vanessa said he had gone back to VN to plead with the factory to improve quality. Shortly after, they suffered a massive loss when a semi of arriving tractors was stolen over a weekend. They weren't open for long, after that.

I met some interesting people there. One Hispanic guy with almost zero English skills told me he had no trouble selling recons to the (East) Indian farmers down around Fresno. They had been cheated by the established dealers down there for so long that they trusted him more. But a TBN member told me the YM2500 he bought there had a couple of glaring 'recon' errors that nobody with a sense of quality control would have released. The returned models parked out back reflected this, for example the used fuel filter assembly I bought there had an element/bowl that had never been used by Yanmar. But my three implements I bought there still work well, 20 years later.

I miss them.

 

[bmaverick]

The way she pronounces the words, it sounds like, Engine Engine Engine in my bag of tree.

Very cute though. Is this Vanessa from back then?

 

[California]

The way she pronounces the words, it sounds like, Engine Engine Engine in my bag of tree.

Very cute though. Is this Vanessa from back then?

This video is just an actress. Vanessa was as gorgeous and more credibly persuasive in a more polite, modest, subtle way. I think well educated in VN so she spoke intelligently but the cultural difference meant you had to listen closely. Which wasn't a problem. A friendly goddess found in an unexpected location.

Lee and Vanessa were done wrong, by the family business sending them the sort of VN 'rebuilts' that earned that class of tractors a bad reputation. I've read that the VN rebuiders input was tractors worn out after a second lifetime in the paddies of VN many years after import used from Japan. Rebuilt meant cobbled together from parts off various worn out tractors. Then a museum-quality paint job. The American importers who brought low-hours tractors from Japan that had been retired for tax reasons rather than wear, had to compete against this.

I located one of SactoTractors former retailers in the part of the state near my orchard and he said Never Again, he had been buried by warranty claims so he had lost time and money on each unit he had sold. For me, they were a source for authentic parts to replace stuff ruined by owner neglect on my shabby cheap YM240. Did my own rebuild. For a couple hundred $. But its appearance was/is hopeless so I haven't spent any money on that.

Here's the sort of stuff I bought there. The lights on the right had been dangling by my knee when I bought the YM240.

Also bought as-new front wheels to replace these.

Whatever, I've now had 20 years of reliable service. The tractor was fundamentally sound under a whole lot of user neglect, that I resolved. I think it was a better buy at the time compared to a 'rebuilt', at a third the price. I just wish it looked better!