Did you try out your CUT at home before purchasing

JerryG · Dec 9, 2003

Re: Did you try out your CUT at home before purcha

Taking a tractor out for a farmer to try out before buying is standard fair in lots of Ag areas. A lot of farmers wouldn't even think of buying before trying one out first. I would be willing to bet that most of the compact dealers that do bring one out are in Ag areas and most of their customers are farmers. My dealer has offered numerous times to let me try a piece of equipment out at my farm, I have yet to take him up on it.

rdam · Dec 9, 2003

Re: Did you try out your CUT at home before purcha

Amazing !!!! Any dealer that brings you a "new" loaner, or delivers a "new" tractor to your place to test is pretty high on customer service. Imagine this; "That crazy dealer loaned me a piece of industrial construction equipment and didn't give me an owners manual or instructions and now I'm wrapped up in the spinny thing in the back and I'm gonna sue"

A tractor is not a car. Tractors, by their design, are meant to be "abused". They were not designed to pull Christmas floats. That being said, I would not want "my" new tractor, delivered to a prospective customer with almost no tractor experience, to test. The prospective buyer, who, like me, probably has little or no experience operating tractors, is NOT pulling Christmas floats, giving hay rides, or riding the fence line. He is grinding gears, overloading hydraulics, hitting trees, using FWD on the pavement etc, etc.

Like Henro, I requested my tractor be a crated unit and not "demoed" out. My dealer did have an L3130 FST with loader that I "played" with on his lot. I learned a bunch in that "play" session as I had never used a loader before. But, being a nice guy, I didn't abuse the tractor because it wasn't mine. Unfortunately, that's not true for everyone.

yellowsocks93 · Dec 9, 2003

Re: Did you try out your CUT at home before purcha

Jerry your are so right. At the JD dealership I work for we will loan out combines and tractors for the farmers to try. We just got a new JD 9860 combine in and within hours it was out to the farmer's field for testing. I have never even looked at or driven the tractors I have bought since we never had any in. I just hoped it came the way I wanted it to from the factory.

Ender · Dec 9, 2003

Re: Did you try out your CUT at home before purcha

I rented my TC-30 and the dealer brought it out to me and took it back to his shop. Took the cost of the rental right off the top of the price of the tractor. So I guess he loaned it to me for the weekend.

He was the only dealer that would even rent one. Sold me though...

TC-30, FEL, Backblade

Ender

dieselsmoke1 · Dec 9, 2003

Re: Did you try out your CUT at home before purcha

After my dealer and I had settled on the price, he loaded the tractor on my trailer...no paperwork or money, just a handshake between 2 men. Smiled and waved as I drove away with his tractor, said "see you next Monday".

You're probably right JerryG. He's an agricultural dealer and that's how a lot of their sales are made.

JerryG · Dec 9, 2003

Re: Did you try out your CUT at home before purcha

That the way my dealer is. It was a month before I signed the papers on the last tractor.

frank_f15 · Dec 9, 2003

i guess on ocassion a dealer might bring a tractor for u to try at home, but i don't think it is the norm. can u imagine if a dealer delivered any tractor to everybody that wanted to try one out? heck everytime i need a larger machine to do a task i could just call up the dealer and say i WOULD LIKE TO DEMO a yada, yada with BH , use it and say , not quite what i want! when i bought mine the dealer let me drive it around the yard, move snow, dig in a pile of dirt , and see how i liked it.

40Kchicks · Dec 9, 2003

Re: Did you try out your CUT at home before purcha

I also think your right Jerry. When I bought my skid steer I went into the JD dealership and told them I was interested. The next day they had one at my place. They insisted I give one a try. The CAT dealer also had a SSL that they drove up and down the valley to let farmers and contractors try. They brought it out and let us use it. It’s actually a great service. Before the demo I was leaning towards getting the JD but once we demod the Cat with its super smooth electrical over hydraulic controls my wife would not consider the others and I was in agreement.

One last thing I noticed was how much harder the dealers started dealing when they came by and saw another companies demo sitting at our place.

Woodbeef · Dec 10, 2003

Hey Frank,

It is the norm around here for everything from lawnmowers to tractors and every piece of ag-equipment you can think of. The guys that just demo to get work done on the cheap,don't get to do it very many times before the word gets around about them. What I've noticed you have to watch is the dealer that tries to get you to only demo his when you do not have any of the competition there to compare it against. I've not seen it with CUTs but I have with Ag-tractors..........kinda makes you wonder what they are affraid of,eh????

The multiple brand demo is great........neighbor did it this spring. Ended up with a Deere 4610. It was a good way to compare it against the others side by side doing the same jobs at the same time. Plus lots of fun too!!!!

Bird · Dec 10, 2003

Frank, I suspect when dealers let potential customers "try out" equipment at home, it's when they've already, in their own mind, decided that the the customer really is likely to buy.

I don't know whether any other tool distributors did the same thing or not, but when my brother was running the Matco Tool truck, calling on each garage once a week, many times he had a mechanic question him about a particular tool or diagnostic equipment he had on the truck as to whether it was really as good as advertised, and he frequently would just say, "I don't know, try it out a week, and you tell me." In nearly every case, the mechanic bought the item, and on the rare occasions when they didn't, my brother would just find another mechanic to "try it out" until he found one who'd buy it at a discounted price (which was nearly always more than his cost at least).

shvl73 · Dec 10, 2003

I shopped 6 dealers before i decided on my tractor & only one dealer offered to bring a unit out to for me to test at home, however I did not ask any of them for this service.
It's hard to say how many would have agreed to do so.
I don't think I would have purchased a unit as new that had 10-20 hours on the meter without a discount, my unit had less than 2 hours on it & I only tried it out briefly at the dealership but had compared the ergonomics & specs of all the units & am very satisfied with my choice.
I only have 20+ hours on it now, but I still have a big grin when I'm on it, even in the blowing snow!

JerryG · Dec 10, 2003

Farmers are not as small hour worried as most of the people here. I guess that is like the differece between putting 20-100 hours a year on a tractor and putting 2000-3000 an year on one. 10-20 isn't much when you are putting on 2-3 thousand a year.

rdam · Dec 10, 2003

And I'm sure the farmers that get the equiment to test have enough experience to use the equipment properly without abusing it.

spencer200 · Dec 13, 2003

Yeah but after a while the dealers catch on to those who do that trick!

pajoube · Dec 13, 2003

I went to the factory (PowerTrac in VA) and they had a test area that I could play to my hearts content. Was very useful to test different types of attachments that helped make up my purchase.
I think most dealers will have an outside play area that you could spend as much time as you wanted testing tractors and equipment.
PJ

SacandagaBrad · Dec 14, 2003

Re: Did you try out your CUT at home before purcha

I tried them all at the dealers, and one at a potential private sale. I considered renting one for the day once I had decided on the make and model, primarily to see how it would perform mowing and traversing my extremely soft and wet lawn. But I was mainly buying it for road maintenance, snow clearing, and lifting docks, etc. I realized that since I also still have a good garden tractor mowing machine that does well on the lawn, it wouldn't have mattered if the CUT sunk out of sight, I still would buy it for the other uses. I also used to operate heavy equipment in the construction business, so I was not worried about being confortable operating the machine. So I bought it and never looked back! Still don't know how it's going to perform for mowing, took delivery in October which is past mowing season around here. But it has been extremely wet and I drive over the soft stuff all the time.

So I would say if you have circumstances that will determine whether or not you are going to buy, then borrow, demo, rent, whatever before you buy.

Brad

RichNJKubota · Dec 14, 2003

Re: Did you try out your CUT at home before purcha

My local Kubota dealer did let me try the machine out first. He delivered it (L4310) and a brush cutter and let me keep it for the weekend. No strings. By the end of the weekend I knew it was the correct size machine for my needs.

Rich

MDNick · Dec 16, 2003

Theowegian,
I rented my Kubota from my dealer prior to final purchase. I was pretty much set that I was going to buy that machine. However, I wante some play time, so the dealer and I worked out a rental for a few months. I was paying a standard rental fee/month (wasn't cheap), but the agreement was that it WAS a rental. The rental price came off the purchase price of that machine or any other from him. Now he may have been swayed by the fact that I was pretty well set on that machine, I dunno. But after trying it out, it worked for me.

Nick

TresCrows · Dec 16, 2003

My dealer happened to have a slightly used 7500. I had it for a weekend and decided I wanted the BX instead. Then latter I bought a matching 2410--go figure. If I were a dealer I would be hesitant to loan out new equipment because then it is USED equipment /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif.
I notice you are looking at the Kubota B7800/2910 and the JD JD4310. The correct Kubota competitor to the JD4310 would be the Grande L 3410 etc. The B series Kubotas are fairly unique, good power in a lighter weight frame. They have smaller displacement engines and are intended for lighter work and Kubota tends to put more horsepower in lighter tractors than the other companies. The comparable JD tractors would be the 4010, 4110 and 4115. The JD 4310 I think is a much heavier duty unit than the little Kubota B2910/7800. Don't go by horsepower alone, look at the weight and cubic inch displacment--then horsepower. My neighbor has an L, not a Grande L. It is 24 horses. It is much heavier built than my little B2410 and has about 20 cubic inches more displacement (just off the top of my head). Not being bossy, just make sure you compare apples to apples. Good luck. J

BIGBLUETOY · Dec 17, 2003

My dealer let me use a TC33D with a 5 ' Landpride finish mower all weekend. He offered this up when I started asking him about tractors. I decided to go with a TC40D. he had to order it and when it came in he left it at my house and left me a message to stop down and settle up when I got a chance. When I was interested in a box scraper he left one at my house to try out, which I ended up buying. This last summer I was looking for something to mow my lawn faster and he offered to drop off a zero turn radius mower for me to try out, I have not taken him up on that offer yet, I seem to not be able to part with my JD 316.
I told the John Deere dealer that the NH dealer let me try out his tractor at my house and could he do the same and he said no but I could drive it around his lot, which was smaller then my lawn. That and the prices on the Deeres made me (go) blue.