Do you know why people work on their own tractors?

[Robert_in_NY]

Mith, there are great dealers here also. You only hear about the bad ones though.

Just last week I was stupid and forgot to put the lynch pin on to keep the discbine on the drawbar. Made a sharp right partway thru the field and off she came. PTO come apart and nailed the draw bar shearing the universal. This happened at 4:55pm. My New Holland dealer closes at 5pm. I call up at 5:02pm and the guys are still there and tell me to come on in. The parts guy matches up the universal and the shop manager replaces it for me and fixes the pto shaft where it hit the drawbar and out the door I go by 5:40pm.

My dealer is Larry Romance and Son in Sheridan and they do great work and take care of us guys who need their equipment to stay running. Rogers and Sons is a Agco/Valtra dealer here and are a great family run operation also. There are crappy dealers here too but when you find them you go else where. I don't care what color tractor I drive as long as I have a great dealer.

 

[workinallthetime]

I think alot of the problem is that there are not many people going into any kind of hard mechanical job. Mechanics are not a dime a dozen anymore, and the ones that are good either get hurt and quit, find something that pays better with less work, oe get tired of trying to fix a mysterios problem that they can not duplicte because they were not given the same info the customer gave the writter. Alot of guys got out of turning wrenches from 92 to 98 because the old days of fixing something they knew were gone and they didnt like all that new fangeled computer stuff. I watched guys who had been mechaincs for 30 years just walk out because they didint want to learn something new and abstract to them, i also baby sat a 30 plus year tech who was great on a 69 camaro but could not fix a 2005 truck to safe his life.
my dad had a mf 175 with a busted pump, after a month at the dealer i went over one day to see what was going on, the tech had it all apart but could not get some pipe to line up. he said " you try and get it on", this thing was in the case, i took a minute looked at it to understand what i was doing and put it on in about 3 minutes, boy was he upset. my point is you never know what billy bob is going to be wrenching on your tractor or the brakes on your wifes car, and thats why i wrench on my stuff and all of my close frinds and family until they buy something besides a GM, lol

Ohh and be careful watching the guy who is working, i did not mind most of the time but if they started bugging me i would drag the air hose across them with all the greese and dirt leaving a nice stain, i kept all my hoses clean but one, called it my "leave me alone" hose.

 

[D7E]

Any work i've had done by dealerships recently has been very dissapointing so these days we try to do everything our selves (short of transmission or powershift work).This is why i have older stuff and lots of it .
Seems as soon as they get it in their shop they pass the job onto some trainee kid .

 

[ultrarunner]

My advice to anyone is to document the number of days your tractor is out of service due to warranty repair items because your warranty is automatically extended by that number... the burden is on you to prove it.

 

[mjncad]

On our cars and truck, I let the dealers service them as the vehicles have become so complex and cramped under the hood as to make them next to impossible to work on. My 1995 Accord needed new low beam headlight bulbs. A simple enough task; but it's so tight in that area and the road grime that finds its way around the lock rings made it next to impossible for me to do. I called up the Honda dealer and he said $35 parts and labor and I said, "DEAL!" Letting them do it was cheaper than me slicing my hand open on some nearby sheet metal requiring a trip to the ER.

Besides, getting rid of the hazardous waste is a nuisance anymore.

I took auto mechanics in high school (1973 - 1974) thinking that would be a good way to make a buck after high school. Two years of classes cured me of that notion. Now I look under the hood of a car and my method of determining whether I can work on a car or not is, "Can I see the ground with the hood up? If not, you can't work on it yourself." Fortunately the car dealers make most of their money on service and competition plus manufacturer requirements have forced them to get better with their service and customer treatment.

Anyway, I digressed a bit. Ok, more than a bit.

Other than warranty work, I have done all my own service on my 4200 and I don't particularly enjoy doing wrench turning. The reason for this is cost as I don't own a trailer (yet) and hauling my 4200 to the dealer myself is not doable though my F-250 is more than capable of towing it to the dealer.

I recently did my second 200-hour service on my rig in which I changed the engine oil, hydraulic oil, front axle oil, antifreeze, engine oil filter, hydraulic oil filter, fuel filter, and both air filters. I also cleaned the hydraulic suction screen and rockshaft sintered bronze filter, plus grease about 22 fittings and lubricate various items like seat tracks, etc. The materials cost me about $250 to do it myself. If I had the dealer do it, the parts would have been the same, I suspect the labor would have been about $250 minimum, plus add in a couple of hundred for the dealer to pick up and deliver the tractor, plus all the little nitnoid shop fees, EPA fees, taxes, etc and I'm guessing my 200-hour service would have run about $750+/-. I could have rented a nice flatbed from my local rental yard that they use for mini-excavators, skidsteers, etc; but they charge $75 a day plus fees for it, so I would still be in the same boat.

My guess is that tractor dealers being niche players don't have the competition that car dealers do; so they are still behind the times so to speak when it comes to customer service.

As for getting rid of the waste oil and antifreeze...

Checker Auto Parts would not take my 10 - 11 gallons of oil in my home made collection and transfer tank as I had more than 5-gallons. Grease Monkey, et al wouldn't take it because they didn't know if the oil was contaminated, which makes their life miserable with the Gummint bureaucrats. I ended up taking the waste oil to my Deere dealer and they were glad to take it as they store it in large tanks and burn it in the winter to heat the shop. No one will take the antifreeze, which is frustrating the heck out of me to get rid of 5-gallons of antifreeze, coolant flush, and flushing water. The county is having a hazmat roundup next month and they will take the antifreeze.

Trying to do the right thing regarding disposal of hazardous materials can be such a pain, that it's no wonder people say the heck with it and dig a hole, and bury it. I know I came close to considering doing that.

 

[Kendall69]

In my "Spare Time" I am a Sate of California Certified "Lemon Law" arbitrator.

Here's the fastest lemon Law dispute I have ever done. On the way home from the dealer The vehicle kept stalling. Took it to the dealer on day two, they called on day two said they could not duplicate. I picked it up drove on the highway, it stalled. BACK to the dealer still day three, they called said they did this and that, picked it up it stalled, back on day three. Day four repeat of day two and three.
Called the manufacturer and said OK, you've had your three chances, give me my money back. They said PLEASE give us one more chance - I said I will never drive this vehicle. again, you come pick it up. A week later the called, and said order yourself a new one.

So that was about a two week buy back.

I actually made out, the vehicle was a bait ans switch vehicle where they "only have one" at a great price and hope you won't buy it.

For the buyback they gave me full retail, which was 5k more than I paid for it.

So Lemon Laws do work, and manufacturers do take notice, Once I enacted the Lemon Law Regional guys wee lining up to talk to me - prior to that I was just a pain in their side.

Document EVERYTHING, then fire off certified letters.

 

[patrick_g]

I went through a drive through and got a wrong special order which I didn't find out about until I got home to the kids and for which the place was not very sorry (yet). I went back to the restaurant a few days later at their busiest time with the boat behind the truck. I placed my special order -- plain cheeseburger -- ... but I got my order -- correct and much quicker than if I had gone to the waiting area in a car.

Yeah, I know I was being a jerk to the people in line behind me, but the fact that they either moved to a different restaurant or were very unhappy when they came to the window and had to be dealt with should have served to make the manager and staff know that it doesn't pay to screw up a customer's order.

1. I wonder if a DNA test would have matched any of the contents of your burger to the manager's saliva?

2. Yes you were being a jerk to impose on so many other folks, holding those innocents hostage as bargaining chips in your hassling the manager exercise essentially anonymously as opposed to going inside and looking him in the eye is not a good thing.

3. Did the thought ever cross your mind that since fast food is often provided to you by morons that you might want to check your order before you drove away from the window? I mean really, if a guy flunks the burger flipping test they put him on as a tractor mech. Do you count your money at the teller window or wait till you get home?

Terror tactics may have a place but I think not as the opening move.

About the meanest thing I have ever done to a fast food place in my entire life was to order several buritos at TB and when informed sorry we are not a participating TB and won't accept the coupon I didn't say a word just did a 180 and my friend and I walked out. They WERE a participating TB the previous week.

Pat

 

[RollingsFarms]

i had a similar situation with Mcdonalds about screwing up orders over and over again. i just went home, emailed Mcdonalds my complaint and to my suprise, recieved an email back from the district manager, a personal call from Mcdonalds Corp, 3 cupons for any value meal for FREE(including drink, size of value meal, etc.), and a follow up call to see if there were anymore problems. the funny thing is this same Mcdonalds screwed up my order two other times since then, and i figured it was too much trouble to go through all that again and i really didnt think Mcdonalds Copr would belive they had screwed up again after all we had been through before. some establishments just dont get it i think. however i did notice "currently hiring managers" recently at this certain Mcdonalds, so maybe good things are yet to come.

 

[BillyP]

I guess you could say minimum wage kids wil be kids. Maybe they'll start hiring college grads


I've seen dumber things done with people making a whole lot more money?

 

[Kendrick]

Teach

I hope you didn't eat that burger cause they probably spit in it !!

Eating at one of those places that is the LEAST of your worries.


I am in the IT field by trade. I would have no qualms working on any tractor with electronics. I do however have considerable problems with how the design of many modern vehicles are made. I am expecting to regear and create a new program for my cars transmission due to how "efficently" it was put together in the first place. it seems that many companys have gotten caught up in the "space age" when designing etc. you can put a great deal of electronics on a vehicle and still keep it highly serviceable. its a matter of making it a standard piece of equipment.
ie plug the laptop in the computer port of the tractor. it sends all the data in a standard format and wala no problems. To many companys are affraid of their shadow and ip it gets rediculous.

oh and 2 reasons for the loss of good mechanics. my baby boomer parents are a wonderful example.
1) you aren't worth any thing if you work with your hands and or dont have a masters or better degree. many of my age group were taught that you were a servent if you did any thing but theologie type work.

2) all the twits from comment 1 degrading and belittleing the "poor mechanic" infront of their kid. who is so stupid that he barely kept from being the trashman. now susie you dont want to end up like them do you...

unfortunatly those 2 things have played a great deal in why we cant get good mechanics. I have seen plenty of service managers with that kind of attitude towards their own workers.

The electronics dont help with keeping the old timers who know how its done. no new blood just strangles the environment. It is a true shame it is heading that way here.