Experience at Kubota dealer - central Florida

[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.