grey market?

[matt090303]

Have been looking through the web sites on kubota's . Some are referring to grey market tractors. What is this referring to? Know what the black market is, but not the grey.

 

[rdsaustintx]

Gray market tractors are those acquired from sources other than authorized distributors. For small machines, I think the most notorious are Yanmars. They have a deal to sell these as JD's in the states, but you can still get plain Yanmars for a LOT less. No dealer will support them, parts are difficult to cross-ref, etc., but they are the same basic machines.

IMO most of the "gray market" Kubotas you see on e-bay are actually scams.

RDnT

 

[Ben3130]

There is a small section of Kubota's website that talks about Kubota's definition of a gray market tractor:

Kubota Recruiting

(I don't know why the title of the web page is 'Kubota Recruiting', but the link is to the correct page)

Basically, it's a tractor that was sold in Japan, but has been imported into the US. All it says is that these tractors were not designed to be sold in the US, and Kubota will not support them. It also gives links for more information, including tips for how to identify a gray market tractor.

 

[ozzie tractor]

these things are a absolute menace. no parts pictures, pto's with lots of gears, tires that i immagine work great in a rice paddy but do nasty things to the turf, let alone ride quality. the biggest drama i have with these things is when some poor unsuspecting person buys one thinking they are doing the right thing buying a well known name, and then have to buy parts. typically the person they purchased it from are long gone. so they come into the local dealer (my work place). once they are calmed down, after being told that we have no parts books and they will have to go and remove the offending part so i can have a look at it and try to identify it by sight (not very acurately some times to i must say) you normally recieve a few comments along the line of "you guys know nothing", or "surley they're all the same" or my personal favourite "why dont you people want to help me, because i didnt buy it here?". they walk out very upset that the "cheap" kubota they just brought has no back up. we do our best and will sell parts to anyone, even if they didnt buy it from me. but when there's no factory back up its very hard.

 

[matt090303]

I guess I am fortunate that my tractor was orig owned by the state and sold at auction.Therefore it is probably legit. Sure alot of scams going these days. Thanks for the replies.