KIOTI does it again!

DirtHauler · Oct 18, 2009

Grrrrr......... Once again the fine folks at Kioti keep shooting their own foot. Our local dealer here in the "wine country" region of Northern Cali has had their dealership "terminated" !
Reason: "not selling enough tractors..." . Being the economy is in such great shape, I find that hard to believe! So now instead of a dealer 7 miles away, I have truck my tractor 138 miles and 3 hours away to get any warranty work done or buy parts.
I now have 983 hrs. on my '06 CK30, been having problems with the MLS valve, adjusting the spool didn't solve the problem, it is covered under warranty but trucking all the way to the now "nearest dealer" only to drop it off, wait for them to order and replace it then going back to pick it up just didn't appeal to me. so I pulled the valve assembly out, took it apart and discovered the spool valve had corrosion it. Water had some how gotten into the front of the valve housing. It took me about 2 hrs. to fix this. Now my fuel gage has decided to stop working properly, it only reads 1/4 full max, new float/sender assembly needed? Let me think.......ummmmm, 15 mins. to replace and a 6 hr. round trip to the dealer, makes good economic sense to me.

I've bought 2 Kiotis and bought numerous parts from our now defunct dealer and was thinking about buying a DK45S next year or the following, now we're not sure with so many tractor dealers with in a 12 mile range i.e. Kubota, John Deere, New Holland, TYM, Branson and Bob Cat, that going that far to buy and deal with warranty and service is gonna take alot of hard thinking!

So all you folks who own a Kioti around here take notice!

kenstrac · Oct 18, 2009

Go to the Bobcat dealer and see if he can help you out.

Dargo · Oct 18, 2009

That really is a bummer. It's pretty well what happened in my area. I think highly of the product but am not impressed with the dealer network (dealer network...not dealers). It pretty well prevents me from considering a Kioti because I'm not going to travel hours just to get to a dealer who can either trade for, or order me, a tractor. Maybe Kioti has a master plan and we are just seeing the unfortunate side effects of getting a better dealer network.

dfkrug · Oct 18, 2009

DirtHauler said:
Our local dealer here in the "wine country" region of Northern Cali has had their dealership "terminated" !
Reason: "not selling enough tractors..."

That is a surprise. I have met that dealer at the World AG Expo, if it is who
I think it is. The other Bay Area dealer is in Tracy, and tractors are not
his main biz.

I just had a new Bobcat delivered...it is pretty much the same as my
2005 CK30. (I am not anywhere near 1000 hr though!) The Bobcat
dealer will make housecalls for warranty work, no extra charge. That is
amazing. I never planned to take my Kioti to a dealer anyway, even for
warranty work.

IslandTractor · Oct 19, 2009

Dargo said:
Maybe Kioti has a master plan and we are just seeing the unfortunate side effects of getting a better dealer network.

You are being kind. I wish I had that much faith in Korporate Kioti. As you said, the product is fine but the business plan is a bit hard to digest at times.

RADDAD50 · Oct 20, 2009

Hi, I'm pretty sure you are talking about the dealer in Sebastapol ??

DirtHauler · Oct 21, 2009

RADDAD50 said:
Hi, I'm pretty sure you are talking about the dealer in Sebastapol ??

BINGO !!

LBrown59 · Oct 21, 2009

DirtHauler said:
Grrrrr......... Once again the fine folks at Kioti keep shooting their own foot. Our local dealer here in the "wine country" region of Northern Cali has had their dealership "terminated" !
Reason: "not selling enough tractors..." . Being the economy is in such great shape, I find that hard to believe! So now instead of a dealer 7 miles away, I have truck my tractor 138 miles and 3 hours away to get any warranty work done or buy parts.
I now have 983 hrs. on my '06 CK30, been having problems with the MLS valve, adjusting the spool didn't solve the problem, it is covered under warranty but trucking all the way to the now "nearest dealer" only to drop it off, wait for them to order and replace it then going back to pick it up just didn't appeal to me. so I pulled the valve assembly out, took it apart and discovered the spool valve had corrosion it. Water had some how gotten into the front of the valve housing. It took me about 2 hrs. to fix this. Now my fuel gage has decided to stop working properly, it only reads 1/4 full max, new float/sender assembly needed? Let me think.......ummmmm, 15 mins. to replace and a 6 hr. round trip to the dealer, makes good economic sense to me.

I've bought 2 Kiotis and bought numerous parts from our now defunct dealer and was thinking about buying a DK45S next year or the following, now we're not sure with so many tractor dealers with in a 12 mile range i.e. Kubota, John Deere, New Holland, TYM, Branson and Bob Cat, that
going that far to buy and deal with warranty and service is gonna take alot of hard thinking!

So all you folks who own a Kioti around here take notice!

I've allready decided.I'd not buy no Kioti in that case.

IslandTractor · Oct 21, 2009

LBrown59 said:
I've allready decided.I'd not buy no Kioti in that case.

Luckily for you Kioti doesn't make a BX class machine so they'd be excluded anyway.

rimshot · Oct 22, 2009

IslandTractor said:
Luckily for you Kioti doesn't make a BX class machine so they'd be excluded anyway.

=======

Actually Island, I think we are all misunderstanding L.B. He put it this way,
"I'd not buy no Kioti". That's a double negative. That means he would really like to have one and has published his intentions right here on the Kioti forum. L. B. is going to be driving a Kioti soon. Anybody looking for a great BX23? Wait till the guys on the Kubota forum hear about this.

Way to go L.B.

rimshot (big grin)

p.S. I always knew he'd look good in orange

IslandTractor · Oct 22, 2009

rimshot said:
=======

L. B. is going to be driving a Kioti soon.

Oleozz · Oct 22, 2009

rimshot said:
=======

Actually Island, I think we are all misunderstanding L.B. He put it this way,
"I'd not buy no Kioti". That's a double negative. That means he would really like to have one and has published his intentions right here on the Kioti forum. L. B. is going to be driving a Kioti soon. Anybody looking for a great BX23? Wait till the guys on the Kubota forum hear about this.

Way to go L.B.

rimshot (big grin)

p.S. I always knew he'd look good in orange

Rimshot---You are a funny guy!

kenstrac · Oct 22, 2009

What replace 3 Kubota's with 1 Kioti that sound right.
What's he going to use in sand box now?
this can replace 3 BX's

carpenter383 · Oct 22, 2009

kenstrac said:
What replace 3 Kubota's with 1 Kioti that sound right.
What's he going to use in sand box now?
this can replace 3 BX's

Not long ago Lbrown was asking about a rollback to haul his tractors, but the problem with steep loading angles came up.
So my theory is he secretly wants a Kioti to lift the bx's onto the truck!

LBrown59 · Oct 23, 2009

carpenter383 said:
Not long ago Lbrown was asking about a rollback to haul his tractors, but the problem with steep loading angles came up.
So my theory is he secretly wants a Kioti to lift the bx's onto the truck!

NOW Why didn't I think of that?

wallace · Oct 23, 2009

DirtHauler said:
Grrrrr......... Once again the fine folks at Kioti keep shooting their own foot. Our local dealer here in the "wine country" region of Northern Cali has had their dealership "terminated" !
Reason: "not selling enough tractors..." . Being the economy is in such great shape, I find that hard to believe! So now instead of a dealer 7 miles away, I have truck my tractor 138 miles and 3 hours away to get any warranty work done or buy parts.
I now have 983 hrs. on my '06 CK30, been having problems with the MLS valve, adjusting the spool didn't solve the problem, it is covered under warranty but trucking all the way to the now "nearest dealer" only to drop it off, wait for them to order and replace it then going back to pick it up just didn't appeal to me. so I pulled the valve assembly out, took it apart and discovered the spool valve had corrosion it. Water had some how gotten into the front of the valve housing. It took me about 2 hrs. to fix this. Now my fuel gage has decided to stop working properly, it only reads 1/4 full max, new float/sender assembly needed? Let me think.......ummmmm, 15 mins. to replace and a 6 hr. round trip to the dealer, makes good economic sense to me.

I've bought 2 Kiotis and bought numerous parts from our now defunct dealer and was thinking about buying a DK45S next year or the following, now we're not sure with so many tractor dealers with in a 12 mile range i.e. Kubota, John Deere, New Holland, TYM, Branson and Bob Cat, that going that far to buy and deal with warranty and service is gonna take alot of hard thinking!

So all you folks who own a Kioti around here take notice!

Unfortunally I think we are going to see alot more of this...
As the economy falls deeper and deeper so do our sales and when you have a company that insists you have to have X amount of product on hand and we as dealer are "loaded up" already and are paying interest why on earth would you want more product??? But that is the way of doing business with the manufactures.
I have seen may dealers disolve recently and no their not just Kioti dealers anything from our local JD dealer to big Husqvarna to MF dealers...
So with that being said run out to your local dealer and support them so they can continue to support you!

unclesalty · Oct 26, 2009

wallace said:
Unfortunally I think we are going to see alot more of this...
As the economy falls deeper and deeper so do our sales and when you have a company that insists you have to have X amount of product on hand and we as dealer are "loaded up" already and are paying interest why on earth would you want more product??? But that is the way of doing business with the manufactures.
I have seen may dealers disolve recently and no their not just Kioti dealers anything from our local JD dealer to big Husqvarna to MF dealers...
So with that being said run out to your local dealer and support them so they can continue to support you!

Here in Florida the local jd dealer just closed on saturdays and changed the weekly hours. They're down to 1 parts guy, 1 sales guy and the manager. The service dept has been cut as well. Most repairs are on a 2 week wait.
My local bobcat dealer has scaled his staff back and closed 2 locations. Even the Kubota dealer has scaled back. I hear the recession is bottomed out and turned the corner, it sure feels like its getting deeper to me.