Kubota shipping costs

[brain55]

I just want to share my recent experience. Last Wednesday the 24th of March at about 10:45 am I ordered a bunch of parts to replace the center pivot pin and bushings on a Kubota R520S wheel loader. Three of the parts were backordered to Japan, the center pin and two of the bushings. A couple of the other parts were coming from the warehouses in Texas and Georgia, the rest were coming from the local warehouse. Yesterday afternoon I got the call that all of my parts were in. So I went today and picked them up.

Does anyone want to guess at how much the freight was? Remember this was essentially 4 different orders. The bulk of the parts came from the local warehouse, 1 part from Texas, 1 from Georgia, and 3 parts from Japan by air, that center pin probably weighed more than the rest of the parts combined.

Are you ready for this? How about $38.09. The parts from Japan were actually here Tuesday, I had to wait another day to get the parts from Texas and Georgia.

This is what I am used to when dealing with Kubota parts. For the more than 20 years that I have been working on Kubotas, this is what I have always gotten.

I can only imagine what this would have cost from John Deere or some of the other manufacturers.

Brian

 

[timswi]

Kubota is surprisingly reasonable on some things and brutal on others..Who can figure it out?

 

[luc]

I just want to share my recent experience. Last Wednesday the 24th of March at about 10:45 am I ordered a bunch of parts to replace the center pivot pin and bushings on a Kubota R520S wheel loader. Three of the parts were backordered to Japan, the center pin and two of the bushings. A couple of the other parts were coming from the warehouses in Texas and Georgia, the rest were coming from the local warehouse. Yesterday afternoon I got the call that all of my parts were in. So I went today and picked them up.

Does anyone want to guess at how much the freight was? Remember this was essentially 4 different orders. The bulk of the parts came from the local warehouse, 1 part from Texas, 1 from Georgia, and 3 parts from Japan by air, that center pin probably weighed more than the rest of the parts combined.

Are you ready for this? How about $38.09. The parts from Japan were actually here Tuesday, I had to wait another day to get the parts from Texas and Georgia.

This is what I am used to when dealing with Kubota parts. For the more than 20 years that I have been working on Kubotas, this is what I have always gotten.

I can only imagine what this would have cost from John Deere or some of the other manufacturers.

Brian

Well, I'm not sure that I feel the same way than you about inbound freight cost.

With all car and truck manufacturers, and most other business, the cost of the inbound freight ( from manufacturer to dealer) is always included in the MSRP of the part. ( and it's not like Kubota parts are cheap)
From what I understand Kubota dealers do not have any freight cost on their "regular" stock order.

 

[brain55]

Having dealt with many different equipment manufacturers, Kubota by far is the best that I have dealt with. Yes, automotive manufacturers build the cost of freight into their retail price, but try getting them to order you something from the East coast Next Day Air. In most cases they can't or won't. And you are right Kubota dealers aren't charged freight on their regular stock orders. There was little "regular stock order" about this order. I'm sure they put the parts coming from the local warehouse on a stock order and did not charge me freight. That center pin probably weighs 20 pounds, it arrived from Japan by air, in less than a week, I was charged $23.33 for that and the 2 bushings. If I had ordered any similar weight item from Bobcat, Ditch Witch, Case, New Holland, or John Deere, even second day or third day select it would easily have been double the freight charges. Have you tried to order a part backordered to Japan from New Holland? First of all, the dealer doesn't even know it is backordered until the order comes in and the part is missing. Then it can take weeks even months to get that part. I have dealt with equipment companies that even though you order a part NDA they still don't ship it for 2 to 3 days.

Let me put my experience into a little more context. For the last several years I was the fleet manager for a landscape contractor. At the height of the housing boom we had over a hundred pick-ups on the road. GM, Ford and Dodge products. I'll give props to Dodge, they were the best when you needed something the next day and they didn't charge freight, but they were also the most expensive. Along with over 100 self-propelled pieces of equipment ranging from 13HP walk-behind tillers to 130HP wheel loaders. At one point I was ordering $40,000 a month in parts to keep them all running. I have intimate knowledge of what manufacturers charge for freight and their parts compared to the homeowner with a BX.

Anyway, I stand by my statement that you won't find a better manufacturer when it comes to parts and shipping.

Brian

 

[JOHNTHOMAS]

Brian: I hope you realize that if you had said it was 10 cents someone would say that's to high. Wait, here comes the "it should have been on Warranty, no matter how long you had it" and "I hope they paid you for doing the maintenance " and here comes the "it should have never tore up so they should come to your house and fix it and give you a loaner". Seems extremely cheap and extremely quick to me.

 

[brain55]

Thanks John, I forgot that about this board.

Brian

 

[art]

I remember when we didn't have any shipping charges from any manufacturer for parts! I remember when sales rep's came in with boxes of hat's with no bill!
I remember when it didn't cost anything to get the literature shipped to us!
I also remember when there was no charges for the literature for any of the companies!
I remember when we didn't a surcharge on equipment for the manufactuers advertising.

Oh well, I could keep going but there are three constants in life!

Change,taxes and death! If you can change fast enough the tax man might not catch you and after your dead, who cares! Sorry kids!

 

[brain55]

I remember when we didn't have any shipping charges from any manufacturer for parts! I remember when sales rep's came in with boxes of hat's with no bill!
I remember when it didn't cost anything to get the literature shipped to us!
I also remember when there was no charges for the literature for any of the companies!
I remember when we didn't a surcharge on equipment for the manufactuers advertising.

Oh well, I could keep going but there are three constants in life!

Change,taxes and death! If you can change fast enough the tax man might not catch you and after your dead, who cares! Sorry kids!

LOL, Art, was that before or after, you walked to school in the snow, with no shoes, ten miles, uphill in both directions? Or was that when, none of this was here, it was all farmland as far as the eye could see?

 

[RickB]

New Holland, as well as other major manufacturers have a stock order system. Parts can be ordered on a specified weekday (in some instances daily if minimum order volume is met) without any incoming freight charge. Shipping methods for stock orders are not the fastest, but it is free. In our case, parts stock ordered by 4:00 PM will be at the store 7:30 AM the second day if in our closest depot, usually the third day if coming from anywhere else in the lower 48.

Getting parts from overseas in less than a week is impressive, though. I wonder if they were in transit through normal restocking procedures when the order was placed?