Cwrighttractors, I'm glad you're here. I was serious when I said I'm interested in learning from you. I look forward to talking with you more.
I know you didn't mention any dealers by name. In a way, that made it sound worse. When you said "What has happened is the Vietnamese exporters started offering a better product at a lower price and would not deal with the guys importing them on their own hence the bad reviews," it went against the grain of the experiences of members here. California shared a story of a company that literally went out of business by doing the right thing by its customers. A similar thing has happened (is happening?) with Chinese tractor retailers: They have so much time involved in setting up and fixing issues on NEW tractors from the factory that it is no longer cost effective for them to sell these things. The alternative is to sell a customer a sub-standard, faulty machine.
I am glad that is not the case with you or your business. It may be that your importer has better or more quality assurance steps to limit some of the problems these other companies have had. I would be interested to hear about them.
The short explanation of the situation is that there has been an established history of retailers selling tractors reconditioned in Vietnam to appear "as new," but from an aggregation of parts that may be from different models or even brands. Problems did (and do) occur with these tractors at rates much higher than would be expected with used tractors in general, let alone (in aviation terms) a machine with zero time since major overhaul.
Perhaps the situation is changing. What types of issues have you seen? Are some machines more reliable for your customers than others? I don't think people expect perfection. Brand new machines go back for warranty work all the time. Indeed, having a warranty is a selling point, even though warranties only work when something malfunctions! So implicit there is the idea that something probably will go wrong. The duration of a warranty is frequently a perception of quality, that tends to be influenced by the reality of things.
Hyundai used to be regarded as low-quality, disposable automobile manufacturer. However, offering 10 year warranties on their cars made people feel confident buying them: "How bad could they be, if they will be warranteed for 10 years? Plus, I don't have to pay to fix it if it does break." With that psychological reassurance, the company has grown to be a reasonably well-regarded builder of automobiles.
Yanmar's reputation for quality is pre-existing. As a result, when things enter the supply stream that don't meet those expectations, the attention paid to them is much greater than with a product of expected low quality. If I break a socket out of a set that cost 3 dollars at the swap meet, I am not surprised. When I broke my 26 dollar Snap-on socket, I was irate. I paid the extra money for something that wouldn't give me trouble. I could have paid a third that price for a Craftsman, and gotten a replacement that afternoon at K-Mart or Sears. Instead, I had to wait a week for the truck to come by, within certain hours, and so forth. I was angry about the extra cost combined with the added inconvenience: The "better" product cost more, and the trouble involved was more to boot.
Buying a Yanmar for most people here is like buying the Snap-on. If I'm not going to get much help fixing it, I might as well buy Chinese, or used, or whatever. A reconditioned Yanmar ought to be new in every way that matters except serial number date, and give about the same rate of trouble as a new tractor of top-quality (Kubota, John Deere, etc.) would, and of similar magnitude.
Would you say that's applicable in your situation? 4 years should be long enough to get a feel for what is having issues and of what type.
If I said something that you felt mischaracterized your statements, I am sorry. I tried to keep my remarks centered on what was in your posts. I have no beef with the ethnicity of the guy who rebuilds my tractors. The 1401D is my favorite machine I own, and the one I would keep if I had to choose amongst them. I do want the best product for my money. And, all too often, that has not been the collective experience with Vietnamese rebuilds.
For what it's worth, I speak about like I write, and would have said the same things to you after waiting patiently with my hand raised. (I'm a teacher, it's ingrained habit....:laughing
Again, welcome to the board. I'm looking forward to learning more about these neat machines. :thumbsup:
