Why Kioti?

[MinnesotaEric]

Paul Shorts is a fellow poster here whose videos inspired me to look into tractors. Anyway, I stumbled on an interesting video he posted a couple of weeks ago.

Pick it up at about 10:00 and then pay attention at 11:30

Sadly, I feel just like Paul's rant about the necessity to add features that I wish were available from the factory. Like truck OEMs did for decades, tractor OEMs are missing the boat by not offering deep creature comfort options.

 

[TripleR]

As always, Paul raises some really good points.

 

[murph1]

Whatever happened to Paul? I miss his advice and wit.

 

[doxford jim]

Whatever happened to Paul? I miss his advice and wit.

He is probably working his butt off as Newfoundland is still getting hammered with winter snow storms.

 

[Threepoint]

I watched the segment Eric highlighted. Paul certainly is no shrinking violet when expressing his views. :laughing:

 

[Illini22]

Great video!

 

[MinnesotaEric]

Even so, I identified with Paul's rant about the little things. I hope that Kioti will develop more options in the future, thereby increasing the value add of Kioti's brand and product and making ownership and set-up even easier for their customers as I spent the first six or seven weeks of tractor ownership fabricating stuff that I wish I could have simply purchased from the factory. Compact tractor OEMS could learn from light truck OEMs about the profitability of offering and selling options. Moreover, I wish Kioti would offer their USA clients with the factory front fenders and beacon lights available in other markets around the world. Notwithstanding, my Kioti has met my expectations and offers good value for the money for those who can fab their own options.

More importantly, how did Paul get the zinc spray paint to dry to quickly at the end of the video? :thumbsup:

 

[s219]

Clearly Paul is a craftsman and tinkerer and having fun with his mods, but most of those are super-custom and very specific to his wants/needs. Some of your mods are too Eric (and I'm no different here with mods to my machines). I suspect when Kioti or Kubota offers factory options, they are based on some sort of trade study to determine the market interest, break-even point, etc, and only the most feasible ones float to the top. Those are probably the ones with the broadest appeal and will tell you something about the target customer. From my perspective, the combination of "tractor" and "creature comforts" only goes so far, mainly, to the point where it improves productivity and reduces operator fatigue. Tractors haven't yet crossed over into luxo-barge garage-queen territory like trucks have in the US.

 

[MinnesotaEric]

Clearly Paul is a craftsman and tinkerer and having fun with his mods, but most of those are super-custom and very specific to his wants/needs. Some of your mods are too Eric (and I'm no different here with mods to my machines). I suspect when Kioti or Kubota offers factory options, they are based on some sort of trade study to determine the market interest, break-even point, etc, and only the most feasible ones float to the top. Those are probably the ones with the broadest appeal and will tell you something about the target customer. From my perspective, the combination of "tractor" and "creature comforts" only goes so far, mainly, to the point where it improves productivity and reduces operator fatigue. Tractors haven't yet crossed over into luxo-barge garage-queen territory like trucks have in the US.

I don't get it: options are nothing but profit for OEMs and dealers.

Belly armor, grill inserts, a 3rd function, chainsaw holder, extra 12v power point, air seat, front fenders, factory beacon.

Advanced? Intermittent wiper, defrost grids, ceiling storage.

Its like the OEMs don't even know who their customers are. Are they trying to sell to broke hobby farmers?

Their customer base for CUTs is relatively affluent.

39% of boomers, the wealthiest generation ever, wish to retire into rural settings. That takes money to buy land, and build from scratch.

I bought my tractor with every option. When I priced other tractors, I priced them with every option. My truck has every option and I'm not a boomer, just a poor Gen X!

I was just discussing this with a retail manager buddy today and his store's recognition to go higher margin has already been paying off even though they are only two weeks into the "season."

Once I saw the power-folding, heated mirrors on a Massey 8600, I immediately wondered why we can't have those on our little, wee tractors too?

 

[LiveRoll]

I think of a couple of things while reading these posts. I think that some of the training that these sales people get from whether it be Kubota or Kioti, could go a lot further. regarding the Kubota side, I have a couple, a M108, A M7060, and a BX 25 a lot of the options I now have on those tractors were basically sourced by myself, either by internet searches or from sites / forums like this. I had to tell the local Kubota parts guys about the fenders for the M108, as well as the little bolt on toolboxes for the BX they didn't even know there was such a thing. I told them well perhaps you should put one or two into stock or perhaps pimp up a floor model tractor, If the customer doesn't see them, how can you expect them to want to buy it...it is pretty simple. I don't now if it is the fact that the probably $12.00 wholesale cost for the toolbox is going to effect their bottom line I am not sure but it surely seems so.
Granted, Kubota Canada and Kubota USA are the same "Mother-Ship" but I think do operate differently. I have mentioned to the parts guys here that Kubota has available seat covers for their tractors could you get me a couple? their response was " They do?" and that was about as far as that got.
Kubota is growing, their biggest competitors in their minds are the Big 3 with them now going with bigger Ag tractors they want in that game. Hopefully they don't lose focus on what got them there and that was their small tractor market.
Kioti: They are working hard and growing their brand, they are hungry, there is absolutely nothing wrong with their tractors, I don't bleed Kubota. I had a 60 HP Kioti bought brand new two years ago, it was a fabulous tractor heavy, very comfortable had features that Kubota didn't it worked well!! So well the thief that broke into my shop and stole it enjoyed a little too much , as in the 40 mile ride (except for the period of time it was on it's side )in high high with the front diff engaged kind of cooked everything and it was totalled off by insurance. I replaced with a Kubota for the basic reason was the nearest Kioti dealer is two hours away, compared to 20 minutes for the Kubota dealer.. BUT... once Kubota got wind I had received the settlement for the Kioti from insurance did they approach me and give me a deal a good deal on the new 7060.
One has to keep on them, and remind them of your loyalty to them and that they should NEVER forget to reciprocate that. I have had to give an occasional good old fashioned oilfield ***-chewing.... I mean take a tractor in for $1700.00 worth of service work (Loader pins / bushings, as well as FULL service, only to get unit home and upon inspection see they hadn't greased it... which is fine, I don't mind tying up one of their mechanics and service trucks to drive out to my farm and grease my tractor on their dime, or on another occasion have them come out twice on their dime to properly adjust creeper gear linkage they installed in the shop and no one bothered to take for a test drive to see how it shifted...
Eventually they will catch on to my training program.... fix it / service it / test it, make sure it is right... or take the time and expense and lost potential revenue they could be earning repairing someone else's equipment. I have more time than they have money....

My rant for the day...

Cheers!! and Happy Tractoring!!


Roger

 

[s219]

I don't get it: options are nothing but profit for OEMs and dealers.

Well, I can only look at the rear remote kit for my Kubota as but one example. It clearly took someone a chunk of time to work out the details and components, size the hoses, select all the fittings, and then make up instructions that covered cases with/without front loader, with/without backhoe, and so on (the instructions were complex and had several errors, which tells me they should have spent more time and considered other variations of the existing hydraulics setups). That all takes time and isn't free. They would have to know ahead of time that they could sell enough of those kits to cover the development/engineering/legal cost and then turn a profit. Part of that involves pricing the kits to make the math work but still be a compelling value to a customer.

Some of the mods people do here on TBN are probably too marginal to justify, though a third-party might have a better business model to pull it off (especially a lot of the small homegrown outfits who don't yet have a care/appreciation for overhead/development/engineering/legal costs).

The only experience I can relate directly is from my software business developing surveying/navigation apps for iPhone and iPad. I get a ton of customer feedback and feature requests. About 80% of them are good reasonable requests with broad appeal, and make it into the software. The other 20% are oddball requests that might be super important to that one person, but have very limited appeal (and may actually detract from or run counter to the intended use of the app). In most of those cases, I can tell with certainty that the feature only matters to that one person out of several hundred thousand customers.

It costs me anywhere from $500-$10,000 in developer time to implement new features, so I have to be sure that my time/budget is spent wisely, on stuff that will increase sales or bring in upgrade revenue. The oddball requests don't come anywhere close to making the cut. The kicker is that the people that request this stuff are almost eccentric in nature, with no understanding of that balance. They are universally unwilling to pay for the feature if I offer to do it as a custom app project for them (I don't even bother to offer anymore, since my time is too scarce now). So generally these are people looking for $10K of coding to make a $4 app meet their very specific needs. It just doesn't wash from my side of the fence.

I'll go back to your idea of a chainsaw holder -- I see a lot of those posted here on TBN, but not a single one of them would work for me. First, I usually need 2-3 saws with me for cutting projects, and second I haven't seen a chainsaw holder yet that would accommodate my big 77cc Stihl and 28" bar. I am sure each of the custom holders works great for the individual people who did their own mods, but as a manufacturer, I wouldn't see a universal solution with broad appeal that could likely sell in numbers to cover costs. I think many tractor mods fall into this category, and are better left as homegrown mods or small-business products.

 

[MinnesotaEric]

Well, I can only look at the rear remote kit for my Kubota as but one example. It clearly took someone a chunk of time to work out the details and components, size the hoses, select all the fittings, and then make up instructions that covered cases with/without front loader, with/without backhoe, and so on (the instructions were complex and had several errors, which tells me they should have spent more time and considered other variations of the existing hydraulics setups). That all takes time and isn't free. They would have to know ahead of time that they could sell enough of those kits to cover the development/engineering/legal cost and then turn a profit. Part of that involves pricing the kits to make the math work but still be a compelling value to a customer.

Some of the mods people do here on TBN are probably too marginal to justify, though a third-party might have a better business model to pull it off (especially a lot of the small homegrown outfits who don't yet have a care/appreciation for overhead/development/engineering/legal costs).

The only experience I can relate directly is from my software business developing surveying/navigation apps for iPhone and iPad. I get a ton of customer feedback and feature requests. About 80% of them are good reasonable requests with broad appeal, and make it into the software. The other 20% are oddball requests that might be super important to that one person, but have very limited appeal (and may actually detract from or run counter to the intended use of the app). In most of those cases, I can tell with certainty that the feature only matters to that one person out of several hundred thousand customers.

It costs me anywhere from $500-$10,000 in developer time to implement new features, so I have to be sure that my time/budget is spent wisely, on stuff that will increase sales or bring in upgrade revenue. The oddball requests don't come anywhere close to making the cut. The kicker is that the people that request this stuff are almost eccentric in nature, with no understanding of that balance. They are universally unwilling to pay for the feature if I offer to do it as a custom app project for them (I don't even bother to offer anymore, since my time is too scarce now). So generally these are people looking for $10K of coding to make a $4 app meet their very specific needs. It just doesn't wash from my side of the fence.

I'll go back to your idea of a chainsaw holder -- I see a lot of those posted here on TBN, but not a single one of them would work for me. First, I usually need 2-3 saws with me for cutting projects, and second I haven't seen a chainsaw holder yet that would accommodate my big 77cc Stihl and 28" bar. I am sure each of the custom holders works great for the individual people who did their own mods, but as a manufacturer, I wouldn't see a universal solution with broad appeal that could likely sell in numbers to cover costs. I think many tractor mods fall into this category, and are better left as homegrown mods or small-business products.

I get your pushback: but the idea is to offer universal options.

My chainsaw holder could have just as easily have been a chainsaw press that holds any size saw. I made a custom one for me because the saw I want hanging on my tractor is a 16" bar MS250.

A factory top and tilt kit is cheap to implement.

How about a toolbox available on every Kioti tractor. Deere has one toolbox and a bunch of different special mounts for every unique application.

Bringing the existing factory fenders and warning beacons available in other countries to USA should be relatively painless.

Belly armor is a universal fit.

Uprated steering guards would fit both the DX and the NX series since they appear to use the same guard.

I, know, I know: how about 1" pins on the rear three point instead of the oddly sized metric whatever size they offer now?

How about redesigned the rear fenders on the NX series so a standard Cat2 Quick Hitch fits between them without bashing the rear fender extensions?

How about offering an airseat option? Grammer already makes them and there are pins available in the fuse box for 12v fused power?

 

[StuartDK45SE]

I know I'm fixing to revamp my toolbox with a metal one and hang the slow moving triangle off of it. That little plastic box I have behind the seat now is tiny and the sign blocks access to boot.

 

[Strike1905]

Ahhh, a real toolbox behind the seat.
Hear! Hear!

Replacement will be my 1st modification.

 

[Illini22]

I wish I could purchase skid plates/guards for the dk.

 

[TBDonnelly]

Interesting Kioti comments (highly positive) by 4shorts. When Paul(4shorts) first came on the scene here at TBN he was seriously looking at the Kioti's.

 

[Highgear]

I find it funny he never said anything about the Green Tractors . No JD's in Canada ?

 

[Steve_Miller]

As he stated, no JD near his location. You need to know Newfoundland geography to understand. Beautiful spot, not really densely populated.

Steve
Nova Scotia

 

[kco]

I wish I could purchase skid plates/guards for the dk.

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