JD Lawn Tractors (was Re: [AT] Cockshut, Oliver, Coop etc.

[Larry D. Goss]

Being a dealer for any company is not a cakewalk.  I regularly get John
Deere L&G units in my shop to service and repair, so they know me on a
first name basis down at the dealership.  The local one that I've been
dealing with for 30 years is being forced to move -- on orders from John
Deere.  They're located in a metropolitan area and the company thinks
the image is way to urban for agricultural sales.  They're probably
right, but the decision (along with the new location) is going to cause
owners to travel to another county to get warranty service and parts for
their John Deere products.

I asked the manager at the dealership about the sales of John Deere
items at the big box stores, and he said they welcome that part of the
system -- the local dealership picks up all the warranty service on
those units.  He's not as happy about having to move the dealership
nearly 25 miles.  The fear is that owners will not travel to another
county to get their lawn & garden stuff serviced.

The problem is different for the agricultural products.  The really big
stuff gets serviced in a completely different way and it may as well be
under a different management.  The Case-IH dealership I worked for is
physically located in the lower Ohio valley, but the service and sales
region extends all the way from central Pennsylvania, to Florida, to
Montana.  If you're a big operator and have a fleet of tractors and
equipment that is all one brand, it makes sense to have "two men and a
truck" come on-site and service it all over a three or four day period
or to ship units on a low-boy several hundred miles.  Let's face it,
nobody drives a quad-track back to the dealership for an oil change or a
transmission rebuild, or to troubleshoot the electronics on the
programmable hydraulics and the GPS.

Larry

-----Original Message-----
From: at-bounces at lists.antique-tractor.com
[mailto:at-bounces at lists.antique-tractor.com] On Behalf Of Mike Sloane
Sent: Wednesday, November 23, 2005 7:53 AM
To: Antique tractor email discussion group
Subject: Re: JD Lawn Tractors (was Re: [AT] Cockshut, Oliver, Coop etc.

I can understand the dealers' reasoning behind selling both lines, but 
there will be problems related to dealing with unhappy customers who end

up being unhappy with machines that don't represent the JD quality they 
thought they were getting. And those unhappy customers are not going to 
want to hear the story about the two different product lines. As I 
mentioned, JD's reputation for quality products is going to suffer from 
this strategy - it may improve the short term bottom line, but I don't 
believe it will be good for the company's long term health.

Mike

Dan Folske wrote:
> Some of the dealers in this part of the country also sell the cheaper
line.
> Dan
> 
>> Before we get too bound up in this, the problem is that Dean, Walt
and 
>> Guy are all correct! There are two John Deere lawn tractor product 
>> lines. One is made by JD and sold through JD dealers, and the other
is 
>> made by MTD, painted green, and sold through mass market chains like 
>> Lowes and Home Depot. It is a serious problem for John Deere dealers,

>> as the cheap machines give the whole company a bad reputation. I
don't 
>> pretend to understand JD management's strategy, but I don't think the

>> long run results will be beneficial.

> 

-- 
Mike Sloane
Allamuchy NJ
mikesloane at verizon.net
Website: <www.geocities.com/mikesloane>
Images: <www.fotki.com/mikesloane>

The most certain test by which we can judge whether a country is really
free is the amount of security enjoyed by minorities. -Lord Acton (John
Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton), historian (1834-1902)


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