[AT] Iron and lots of it

[Mike Sloane]

I can't speak to your area or dealers, but I can tell you my experience 
selling for a New Holland dealer a few years back. The compact diesels 
we sold are essentially the same ones Case IH dealers sell; theirs are 
red while ours were blue. They are manufactured by Shibaura in Japan and 
final assembly is done in the US (in Georgia). While they compared very 
favorably with the Kubota tractors and sold for slightly less, Kubota 
spends a LOT more money on marketing and advertising. So Kubota has 
become the brand that the "horse people" look to when they are buying a 
compact tractor. The real farm tractors sold by Case IH and New Holland 
are not Japanese but are essentially the same ones built by Fiat and are 
"world" tractors with parts from all over. I don't know what the pricing 
structure is for Kubota, but the owner of my dealership had to sell a 
fair number of compact machines to make any money. I suspect that Kubota 
cuts deals that are hard to resist. In any case, even though I sold a 
lot of compact diesel tractors, I was not impressed with the smaller 
ones (under 30 hp) - they lacked sufficient power to do serious work. 
And the prices were way beyond what I would spend for a tractor. (My old 
International 240U with a 6' Woods three point finish mower will cut 
circles around one of those machines, and I didn't spend 1/10 the amount 
of money on it.)

I have to say that we very rarely had to do any repairs on any machines 
we sold. The most common problem was owners leaving the front axles 
engaged all the time and wearing out the front end - the ones we sold 
were "front wheel assist", not real "four wheel drive". I don't know if 
Kubota is any different. The farm tractors were very solid and held up 
very well. (They are also much more comfortable than the older machines.)

John Hall wrote:
> What's wrong with Kubota's? I have practically no experience with them but I 
> did notice one of the 2 IH dealers in our area gave up the Case-IH tractors 
> (kept the parts contract though) and is now selling only Kubota 
> tractors---and LOTS of them. I had heard the old Kubotas weren't very 
> reliable/durable but thought they had changed their quality in recent years.
> 
> Speaking of new tractors, I was talking to a long time IH salesman last 
> fall. He was showing me a new IH tractor about 50 hp or so and told me the 
> price. I asked was it built as well as a 574. He said absolutely not. It was 
> what they sold to horse farms. If they were selling to a real farm then they 
> had a line that was far better built. While I have no proof, I think a lot 
> of the utility and smaller sized machines are fine for "playing" but not for 
> serious field work.
> 
> John Hall
>