This will be an interesting thread moving forward......

[Welder Dave]

Manufacturers want to sell new machines but sometimes their thinking is backwards. You get more customers and repeat customers if the dealers give higher trade values. Cat always states they have higher resale and trade values. As long as dealers are selling the manufacturers should be happy. They get the same price on new machines regardless. Good service is important too. Takeuchi is a good machine but reading on here their service and dealer support is getting worse instead of better. Have seen it before where a manufacturer puts unrealistic sales numbers they expect from dealers and the dealer drops them. Some sales are always better than no sales. Changing dealers frequently doesn't give potential customers a warm fuzzy feeling either.

 

[Vetech63]

Seems it may be time to start paying more attention to your old customers, be sure they're still around when this circus ends.

Joe H

Most of them I had before Covid are down or gone completely. I know 2 died during Covid and the businesses were discontinued. I had 3 retire and those businesses were discontinued. My oil and gas customers havent done much since the new administration came in and are barely hanging on. I don't have many left that are busy.

The thing I have noticed the most in the last 2-3 years..........everyone that is busy in my business is doing government work. Very small amount in the private sector. Housing in rural areas has slowed to a crawl. If this customer wasn't busy, I'd be standing in a soup line downtown. I am considering myself fortunate at this point.

It seems the excitement from Monday has quelled. The problem the CFO was having stems from the fact that the Deere dealer here was paid to do pm servicing when the lease equipment was bought.............which they haven't been doing since I have been here. I guess seeing me doing the servicing when the equipment came in (through the bills) started to boil his blood. Yeah, paying for things twice would **** me off too......I get it. I am still awaiting an email from the Deere service manager on what equipment of this customer is contracted for PM service. It seems that Deere and the management here at this customer disagree on how many there actually are and the length of the PM contract. This should be good...................

 

[56wrench]

As to trade-in values, i’ve seen ag dealers overvalue trade-in’s to make new sales and then the dealership is sitting on a big inventory of overpriced trades that they have to discount in order to move. I would think that doesn’t look good on the books. This was a few years ago and mostly with the largest combines. in the old days it didn’t happen much but now with the owners having multiple dealership locations, they can spread the loss around so it doesn’t look as bad. I’ve wondered if that also happens with yellow iron too

 

[donkey doctor]

Where I used to work we didn't take trades but our sales guys had a pretty good finger on the pulse of the industry and mostly could put a buyer of a new machine in touch with with somebody looking to buy a used machine. From what heard later after we were bought out the company did take trades and ended up with used iron in camps all up and down the coast. d.d.

 

[Welder Dave]

As to trade-in values, i’ve seen ag dealers overvalue trade-in’s to make new sales and then the dealership is sitting on a big inventory of overpriced trades that they have to discount in order to move. I would think that doesn’t look good on the books. This was a few years ago and mostly with the largest combines. in the old days it didn’t happen much but now with the owners having multiple dealership locations, they can spread the loss around so it doesn’t look as bad. I’ve wondered if that also happens with yellow iron too

There was an Ag dealer here that moved into a fancy new building. There were a White dealer and maybe another less popular tractor brand but mostly sold several lines of implements. They had a yard full of used equipment. After about a year the treasury branch foreclosed on them. I was at the auction. I was talking to one of the owners who said they shouldn't have been forced into receivership considering they had $500,000 worth of equipment sitting in the yard. Most of the equipment was older tractors and stuff that needed to be refurbished that would have cost them even more to get into decent saleable condition. A lot of it was basically good for parts. The other big problem was that there aren't many farmers looking for older equipment from the 60's and early 70's that's half worn out already with parts harder to find. They didn't have much acreage size equipment that is in higher demand. Nothing ever became of the lawsuit that I'm aware. The owners were pretty delusional about what their "old junk" was worth.

 

[56wrench]

Carruthers Equipment? On 156 or thereabouts?

 

[John C.]

Dealers that put all their used iron in one spot don't usually have big issues with too high of trade values. Dealers that spread the iron out over all their locations seem to put the quick sand machines at the farthest reaches to hide the mistakes.

Combines became a big issue as sales reps supposedly did inspections and provided numbers that their managers rubber stamped. When the accountants finally caught on to what happened the word came down that only the appraisers could appraise ag iron, which expanded work loads tremendously. The accountants split the heads off the assets and that stuff ended up all over the company territories.

There is no money whatever in fixing trades to sell in any industry right now. Industry pushed out all the managers with the experience to make the retail used market work. Those people retired or went into the auction industry.

 

[Welder Dave]

Carruthers Equipment? On 156 or thereabouts?

Yes. I bought a new walk behind string trimmer at the sale. They had a new Alamo flail mower (that wasn't in the auction) I was interested in, when I was talking to the guy, but he wanted full retail for it over $4000. More than I was willing to spend. He said it would be shipped back to Alamo. Most of the equipment that they had had been sitting in the big yard on 156st for years. It was kind of an eyesore driving by it.

 

[Welder Dave]

Finning here has set up a used equipment superstore location in Acheson but I haven't been by there yet. I'm not sure if they still have some used equipment at their previous used yard in Edmonton. It looks to be all new equipment though.

 

[John C.]

Krylon overhauls.

 

[thepumpguysc]

O/h in a can..
Craigslist rebuild..

 

[Welder Dave]

I think the equipment is all brand new at the shop in Edmonton.

 

[Tags]

Krylon overhauls.

Paint makes it what it ain’t!!

 

[cfherrman]

Paint it blue and call it new

 

[JD955SC]

Paint it blue and call it new

So many threads on this board lol

“Should I buy this dozer that looks good with a fresh paint job or that one that looks rougher”. -Everybody warns against the one that is freshly painted.

Two weeks later…

“Hey the dozer I bought is overheating the transmission after an hour of work, what do you think is the cause?”

 

[77Ford]

Krylon overhauls.

I call that a DuPont Tune Up.

 

[DMiller]

Most of them I had before Covid are down or gone completely. I know 2 died during Covid and the businesses were discontinued. I had 3 retire and those businesses were discontinued. My oil and gas customers havent done much since the new administration came in and are barely hanging on. I don't have many left that are busy.

The thing I have noticed the most in the last 2-3 years..........everyone that is busy in my business is doing government work. Very small amount in the private sector. Housing in rural areas has slowed to a crawl. If this customer wasn't busy, I'd be standing in a soup line downtown. I am considering myself fortunate at this point.

It seems the excitement from Monday has quelled. The problem the CFO was having stems from the fact that the Deere dealer here was paid to do pm servicing when the lease equipment was bought.............which they haven't been doing since I have been here. I guess seeing me doing the servicing when the equipment came in (through the bills) started to boil his blood. Yeah, paying for things twice would **** me off too......I get it. I am still awaiting an email from the Deere service manager on what equipment of this customer is contracted for PM service. It seems that Deere and the management here at this customer disagree on how many there actually are and the length of the PM contract. This should be good...................

Stirring the pot may just help you out in the long run, Get Deere off their ass to do their job, or MAYBE take you on as a Sub to get their Contracted Sh!t done.

 

[colson04]

Paint it blue and call it new

NOV Downhole's theory. Our mud motors from them were always junk. Half the time they showed up on site and the paint was still wet and dribbling old oil base out the bearing housing.

 

[Vetech63]

I had the concrete crew foreman approach me yesterday. His boss informed him that he would start doing the services on their Bobcat S770. I typically don't see the Bobcat loaders, or haven't as of yet...........I'm assuming this is a cost saving measure. He asked 100 questions about the filters, where they were located.............basically didn't know a thing about servicing this machine. I'll be telling the concrete super today that this is a horrible idea. The only filter marked is the engine oil (dated April of 2020), but the super told him to only change the engine oil and filter. I told the foremen to change ALL of them and mark the date and hours on each filter or housing. This will be good............

I got to visit with the local Deere field service manager yesterday. Several things are going on here.

1st......This customer doesn't realize that the pm agreements expire at 3 yrs/3000 hours. They only have 3 machines that currently have pm agreements in force that expire in May ( these 3 machines were 3-year leases).. The general super believes that all the lease equipment is supposed to be done during the entire length of the lease. Some of this equipment is on 5 year leases.

2nd......The service manager showed me when they had contacted the customer to do pm service, but that the customer had declined it at that time. Inconvenience? probably, but the dealer didn't contact them again, so they went Un serviced until the next scheduled interval. A time of 2 of that going on makes for some long runs between filter changes.

3rd......This customer needs an equipment manager in the worst way. Between the lack of communication, understanding what your paying for, and the absolute waste of repair funds (The Cummins engine in the Bomag recycler as 1 example)...............I'd bet huge money the waste is well over $1 mil a year. Its insanity in its finest form.

4th......F&ck it, I'm not changing what I'm doing because a few people are panicking over money. I'll wait until the CFO calls me and wants to know why this and that is going on. When I am sitting in front of him and throw down all the bulls&*t Ive come across..........I have a feeling he may be more lenient. If not, fire me and I'll move down the road with no problem.

I may be getting another offer from the old man soon. LOL Its this kind of stuff that drives him crazyyyyyyyyyy

 

[cfherrman]

Get things in writing