rrlund posted this down below. His dealings with JD were poisoned by poor service form his local dealerships. I hear this often from fellows, that own other brands, when they are talking about JD dealerships in general.
"I called the new Agco dealer here for a throw out bearing for mine. There was a choice of two. I had a cross reference number from the Timken chart and gave that to the parts guy. He said it didn't come up as a good number,but he said he'd call Agco Tech Support and call me back. He called back and said yes,it was the right number,all we had to do was add an H to the front of it,it's on it's way.
I can give you a 100% certified guarantee that if that had been the case at one of the Deeremarts here they would have just said something to the effect that it's not a good number,I don't know what you're gonna do. Been there/done that too many times with those people."
Things like this make me sad and mad at the same time. It is just pure laziness on the parts person part. Between what JD has in parts and what you can get through A&I there are few parts that can not be found. Then Dealerships CAN use other sources too!!! We carried several brand of aftermarket parts other than JD supported. So a lot of this comes down to just arrogance and laziness on many JD dealerships employees.
You have to work fork every single customer business. There are many options in todays market place that mean you had better work at keeping your customer's needs/wants satisfied.
I KNOW that JD parts can be higher BUT they can also be lower price too. I sold a lot of bearings to the local MF guys when they still ran MF combines. I would cross the bearings by size to a JD number and they usually were cheaper than the MF ones.
I will admit I am old school when it comes to working/running a dealership. I tried to treat everyone that came into the store as an important customer. There where several reasons for this:
1) That other brand owner MIGHT just call me the next time he is interested in some thing. I had to show him that I would help him regardless of brand.
2) Just simple money too. Parts have around a 25% average profit margin. New equipment sales are usually around 5-7% when the smoke clears away. Selling high priced trade-ins many times is a loosing deal. So If I sell fellow $10K of parts in a year then The store makes as much off him as selling him one new pieces of equipment that would cost $75K.
With dealerships becoming "Chain stores" too many of the employees have little knowledge of where the actual profits are made in dealerships. The parts department carries the load in generating profit year in and out at every single store I was ever around. The "new" iron is all flashy and stuff but does not generate the profits year in and out that parts do.
"I called the new Agco dealer here for a throw out bearing for mine. There was a choice of two. I had a cross reference number from the Timken chart and gave that to the parts guy. He said it didn't come up as a good number,but he said he'd call Agco Tech Support and call me back. He called back and said yes,it was the right number,all we had to do was add an H to the front of it,it's on it's way.
I can give you a 100% certified guarantee that if that had been the case at one of the Deeremarts here they would have just said something to the effect that it's not a good number,I don't know what you're gonna do. Been there/done that too many times with those people."
Things like this make me sad and mad at the same time. It is just pure laziness on the parts person part. Between what JD has in parts and what you can get through A&I there are few parts that can not be found. Then Dealerships CAN use other sources too!!! We carried several brand of aftermarket parts other than JD supported. So a lot of this comes down to just arrogance and laziness on many JD dealerships employees.
You have to work fork every single customer business. There are many options in todays market place that mean you had better work at keeping your customer's needs/wants satisfied.
I KNOW that JD parts can be higher BUT they can also be lower price too. I sold a lot of bearings to the local MF guys when they still ran MF combines. I would cross the bearings by size to a JD number and they usually were cheaper than the MF ones.
I will admit I am old school when it comes to working/running a dealership. I tried to treat everyone that came into the store as an important customer. There where several reasons for this:
1) That other brand owner MIGHT just call me the next time he is interested in some thing. I had to show him that I would help him regardless of brand.
2) Just simple money too. Parts have around a 25% average profit margin. New equipment sales are usually around 5-7% when the smoke clears away. Selling high priced trade-ins many times is a loosing deal. So If I sell fellow $10K of parts in a year then The store makes as much off him as selling him one new pieces of equipment that would cost $75K.
With dealerships becoming "Chain stores" too many of the employees have little knowledge of where the actual profits are made in dealerships. The parts department carries the load in generating profit year in and out at every single store I was ever around. The "new" iron is all flashy and stuff but does not generate the profits year in and out that parts do.