# Largest JD Dealership Network in Northeast



## IH 1586 (Oct 16, 2014)

http://www.landproequipment.com/company-profile/zahm-and-matson-and-lakeland-equipment-merger


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## Bgriffin856 (Nov 13, 2013)

Interesting, was just looking last night at the auctioneers website that does auctions for z&m and noticed they said something about a merger. If every customer gets treated as well we have by our saleman and parts and service department it's no surprise of their success


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## IH 1586 (Oct 16, 2014)

You have had better luck than I have then. Neither one of the service departments are good in my opinion, parts counter is decent at Clymer, though they have lost 2 of the regulars. The new kid seems to be good, had good luck with him. Falconer parts counter is the opposite, I don't even bother unless I have the part numbers in hand. Sales, will be going back to Clymer, did not have good luck with Falconer.

Had thought about pricing between the 2 if I bought new, at least still have another dealer south of us to do that with.


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## Vol (Jul 5, 2009)

I will be curious as how this works out long term.....as the owners of this merger is Argonne Capital....a investment group based in Atlanta, GA. The company is owned by some very sharp young business people who have been quite successful in every thing they purchase. They pay up front for all their transactions.

Regards, Mike


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## PaMike (Dec 7, 2013)

Well then at least there are some GOOD investment groups out there, cause most of the ones I come across aren't so hot. Its a little scary to have one organization that big controlling most of the JD equipment in the North East...

Wasn't Titan a huge IH dealer in the Midwest that failed, or almost failed..What ever happened to them?


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## foz682 (Jan 10, 2013)

JD dealer here has 14 locations. We don't have much dealings with them, but I haven't heard much good about them...lots of diehard JD guys around have opened their eyes to other colors because of poor service and no wiggle room in prices.


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## paoutdoorsman (Apr 23, 2016)

Wish our local JD dealer would take a page from the customer service handbook. Problem is they bought up 5 or 6 other dealers in all directions surrounding me, and they could care less about customer service for the average farmer. It always amazes me how they don't see it as a problem to dish out poor customer service day after day. Now if you're a money man, buy new equipment every year, and rely 100% on them to service and maintain your equipment with an open checkbook, you're their kind of customer.


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## PaMike (Dec 7, 2013)

Yup, that's why I cant deal with JD. My dealer is awful, at least to me. They also carry Kuhn, and they actually told me one time that they couldn't figure out what Kuhn part # I needed, and they don't don't specialize in Kuhn. I said "Your a Kuhn dealer right??" Their response was "Well yeah, but we don't sell much of it and don't really like it. We would rather sell JD."...Good enough for me...my money goes elsewhere...


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## Farmerbrown2 (Sep 25, 2018)

About 30 years ago when I was a kid dad and I where at a auction anyways my dad if he met somebody once he would remember there name and where he knew them from. My dad at one point worked for a IH company store so he walks up and starts talking to this guy he knew from the 1960's when he worked at IH. Turns out guy retired from JD corporate and told us that JD wanted to only have 4 dealers in each state. So anyways 30 some years later it seems to be coming true.


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## Bgriffin856 (Nov 13, 2013)

IH 1586 said:


> You have had better luck than I have then. Neither one of the service departments are good in my opinion, parts counter is decent at Clymer, though they have lost 2 of the regulars. The new kid seems to be good, had good luck with him. Falconer parts counter is the opposite, I don't even bother unless I have the part numbers in hand. Sales, will be going back to Clymer, did not have good luck with Falconer.
> 
> Had thought about pricing between the 2 if I bought new, at least still have another dealer south of us to do that with.


Falconer has always been a bunch of jokers and clowns never done business there always at Clymer they've always have treated us well and made things right that's why they get our business. They seem to actually want our business compared to the Case and New Holland dealers


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## IH 1586 (Oct 16, 2014)

Well for being large they did not do very good on net wrap pricing at $312. Next closest (60 miles) with 3 stores is currently $299 and after March 31 goes to $309.


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## somedevildawg (Jun 20, 2011)

Being large doesn't necessarily mean better prices, hence WW....what it does do is monopolize the brand which actually causes higher prices and generally poorer customer service....that's been my experience anyway


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## swmnhay (Jun 13, 2008)

PaMike said:


> Well then at least there are some GOOD investment groups out there, cause most of the ones I come across aren't so hot. Its a little scary to have one organization that big controlling most of the JD equipment in the North East...
> 
> Wasn't Titan a huge IH dealer in the Midwest that failed, or almost failed..What ever happened to them?


Titan is in my area.They closed a few stores but still going.Some of the stores were brand new.

Titan is on the stock market and the stock did crash but has rebounded some.When some dealers were bought out they were pd in cash AND stock.

They were trying to buy out a local dealer fortunately he sold to another MoM and Pop dealer

Seems like all these Mega. Dealers are monopolies.First thing they do is raise the shop rates.And build a new building.


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## IH 1586 (Oct 16, 2014)

somedevildawg said:


> Being large doesn't necessarily mean better prices, hence WW....what it does do is monopolize the brand which actually causes higher prices and generally poorer customer service....that's been my experience anyway


 I know and have been waiting for the opportunity to check it. For some reason thought of it this week and made calls. I even called different dealers in the landpro network to see if they had the same pricing which they do. Thinking about sending them anonymous email to them and ask them how it feels to line their pockets on our hard earned money. Ever since the baler fiasco feel like being a dick to them.

Here is the quote from there merger article:

"With 11 dealership locations, LandPro Equipment will be the largest John Deere turf and agricultural equipment dealer in the Northeast. The combination of the two companies will mean great things for customers and its over 300 employees. LandPro Equipment will have more effective buying power with John Deere and its many vendors. This leverage will allow for a larger inventory of new and used equipment, parts available on hand as well as more competitive pricing for LandPro customers."


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## somedevildawg (Jun 20, 2011)

I'm paying $300 for JD coveredge....year round, unless they happen to have a special


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## luke strawwalker (Jul 31, 2014)

somedevildawg said:


> Being large doesn't necessarily mean better prices, hence WW....what it does do is monopolize the brand which actually causes higher prices and generally poorer customer service....that's been my experience anyway


Yeah mine too. Deere dealer here is Shoppas, they own all the stores for about 100 miles... They've got East Bernard, El Campo, Edna, Bay City, Victoria, Shiner, and Giddings. CIH dealer is Hlavinka, they've got Rosenberg, East Bernard, El Campo, Edna, Bay City, Victoria, and Nome, about 150 miles the other side of Houston from here. Shoppas closed the Eagle Lake and Edna stores not long after they bought them-- the Edna store was a little independent started selling mostly used Deere stuff. Hlavinka bought out the old well-established Edna CIH store and closed it down after a couple years or so.

The only AGCO dealer we had in this area of the country was Rioux in El Campo and they went broke a few years ago-- it's an oil service company in their old building and yard now. New Holland is Wharton Tractor in Wharton; they bought out the West Columbia store IIRC and I think they closed it, and they bought out the Angleton dealer too I think, at least that's what I read. We don't deal with them much anymore; we mostly deal with Boehm Tractor in Shiner for our NH stuff... funny thing is, he's selling more Mahindras and Kuhn than he's selling NH anymore. Wharton Tractor PO'd me plenty good years ago because the only ones they seem interested in actually doing anything for are the big turfgrass farms, everybody else can go pound sand, it's like you're just an irritation to them. I don't put up with that BS-- my money is just as green as everybody else's... I'm just waiting for the day that, since Case-IH and New Holland are now Case/New Holland (CNH) sooner later old Hlavinka will set their sights on taking them over or shutting them down, just like they did T. Lange in Eagle Lake, the biggest JI Case dealer back in the day when Case and IH got bought out by Tenneco in the big merger that created CIH. Hlavinka built a new store and then stirred up the pot with corporate and got them to toss down the gauntlet to old T. Lange, telling him he had to build a new dealership "or else"... He didn't have the money or want to spend the money on a new dealership-- his existing facilities and building were plenty good for the rice farmers he was serving in the Eagle Lake area, and back then the big JI Case 2390's, 4890's, and other big JI Case tractors were the favorites of the rice farmers-- rice work is particularly hard on tractors and the old orange-n-cream Cases could hold up to it a LOT better than the contemporary Internationals or Deere's, and sold for less money. He'd even sold some Case combines and other Case implements back in the day but by the late 70's Case was behind the times and I don't think they were even offering a combine or much else, certainly not competitive with the bigger and more powerful combines and implements being sold by Deere and International Harvester at the time... Anyway, basically CIH pulled his franchise and left Hlavinka as the "only guy left standing" and the sole CIH dealer...

There's still some New Holland dealers up north of here 50-60 miles, Washington County Tractor (WCT) has the Brenham and Sealy stores. LaGrange has Kleiber, though the Columbus store went out of business a few years back (Potters).

What happens when these big chain stores get everything, is that there's no "competition" between dealers to "keep them honest". It does you no good to "shop around" at their different stores, because the prices will be the same. Service might be a little better or easier to deal with one over the other, but given enough "top down" leadership, even those differences tend to disappear over time.

A few years back I went up to Loader Super Center in Oklahoma, I wanted to buy a second loader for my other tractor, and I'd got an EZ-ON there for a few thousand less than anything else I could get in this area... Anyway, they'd closed down, but they had a number, so I called it. I ended up talking to the owner for over an hour... he told me how he'd hired a bunch of ex-cons that had been trained as welders and were on a halfway-house program for cheap, because he was having SO much turnover in welders-- guys would hire on, he'd get them trained, and within a year they'd quit and go to work as welders in the oilfield and pipeline industry making the big bucks. Turns out that while he was out of town on business over a three-day weekend, he came back in Monday to find that his entire shop had been cleaned out-- and it was an inside job... 26 big industrial welding units stolen, moving-truck size hole cut in the back fence completely out of sight from the road, and none of the units that were burned out or had serious problems were stolen, only the new(er) ones and good ones... so he closed up shop and laid everybody off... said he might restart things in a few years, as he was pursuing other interests.

Anyway, he told me he had cut a deal to buy a local Deere dealership from an older guy in his 80's, who was ready to sell and retire, because his kids had zero interest in running it or incapable of taking it over... They'd basically agreed to a price, and then Deere Corporate caught wind of it, and called the owner and told him, "No, you cannot sell to him, you *MUST* sell it to (Dealer "X") from the next town-- he's already got five stores and we want him to have it... so you'll sell it to him for "X" amount (considerably less than he'd already agreed to with the loader super center guy)." The old owner, flabbergasted, said, "Oh, I've already got a deal for a quite a bit more than that, so I'm not gonna accept that (*lower amount*) from the other guy", and corporate told him flat out, "Yeah, you will... because if you don't, we'll pull your franchise out from under you, and then call in the money on everything you have in inventory, both stock on yard (tractors, equipment, implements) and your parts inventory; we won't take any of it back and we won't allow any other dealers to buy it off you, and you'll be broke and it'll all get sold for whatever you can get for it, probably by the same "Dealer X" we want to have it now, only for a whole lot less... you're choice..." SO he called the guy back up and told him, "Sorry, but no deal; they put the fix on it and there's nothing I can do-- they can break me if they want to and they know it-- corporate wants all their stores owned by these mega-chains and it's take it or leave it and they'll break me if I don't take it..." So they parted friends but he was sorry he couldn't buy the old timer out and get the dealership and provide some COMPETITION to the mega-chain-dealer that got it.

The auto manufacturers are doing the same thing-- they're fixing it so that there's all these mega-chain dealers and the little mom-n-pop dealerships are all being closed down or forced out, or force them to sell to the big dealer chain stores... Eliminate competition between dealers and the capability of getting a better deal, so that you're "FORCED" to pay what *they* want to charge you.

When we bought our last tractor, a New Holland 5610S, we'd priced it at Wharton Tractor and told them we wanted to trade in the 82 Ford 6600 on it... he told me, "Well, it lists for $21,000, we'll give you $3000 trade for your 6600, which would make it $18,000 cash out the door..." That was "the best he could do"... I called Shiner and talked to Waldo, he told me, "Well, we're selling them for $16,000 and we'll give you $6,000 trade, so drive out would be $10,000 cash"... I said, "SOLD!" and we went up and wrote him a check, did the paperwork, and they delivered it. A few months later I went to Wharton to get some filters to do the service on it, and one of the owners ears perked up when he heard me buying filters for a 5610S, and he started quizzing me on it... "Yep, I bought one from Boehm in Shiner"... He got PO'd and said, "Oh, he shouldn't have sold you that-- we have *protected territories*-- you should have had to buy that tractor *HERE*..." I just sorta smiled wanly and said, "Well, I tell ya... I got twice the trade-in value yall were offering, and he was $5,000 cheaper on the "list" price to start with, so I ended up saving $8,000... And I'll tell you something else-- I wouldn't have bought that tractor from YOU for THAT price anyway-- I'd have gone and got a Massey cheaper than that, or if I was gonna spend that kind of money, I'd put some more with it and get a DEERE tractor, instead of a Mexico-built Ford... so I wasn't gonna buy that tractor at that price from you anyway, protected territories or no..." He turned about four shades of red and stalked off... LOL Serves him right... tried putting the screws to somebody that was just a little bit smarter than he thought...

BUT, that's what happens when these "local dealers" all end up getting owned by one big MEGA-CHAIN... it's NEVER a good thing for the farmer or customer...

Later! OL J R


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## luke strawwalker (Jul 31, 2014)

IH 1586 said:


> "With 11 dealership locations, LandPro Equipment will be the largest John Deere turf and agricultural equipment dealer in the Northeast. The combination of the two companies will mean great things for customers and its over 300 employees. LandPro Equipment will have more effective buying power with John Deere and its many vendors. This leverage will allow for a larger inventory of new and used equipment, parts available on hand as well as more competitive pricing for LandPro customers."


Boy you could fertilize some fields with THAT BS and really get them off to a good start!!!

LOL

Because that's ALL it is-- BS... these mega-stores create de-facto monopolies, with the company's blessing, and basically make everything a "take it or leave it" price, pay it or do without. That's NEVER a good thing for the farmer or customer...

It just goes hand-in-hand with the libtard socialist attitudes that have taken over this country-- everything now is "cooperation, Cooperation, COOPERATION!!!!" When I was a kid, all I heard was about the evil socialists and communists and their "socialized Cooperative farms" and all this stuff... while OUR country was superior because we were based on COMPETITION-- competition drives innovation forward to distinguish one product as better than another to increase their market share, while pushing to reduce costs and lower prices versus other similar competing products, to gain market share, saving the customer money which they can then use to increase their own businesses through strategic investment and improvements to increase the modernity and productivity of their own businesses...

But NOW, "Competition" is a dirty word-- can't have that evil, wasteful "competition" that made America great, NOPE, gotta have COOPERATION at all costs, even if it means short-circuiting the system so that innovation suffers (look at modern vehicles and equipment-- there's little/no difference of any significance, and very little difference in base prices; just all in how much "rebate" or other "incentives" they want to offer to move product when sales stagnate) and no pressure to contain let alone drive down prices...

Where's Teddy Roosevelt when we need him?? LOL OL J R


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## swmnhay (Jun 13, 2008)

I've heard stories both ways on the mega dealer pricing.Sometimes the mega dealers will sell for less to try to run the small dealer out of business.One of my customers bought a new skid loader from Titan for less then the single store dealer could buy it for.

This prly has more to do with volume discount pricing to the dealers.

On the other hand had a customer buy a rd baler for $5000 less at single store dealer vs the chain store dealer.


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## Teslan (Aug 20, 2011)

swmnhay said:


> I've heard stories both ways on the mega dealer pricing.Sometimes the mega dealers will sell for less to try to run the small dealer out of business.One of my customers bought a new skid loader from Titan for less then the single store dealer could buy it for.
> 
> This prly has more to do with volume discount pricing to the dealers.
> 
> On the other hand had a customer buy a rd baler for $5000 less at single store dealer vs the chain store dealer.


The James Rivers equipment companies is a rather large dealership. They have taken over all the John Deere ag dealers in Colorado. They call it 4 Rivers here. They gave me a good deal when I traded a NH 5080 baler on a Krone rake. Maybe they dropped the price on the rake, but I doubt it. They had a lot of work to get it to me. The guy said I'll put the baler in our computer program and then it will give us the trade value for it. Well they offered way more then I expected for that baler. Actually more then it's market value since a 16x18 inch baler isn't in demand at all, but actually it was a really good baler in really good shape. If one wanted to buy a brand new one they would have to pay alot for one. They offered in trade value way more then the local Massey dealer would have based on their knowledge of what sells or not. They gave me more in trade for it then I had been sort of trying to sell it for myself. Though they can or should be able to market it better then me. That 5080 baler sat on the Deere lot for 2 years. So sometimes the big dealers just depend on a computer program for values. In some cases for the guy trading something in that is a good thing.


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## luke strawwalker (Jul 31, 2014)

swmnhay said:


> I've heard stories both ways on the mega dealer pricing.Sometimes the mega dealers will sell for less to try to run the small dealer out of business.One of my customers bought a new skid loader from Titan for less then the single store dealer could buy it for.
> 
> This prly has more to do with volume discount pricing to the dealers.
> 
> On the other hand had a customer buy a rd baler for $5000 less at single store dealer vs the chain store dealer.


That's because there's still some "mom-n-pop" dealers they have to compete with, and they're trying to run them out of business...

Once they're gone, Katie bar the door... all those "discounts" will RAPIDLY disappear and it'll be pay whatever they want to charge you or "get lost"...

Later! OL J R


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## swmnhay (Jun 13, 2008)

And it continues.Two JD chains are combining to have 38 stores.

http://www.dglobe.com/business/agriculture/4425308-noteboom-implement-join-cb-operations


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## somedevildawg (Jun 20, 2011)

Remember "too big to fail"? I don't think any company is leary of monopolizing anymore.....those type dealerships are tough for deere as well, if they go belly-up, that's a bigger problem for deere, course they probably are "too big to fail" so WTH right.....


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## r82230 (Mar 1, 2016)

somedevildawg said:


> Remember "too big to fail"? I don't think any company is leary of monopolizing anymore.....those type dealerships are tough for deere as well, if they go belly-up, that's a bigger problem for deere, course they probably are "too big to fail" so WTH right.....


Ditto, but wouldn't be surprise that if they went belly-up, that they didn't become Deere (Corporate store)company stores either. Then watch out.

Larry


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## IH 1586 (Oct 16, 2014)

http://www.landproequipment.com/landpro-welcomes-elders-ag-and-turf

Well so much for going to the competition when I was ready to purchase my next piece of equipment.


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## luke strawwalker (Jul 31, 2014)

IH 1586 said:


> http://www.landproequipment.com/landpro-welcomes-elders-ag-and-turf
> 
> Well so much for going to the competition when I was ready to purchase my next piece of equipment.


Yep... never seen a monopoly that worked out well for the customers... No matter HOW MUCH they try to spin it that way...

Later! OL J R


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## TJ Hendren (May 12, 2017)

At the local deere store here, deere flat told them to buy more stores or sell out. They sold to a 10 store chain which I was told the other day they are wanting to sell it---doesn't make enough money.


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## Tx Jim (Jun 30, 2014)

Local JD dealership just sold out recently went from 4 locations to 21 locations.


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## swmnhay (Jun 13, 2008)

The way it is headed they will eventually be corporate stores.Want to trade something in at one store it wont matter you will get the same price at the next store.NO bargining power in between dealers.


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## luke strawwalker (Jul 31, 2014)

swmnhay said:


> The way it is headed they will eventually be corporate stores.Want to trade something in at one store it wont matter you will get the same price at the next store.NO bargining power in between dealers.





swmnhay said:


> The way it is headed they will eventually be corporate stores.Want to trade something in at one store it wont matter you will get the same price at the next store.NO bargining power in between dealers.


Yes this is exactly the point...

They won't be "corporate" stores (per-se) but for all intents and purposes they will be... same difference...

That's exactly what they're trying to do.

Later! OL J R


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