Rave: John Deere Service

[Leroy]

My father in law in Germany has a total man crush on anything John Deere. Truly. Not sure why. Anyway, they don't need a lawn mower for their property so he bought some sort of John Deere ATV which allows him to tow stuff around. Their entire village (maybe 100 people?) fell in love with his ATV and they now borrow it all of the time. He even has American flags (car size flags) flying on the back! It's quite a site to see in this tiny, Germany village.....

They have done a good job with their marketing. They are the Norman Rockwell of companies. The local hardware store sells all sorts of toys, signs, temperature gauges, rain gauges and other assorted JD stuff. People actually collect JD stuff. If you lived in Germany and wanted something truly American, I could see why you would go with a JD.

I just got a John Deere 'weather station' for Christmas (a little late). It is a plastic piece of junk made in China. The only metal is the pole. Oh, and the screws.


That yellow piece of plastic is supposed to tell wind velocity. It's not really attached other than a couple of knobs, it could easily fall off. The small yellow pointer is to measure total rainfall for the year, but when you set it to zero it falls out. The thermometer is so small you have to stand right up to it to see the temperature, but how do you do this without disturbing the sensitive wind velocity / direction calculations it is performing?

I guess what I'm saying, are there any collectors out there?
And I think this gift from my sister rivals the robot pencil sharpener. I'm starting a poll.

Nothing against their products, I know they are good.

[Diddy]

The 100 series of lawn tractors are the exact same thing you get in the big box. You can't get the 300 or 500 series at the big box, but there is absolutely no difference in the 100 series at the dealer vs big box.

I'm just telling you my experience, and my dealer has stood on his head for me and my dinky $2K lawn tractor.

I guess ive just never seen a 100 series in a dealership.

I think the service varies more from dealership to dealership then it is a company wide thing.

No offense to you but dealerships selling dinky $2K lawn tractors pisses me off. My dealer will even adknowedge that they make very little $ off of a sale. But their salesmen spend so much time selling them that its hard at times to talk to one about big ticket items that they do make money off of. Make up your mind are you in ag sales or lawn and garden sales.

[Simbagal23]

My father in law in Germany has a total man crush on anything John Deere. Truly. Not sure why. Anyway, they don't need a lawn mower for their property so he bought some sort of John Deere ATV which allows him to tow stuff around. Their entire village (maybe 100 people?) fell in love with his ATV and they now borrow it all of the time. He even has American flags (car size flags) flying on the back! It's quite a site to see in this tiny, Germany village.....

They have done a good job with their marketing. They are the Norman Rockwell of companies. The local hardware store sells all sorts of toys, signs, temperature gauges, rain gauges and other assorted JD stuff. People actually collect JD stuff. If you lived in Germany and wanted something truly American, I could see why you would go with a JD.

I just got a John Deere 'weather station' for Christmas (a little late). It is a plastic piece of junk made in China. The only metal is the pole. Oh, and the screws.


That yellow piece of plastic is supposed to tell wind velocity. It's not really attached other than a couple of knobs, it could easily fall off. The small yellow pointer is to measure total rainfall for the year, but when you set it to zero it falls out. The thermometer is so small you have to stand right up to it to see the temperature, but how do you do this without disturbing the sensitive wind velocity / direction calculations it is performing?

I guess what I'm saying, are there any collectors out there?
And I think this gift from my sister rivals the robot pencil sharpener. I'm starting a poll.

Nothing against their products, I know they are good.

My father in law would LOVE it! I'll bet your sis bought it at Cracker Barrell; I'll have to check the next time I'm there.

[jim]

The 100 series of lawn tractors are the exact same thing you get in the big box. You can't get the 300 or 500 series at the big box, but there is absolutely no difference in the 100 series at the dealer vs big box.

I'm just telling you my experience, and my dealer has stood on his head for me and my dinky $2K lawn tractor.

I guess ive just never seen a 100 series in a dealership.

I think the service varies more from dealership to dealership then it is a company wide thing.

No offense to you but dealerships selling dinky $2K lawn tractors pisses me off. My dealer will even adknowedge that they make very little $ off of a sale. But their salesmen spend so much time selling them that its hard at times to talk to one about big ticket items that they do make money off of. Make up your mind are you in ag sales or lawn and garden sales.

You have some issues that I don't understand, so I'll just let it lie. Sorry to hear about your crummy service, mine has been out of this world.

[Diddy]

You have some issues that I don't understand, so I'll just let it lie. Sorry to hear about your crummy service, mine has been out of this world.

lol i love deere, everything weve got is green, just alittle pissed off right now at them. Just a good day for a topic on deere service to be in the rants forum.

We had to have a service call on our combine about a month ago so they came out to the farm and got it fixed. Well id told them when i was down there that the AC want working on one of our tractors and to just fix that while they were there.

They wont send me a bill on a job till after they complete it so i got the bill for the tractor
a month ago and then the combine bill yesterday. Both bills had a service call charge on them and a new fuel surcharge.

The biggest complaint was the 2 service call bills, the two werent parked more then 50ft from each other and they knew what they needed to fix both before they made the call. So youve got two of those and now this new fuel surcharge (x2) which i think is bs because thats what the service call chagre essentionally is anyway. So now when you have to have a guy come out your paying him hourly to drive out there, for the service charge, and a fuel surcharge.

Something like this comes up about every 2 years or so. And when you point anything out their pretty quick to change it but i get the impression that their standard procedure is to bill in excess and hope that no one sees it cause theres so many bills coming from them anyway.

Two weeks ago i would have joined in on your rave cause they threw in the install on my guidence system i bought for my tractor at no cost. Which im not sure that they just arent trying to get some of that cost back now.

[Sutter'sBeard]

You have some issues that I don't understand, so I'll just let it lie. Sorry to hear about your crummy service, mine has been out of this world.

lol i love deere, everything weve got is green, just alittle pissed off right now at them. Just a good day for a topic on deere service to be in the rants forum.

We had to have a service call on our combine about a month ago so they came out to the farm and got it fixed. Well id told them when i was down there that the AC want working on one of our tractors and to just fix that while they were there.

They wont send me a bill on a job till after they complete it so i got the bill for the tractor
a month ago and then the combine bill yesterday. Both bills had a service call charge on them and a new fuel surcharge.

The biggest complaint was the 2 service call bills, the two werent parked more then 50ft from each other and they knew what they needed to fix both before they made the call. So youve got two of those and now this new fuel surcharge (x2) which i think is bs because thats what the service call chagre essentionally is anyway. So now when you have to have a guy come out your paying him hourly to drive out there, for the service charge, and a fuel surcharge.

Something like this comes up about every 2 years or so. And when you point anything out their pretty quick to change it but i get the impression that their standard procedure is to bill in excess and hope that no one sees it cause theres so many bills coming from them anyway.

Two weeks ago i would have joined in on your rave cause they threw in the install on my guidence system i bought for my tractor at no cost. Which im not sure that they just arent trying to get some of that cost back now.

Where are you out of Diddy? I work for a very large JD dealer in central Illinois. I could be wrong but I don't think we are doing the fuel surcharge on service calls. The labor charge for drive time is pretty standard everywhere.

[Diddy]

Where are you out of Diddy? I work for a very large JD dealer in central Illinois. I could be wrong but I don't think we are doing the fuel surcharge on service calls. The labor charge for drive time is pretty standard everywhere.

ya their on the clock so i dont have a problem with the labor charge. Just that the new fuel surcharge is something that i feel should covered by the price im paying for a service call. The cost of service calls is pretty much outlandish to me but sometimes you have no choice.

But when they charged me for 2 x's the labor, 2x's the milage on the service call, and twice the surcharge for one call thats just wrong. Ya they worked on two machines but only made one call. And really they didnt even fix the AC on the tractor just looked at it and said ya you need to bring it in, which is what i was going to do anyway untill they had to come look at the combine and said they would look at it while they were there.

Im in SWMO