Deere vr John - You Be the Jury



I need a new deck for my X320 mower.
I researched what I wanted online and found I could get a complete deck from whole goods cheaper than a bare deck threw parts.
I found 3 dealer web sites that listed the deck I wanted.
All said usually available or estimated in stock 5 days out.

Equipped with this information I called my local Deere dealer and asked for new sales.
I wanted to buy from the local dealer to support them and mostly if there was any issues he was right there.
No shipping a heavy bulky item back half way across the country.
I told the guy what I wanted but did not give him the part number.
He insisted I needed to talk to the parts department.
I explained I wanted something from whole goods and not parts.
After being transferred around and back to the original guy he finally agreed to call the whole goods manager at their main location.
This was the morning of 8/20/18.
That afternoon I went by the dealer and they could not give me any new info.
Finally got with the branch manager; gave her the part number; and she got someone on the phone that said they could get it.
So I paid for the part and told them to order it.
Next day they called and said part was not in stock and production would have to build me one.
Now the red flags started flying.
They give me a deliver date of 9/17/18
That is 4 weeks.
OK I already paid for it and wanting to deal local agreed to the terms.

Since the delivery date was yesterday I called them today.
Was told the part still has not shipped.
No estimated ship date could be given.
Told them I wanted my part by this Saturday (would really take a ship date) or a refund on the part.
She calls back and says they did not know about a refund because they have already ordered the part.


So am I out of line by insisting on a guaranteed ship date by the Saturday (almost 5 weeks from order date) or a refund?
If they refuse to give me a refund would I then be out of line for calling the credit card company and disputing the charge on the grounds that I never received the parts ordered?
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They gave you a ship date back in August, which the company didn't meet, a one piece production run is tough to do unless you are geared for such small runs, but THAT'S Mother Deere's problem. I'd demand a delivery date, A REAL date they plan on honoring. If the dealer won't do that demand your money back. They owe you one thing or the other.

I did the exact same thing with my local Ford Store about 1984 on a brand new 2 wheel drive Bronco II that Ford planned on building but never built. Dealer had my deposit for almost 6 months! I gave the sales manager a week to get my new Bronco or my money back. Week later he handed me my check back.
 
The good doctor is right, you need to lean on them....hard! You paid for a product and they (John Deere) have failed to deliver. The only recourse is to refund. It's not about [i:eb83084090]how much trouble[/i:eb83084090] it is for them to refund.

It's late in the year. They won't be building any new decks until winter, in preparation for the Spring sales season.
 
Well John Some things that you do not KNOW about how John Deere handles whole goods bundles now.

Your mower deck is a Whole goods number/bundle NOT a complete NEW unit. It is not handled by the NEW equipment salesman or sales department. It is handled by the parts department and parts distribution system. So even with an SKU number it is still handled by parts. This would be more common for stuff like a loader mounting bundle. The dealership places the order. John Deere gives them a shipment date. The local dealership has ZERO way to know if JD has any off these bundles on hand. This part of the JDs system does not let the local dealer see what JD has on hand. Also the ship date is totally out of the dealership's hands. They MIGHT be able to call and find out but truthfully it would be hard to get an exact date. Also once the bundle is ordered the dealership has to take shipment and pay for it, period. Even if it is six months from now and you have gotten tired of waiting for it. The dealership is on the hook for the deck once it is ordered.

So leaning on the dealership, like some are telling you is not going to help you much. They did their end and are on the hook for the item regardless if you take it or not. Also calling the branch manager usually just starts a poo storm back down on the local dealership. So you started out behind the eight ball with them. I would bet you do not have anyone at the local level that really gives a crap if you get the deck or not by now. Any good will is long gone on that dealership's end. They are not going to make much on the deal to start and then they get JDs customer service up in arms over the thing. Your one complaint/call wipes out a lot good reviews they get with JD. So the dealership's VOLUME payment could be reduced because customer satisfaction is a part of that.

The last dealership I worked at sold just over 80 mowers one spring. We had one fellow that we just could not make happy. He gave us a terrible satisfaction survey. His was the only negative one we had. Cost us 1% of our volume on all the mowers we sold, around $4000. We only made $400-500 on his one mower.

Now how would I have handled it as a salesman/dealership employee??? I would have TOLD you up front about the bundle needing to be ordered through the parts system. You do not know how it is handled so part of my job is to educate you on that. Then I would also tell you that delivery dates on whole goods bundles can be misleading. So expect it to take longer. IF it was a deck currently used on a "new" mower. I would see if we had a new mower that we could take one off of for you BUT the X320 is NOT a current production mower and the X330s deck is a little different. It will switch but the deck you need would be not be correct on their new mower.

So your either going to have to wait or see if they will give you your money back.
 
I am guessing this is a yard equipment dealer and not a farm equipment dealer. No farm equipment dealer could stay in business with that kind of service.

When I was visiting family back in Colorado, I worked on my sister's JD garden tractor. It wouldn't start, but a quick google search gave me the number of the electronic part responsible for this problem. I went to the local John Deere dealer and told them I needed it the next day since I was leaving town in two days. They said "no problem, if you need it tomorrow you just need to pay for the same-day shipping". Noon the next day I had the part. They split the modest shipping fee with the other customer on the same shipment, so the shipping cost less than ten bucks.

Assuming you paid your deposit with a credit card, I would contest the charge with your card issuer.
 
How old is that mower ? Hard to believe you need a deck ? Did it rust out from not cleaning it ?
 
Thanks JD Seller for that explaination. Had a very similar
experience for a NH mower a couple years ago and thankfully did not order 1. Went to 3 dealers 2 said NLA although was a valid part no# and listed available. 3rd said was available and described to me almost exactly what JD Seller had posted about educating the customer.
He suggested that I looked for a used one and gave me a few leads that were his customers that never mounted the mowers because they were sold in package deals that included backhoes.
I found 1 new in the shipping crate for 1/2 what the retail was. Needless to say I have found my favorite dealer. Although they are 40 miles away they will deliver parts to my house any Friday free. Incidentally the guy I got the mower from had been doing business with same dealer for 25 yrs and had the same opinion and appreciated that they sent me to him for the mower.
Imagine that 2 satisfied customers with 1 deal.
 
From what I read, it sounds like the dealership has already bent over backwards to accommodate you, and it's really Deere's problem for not having the mower deck in stock. That is also understandable to a degree, as JD Seller says, it is an out of production item and conceivable that they would not have any complete decks in stock due to low demand.

In this situation, most people junk the whole machine and buy a new mower automatically.

I don't think you'd have any better luck with any other dealer unless they just happen to have one in stock that someone ordered and reneged on.
 
The first mistake was buying a John Deere...... If you hadn't made that one the rest of this wouldn't even be a story.


Dealing with John Deere is almost as bad as dealing with Caterpillar - both have the attitude that they are doing you a favor by allowing you to own and use their products.
 

Per JD Seller's explanation, John Deere has a FANTASTIC business model.

I am guessing it takes a while to fill up a container and ship it across the Pacific.

How about NOT listing it as "usually available" on the webpage??

And it does not matter one iota how the customer got it ordered.
The dealer can run it thru the "proper channels" after the customer is happy and leaves the store.
 
(quoted from post at 05:19:52 09/19/18) How old is that mower ? Hard to believe you need a deck ? Did it rust out from not cleaning it ?

My father in law destroyed a JD deck in 3 seasons of mowing about 1 acre. Now this is where the mowing season is less than 5 months. Generally May through mid Sep. He didn't wash the deck but rust had nothing to do with it. If he'd of run that deck any lower you would have called it a "mid mount rotor tiller".

Rick
 
The trouble is with JD, and as usual they have insulated themselves from the costumer by throwing the mega dealerships under the bus on deals like this.

There is no route to reach the people at fault.

The only options we consumers really have left is to buy a different color, but unfortunately we are down to a couple manufacturers or importers of anything any more, and they all have the same plan figured out, so you don?t get treated much better by any other color.

I ran into a similar deal with a $600 dash cluster. The dealership tried, the parent company is a donkey.

What are you left to do?

Somewhere in the 1950s the govt actually through together some consumer protection laws that helped; but the past couple decades the govt is just throwing rocks back and forth at each other and neither party is interested in helping people any more. So no help there either for a long time now.

Paul
 
For me, the red flag would have been when they said it was out of stock and one would have to be manufactured for you. That was the obvious time to cancel the order. Time to look for a used part or replace the entire mower.

For a one part run, the manufacturer will have invested many times your purchase price in die setups and welding fixture setups to make your single part. They were doing you a favor by agreeing to make instead of declaring the part NLA. If they already have several thousands of dollars invested in it, it's way too late to cancel now.
 
You seem to think they are going to do this as a one off run for a customer that has already paid for the part.

What they will do is string the customers along for months (most likely several months) and when enough orders accumulate they will make a run of these parts to fill the number ordered and create a very small inventory of completed decks. John Deere isn't in the business of doing favors unless paid.
 
Double07, the decks are made in Horicon, WI. USA made. JD makes all their mowers, even the cheap ones. They do not have MTD build them or other such stuff that people spout off about.
 
(quoted from post at 20:37:38 09/19/18) Double07, the decks are made in Horicon, WI. USA made. JD makes all their mowers, even the cheap ones. They do not have MTD build them or other such stuff that people spout off about.

Hopefully they are [u:bc6d393c85]made[/u:bc6d393c85] and not just assembled in the U.S.A.
Even so, still a crappy, misleading, sell-it-get-the-money and then make them wait, deceitful way of doing business.
If you can't tell your dealers and or customers when something will be available, do not advertise, list it or sell it as "usually available".
 
Try buying a deck complete for a non current mower from other brands. You will find most do not offer them at all.
You can surely understand that they are not going to just build one at a time for orders. They DO NOT wait for orders to build up. They build them as production is available at the factory. Then they build a run of them. This is late in the mowing year. I bet that if you wanted one in April that there would be hundreds in stock.

Also they built the X320 from 2006 to 2015. o they are not old enough for many total deck failures.

JD historically has been good about making complete decks for older mowers. Some times they updated the deck to the current design shell with the mounting for the older mowers.
 
(quoted from post at 01:09:30 09/20/18)
You can surely understand that they are not going to just build one at a time for orders. They DO NOT wait for orders to build up. They build them as production is available at the factory. Then they build a run of them. This is late in the mowing year.

That is understandable but no excuse for not being truthful to the customer.
The customer should be informed (before committing to the purchase) that "usually available" means it might be 6 to 9 months before you get it.

The silly part of it is every part of the assembly might be available individually or maybe one insignificant part is not.
So the entire assembly sits somewhere waiting to be finished.

And if JD is treating their dealers as you described earlier in this thread, the little dealers must actually be thrilled to get bought out by a mega dealer.
 

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