At least that's good service

After the whole discontinued Deere clutch,gotta get it from A&I,can't have it til next Thursday debacle,I didn't know what I was gonna do for a clutch for this loader tractor. I called the place in Lansing where my son had taken the flywheel to be resurfaced and told them the trouble I'd had and that I was desperate. They told me to get the clutch in to them today and they'd come up with something even if they had to make one. An hour after my son dropped it off,they called and said it was done. Then he asked me if $75 was too much? Are you kidding? I told him Deere had soaked me $89 for the pilot and throw out bearings! He couldn't believe it!
Nice to know there's still someplace you can go and get a rush job on a part for a good price anyway.

Did they reline it ? Hard to find anyone doing that anymore.

Where in Lansing did you get it done. They deserve recognition. It wasn't by chance at the place near the airport, Clutch Dynamics, or something like that was it?

If you had by-passed John Deere in the beginning, and gone on-line straight to an A&I dealer, you would have had all the parts you needed in 2 days or less. Dropped off right at your door.

Yup,that's the one. They're right next door to where my son works at Pierce Race Engines.

No. The old one was ground right in to the metal. They said they can pretty much custom build whatever they have to. They work with ceramics,organics,anything you want.

Do you want me to quote exactly what the Deere parts man told me about A&I and getting that clutch from them? He said "they're in no hurry at all and said they can't get it to us til next Thursday". End quote,as they say.
The guy at the clutch shop told me if I had sent that old clutch down with the flywheel yesterday,they could have been done with it and had same day service on the whole job. No two days from now,no next Thursday,no coming way too close to a stroke because of my blood pressure.

see it all the time, that a company gets so big, sells so much, that they forget the people that made it all possible , and figure for every un-happy person there are 10 more willing to throw $$$ to them my .02 ( canadian ) ( although canadian ain"t bad these days ) cents worth
bob

Don"t know if you realize this or not, but John Deere owns A&I.

I had work done at Clutch Dynamics before. They do excellent work!

Ya,that's what the Deere parts guy told me yesterday. Apparently they've made the conscious decision to stop serving customers who don't "buy new every two" and farm 2000 acres by pushing us off on an aftermarket parts service to keep this older equipment running. Great way to thank customers for loyalty ain't it?!

(quoted from post at 08:54:28 03/25/11) Do you want me to quote exactly what the Deere parts man told me about A&I and getting that clutch from them? He said "they're in no hurry at all and said they can't get it to us til next Thursday". End quote,as they say.
The guy at the clutch shop told me if I had sent that old clutch down with the flywheel yesterday,they could have been done with it and had same day service on the whole job. No two days from now,no next Thursday,no coming way too close to a stroke because of my blood pressure.

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I can place an order to A&I on a Monday, and the UPS truck will deliver it on Wednesday everytime, and If I had placed that Sunday evening, or very early on Monday morning, I will have it on Tuesday. Everytime.

One of the problems with John Deere is one owner, multiple stores.

Our local JD dealer is one of something like 12 owned by the same corporation. John Deere Corporate isn't going to mess with them over a few "little guy" parts purchases because collectively they move too much high dollar equipment.

I recently had a kind of the same situation. The brakes on my 37 JD A needed replacement. I would have them relined, but the backing was questionable (rusted through/bent). Call the local JD dealer. They wanted $136.00 per shoe. Times that by 4 = $544.00 plus tax. Found a small one man (owner 65 plus years old) shop down an alley in Colorado Springs. Walked into his place carring the shoes. As soon as he seen them, he asked if they were for a JD A? Couldn't beleive that he knew what they were for. He took them and said he would see what he could do. He called me the next morning and said they were done. When down to pick them up. He had not only relined them, but welded and built up the shoes and painted them. Looked new. Charge??? $45.00. I gave him $65.00 because I know he spent more time than what he was charging. Well he's my brake guy now. I bet he'd even do clutch relining. His shop equipment had to have been 50's era.

I can't speak to other parts of the US but here everybody but the AGCO dealers and a small handful of others are multiple location operations. I won't mention the name of the outfit but there is a certain CaseIH dealer that is a Goliath here and it worries me for the reasons discussed here in the last day and change.
I would assume the laws of economics and scale apply to farm equipment dealers and wonder how these small dealers and independents make a go of it. My neighbor tried buying a new NH baler a few years ago from an independent and was flabbergasted at the price difference between that dealer and the chain outfit. The independent told him he was doing the best possible but the chain outfit gets a break from NH for quantity orders on equipment. Not surprising but it does not indicate a bright future for that small independent. I wonder if the AGCO guys go in with each other on certain things like oil to get the volume breaks they need to compete and they normally do not have territory issues.

thats the only way to go ,,.. KY Clutch Always saves a bundle for me ,, They can do anything , And ship Anywhere TOO ,,..

Sounds like they need to start giving that same kind of service to the parent company that owns them doesn't it?

Yup,and I've faced the facts and accepted them as of this morning. This isn't by accident. Deere and Co has been working on this business model for 20 years now. They serve two kinds of customers and it's because that's the way they want it. They sell equipment,not parts,to the 2000+ acre guy from their few and far between DeereMart super stores,and they sell cheap imported junk to the weekend wannabees who think they're a real JoeFarmer because they have a Deere,through their Lawn and Leisure locations.
They've proven with this whole A&I Parts business that they have no interest anymore in servicing guys like me who make a living farming and staying debt free by keeping this older stuff going by wrenching on it ourselves.

Take my advice for what it's worth,but if you farm like I do and want to keep it up,loose your brand loyalty,find a dealer who fits your personality and the way you farm and give them all of your business. I've been hospitalized for problems with my blood pressure. My Dad died of complications of a stroke after laying in a nursing home for 54 weeks. I honest to God feel like it's a threat to my life to do business with Deere anymore. And why should I? They've as much as told me,they don't care.

In the other post, I mentioned that I would never go to dealer for a clutch. Thats because of Commercial Brake Co. in Tacoma. They can fix anything with a "lining"- brakes, clutches, etc. Also pressure plates.

I took a clutch and pressure plate from an Oliver 550 in- guy glanced at it, put a tag with my name on it, and threw it in a box, said it'll be ready Tuesday. I asked, didn't he want to know what it came off of? He said industrial and ag stuff is all just various combinations of off-the-shelf parts, depending on the specs. They have all the different size pieces, and just "de-rivet" it, reconstruct it with new wear items and springs, and rivet it back up. "Nothin' too it", he said.

rr,
Thanks for the name. I don't need anything right now, but I'll keep Clutch Dynamics on the bulletin board.
Paul

The folks at Kentucky Clutch have always taken care of my needs...quickly and correctly, for less money, and never a problem...AND they machine my flywheels while I wait.

Good folks to know...

> Our local JD dealer is one of something like 12 owned by the same corporation.

My local dealer is still a locally owned shop, but it's surrounded on both sides by two major dealership chains. It's only a matter of time before one of them manages to take over the local place. I've heard that both of the big chains nearby are trying to put pressure on Deere to get the local place to sell out.

That's not a Deere-specific thing though, the CNH dealers are doing the same thing. I hate seeing it happen because it doesn't take a genius to do the math and figure out that the big chains are charging 10% more for parts to pay for their fancy new storefronts manned by their minimum wage "experts".

A lot of talk about A&I here. Any of you guys ever tour their facilities. Quite an impressive shipping dept. and warehouse. Also, a lot of their products are made right there in Rock Valley, Iowa, USA. They not only make OEM parts for JD but also the other colors. This is besides their branded parts. As for shipping, I order one day and it is delivered to my door the next morning, usually by 10:30. They do get a lot of stuff from outside the USA but a lot of it is finished at their plant in Rock Valley.

Is there a website for these folks? I'm slowly redoing an Oliver 770 and always nice to know of potential suppliers of parts

Sure it's a concious decision. When you look at the number of people here who will deliberately go elsewhere before going to a dealer when seeking parts for an older tractor.... that pretty much tells you that they've lost the biggest part of that market already. Owning A&I is a practical way to maintain market share in that segment while finding a way to compete on a similar cost base with the other aftermarket suppliers.
I don't think a lot of people realize the cost involved in maintaining a mainline parts system like Deere, CNH, AGCO, etc are running. Really... stop and think about that. They're maintaining parts support in some cases for probably close to 90 years worth of equipment... sourcing from whereever they can, ~maintaining~ those cross refrences, then at some location they're trying to maintain stock on these items. When you look at the newer equipment and the simple volume of parts and part numbers that exist. You could have 10 different variations on one basic part on one model. Gone are the days when you went in for a set of points and they fit 7 different models over 25 years. This takes an incredible amount of space to maintain that inventory, the logistics to keep track of it... mind boggling. If they can dump a bunch of that off onto A&I where the common stuff can be stocked and maintained in a simpler system and get reasonable turnaround... probably everyone is better off.

A person never puts any value or price on all of that logistics that come with the part when they can go to NAPA and buy a 51515 filter for half the money... because they know that they just need a 51515... but when you get some obscure bearing and you don't have the knowledge to do the cross... then mabey you realize why you pay a big price sometimes at the dealership.

You're paying them to maintain the paper on the part...

Rod

(quoted from post at 05:03:50 03/26/11) Is there a website for these folks? I'm slowly redoing an Oliver 770 and always nice to know of potential suppliers of parts

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Rich, send me an email. [email protected]

You can look around here. Site is a little hard to navigate sometimes. You will need to find a dealer to order from but they have a dealer list. I am a dealer but not promoting myself here. Also remember, YT has a good parts store to order from and you can help support this site.

https://www.allpartsstore.com/index.htm