Man O Man did AGCO hire people to talk us down

Boys i need help... i am trying to fight the AC-Orange Finger battle on FaceBook and at random this guy pops up with a bunch of BS he says he has been waching us here and says that "the kid" which is me 15 needs to quit winning and on and on he probly will see this to but i just thought that you guys might want to read what he said to me.

Well,he shows his ignorance when he claims the tractor is a Massey...just about as much as it is an Allis.Don't bother with him.Can't you tell,he's smarter than us two put together,all business minded and so on.There will always be elitists.

I believe this is from an old Jerry Clower story "its obvious he is educated beyond his intelligence level" ie a mouth piece for someone else.

I may do the same.  We'll see how many people come to his back... If this is such a wonderful decision by AGCO, surely he'll have an abundance of supporters...

My post is finished. Someone please read it and tell me what you think. It is under the same reply on Cordels post.

They are breaking off, what I would call, all ties to the brand. That is what we are upset about.

I hope mine is a rare occurrence, but there are a lot of these CAT dealers turning over some big deals out there that don't feel like they need to waste their time for someone coming in about buying an AGCO part.  They just push you away and tell you to get it mailed in from the AGCO dealer.

steffensen,
I understand AGCO is putting AGCO badge on MF tractors now.  I also understand why keep so many brands out there.  I don't understand why AGCO wouldn't just put AGCO on it's tractor and provide it in multiple colors like they do Valtra?  If they want to keep the MF and AC and Challenger and White and Oliver, etc. crowd happy they could have an AGCO tractor brand and paint it different colors, like Valtra, and put a different sticker on each one like AGCO/Massey Ferguson, or AGCO/Challenger or AGCO/Oliver.  They would have ONE brand along with Fendt and Valtra.  Why not do that?  Their working so hard to create a Challenger brand wouldn't it be easier to create an AGCO brand like that?

Why would AGCO offer a full line to Challenger, from the get go, but not to AGCO?

I am one of those "few" people who bought and supported AGCO equipment because to me it was the Allis Gleaner corporation.  I don't own much just an RT100A, Sunflower no-till drill, ST subcompact with loader/mower and AGCO tiller, AGCO blade, landscape rake, rotary cutter, etc.  I was planning on getting AGCO hay equipment this year but not now.

I've heard from dealers that in the larger tractor segment AGCO orange ones outsold Challenger and MF 4 to 1 in North America is that true?

Your right on dealer support but a lot of us drove a long ways past a lot of other dealers to get to an AGCO one because it was orange.

You shouldn't want to be like Deere.  You will not beat Deere but Deere might beat themselves. 

AGCO started as AGCO-Allis and sold a hodge podge of tractors and people bought them because they were orange.  Those farmers helped build AGCO so that it could be what it is now.  They'd even buy the Deutz tractors painted orange but not when they were green. 

I'm sorry.  My thoughts are hodge podged tonight cause it's late and I did taxes all day.  The bottom line is that what AGCO is doing doesn't make sense unless you put shields on the side of your head and look down a very narrow path.  Why does what I'm saying, about the colors, not make more sense that what AGCO is doing now?

steffensen wrote: Sorry, I do not have anything to do with agco's business decisions. Cordel is making false claims in the title, I don't think he figured I would actually come on here and let you all have a shot at me. I wish he would post to edit it.   I cannot tell you why agco won't provide it in multiple colors. Might because of part count, from an engineering side with multiple plastic colors you have a nightmare of blueprints/drawings and other part numbers to create and manage. Its just not quite the same as just the paint color. From my experience this tends to decreases overall part use (volume) and drives costs up on each part. It might work for Fendt or Valtra becuase they are already a little higher in price and don't seem to be pushed much.   Also, I can not tell you why they are pushing the Challenger line or verify the 4:1 sales. I respect you are one of the "few" people that support the company. My original rant was because I was not seeing posts from people like you. I was seeing posts that were from teenagers that hadn't purchased a single thing. If I was to guess to why the Challenger was pushed and a full line was offered, it would be because with the purchase of the brand from CAT. There might be an agreement. Who knows??? Also, I don’t think the AGCO brand is on any of the tracked tractors (established by CAT) or the big articulated 4wd. If those are included, the overall tractor line becomes larger on the challenger side. Maybe that had something to do with it?   Please stop referring to agco's choices as mine. It is not me that wants to be like Deere. I just plain old assumed that. But when you read the farming articles and in a lot of areas just talk about Deere's service and all you seem to get is that they are the gold standard. (Except for a recent article I read that talks about them cutting long time dealers) And we must face that, Deere is the market share to take in the US. In the non-AG field I would say that CAT is considered the best and maybe that’s why they are tied so close to them.   You have a very good post. Most of what I was hearing before all this started was that MF tractors were crap and how many names we can call agco's CEO. It was getting hard to read that when the tractors are the same with a different skin. (Then wouldn’t they both be crap) And I guess I am just getting too old for person attacks on an old man.

I cannot and will not support all that agco has done with this and other choices. Just like I think the new "legacy" branding is the most disgracful thing I have seen in a long time. Slapping a new decal and offering a special medallion is nothing special. The only thing that might be worth it is the extended warranties that are supposed to come with it. On #3: Not a good reason for dropping the color. But I would invite people to look up what the EPA is requiring all manufacturers that use diesel engines to do to verify the upcoming Tier 4a levels. On #4: I was told there was a letter that was sent to the dealers weeks prior to the press release. If this isn't true, then shame on agco. If the employees of certain dealerships were not told by their employer, then shame on the employer.

Steffensen, thanks for getting back with me.

I used to work, for a time, at a place where we designed plastic parts and the injection mold for them.  I understand part numbers a tad and I couldn't figure out why AGCO changed like a little flair on a cab between models or something like that when they could've left them the same and saved cost.  With creative engineering the part numbers could be minimized. 

I also used to own an AGCO LT70 that I had a barn collapse on.  When the dealer got the parts in for the cab, (the plastic ones were the ones to break), all the plastic came in primed.  I'm not up on weather the AGCO hoods are injected with colored plastic but I would guess that the outside is still painted otherwise it'd be nearly impossible to get the finish to match.  Also, if you look at the new tractors they all have the black belly with the colored sheet metal/plastic.  And, AGCO recently created those facilities to add options to the tractors once they got shipped over here.  Why not send the tractor over without the colored parts on it and put them on over her made to order?  Make it an option and charge $350 for it.  I recently priced out a trade for my RT on a New Holland TV6070 and it was $350 to get it in yellow instead of blue.   You can price out a Deere online.  Their tractors don't have black underbellies it's all green and it's about $1,200 "list" to paint a Deere orange.

So, AGCO already has a brand where they know how to offer different colors and make it profitable.  They already have the facilities setup, sans paint booth, to make it a possibility.  They already have an orange following and several heritage brands that still have some popularity.  They've already converted or are converting the short lines to the AGCO brand.  Their putting their AGCO logo on MF equipment now.  So what's the big deal to make one AGCO brand offer colors and pump up their heritage.  They could have three core brands: AGCO, Fendt and Valtra.  Fendt is high end, AGCO in the middle and Valtra the low end.

I know I may be wacked but I'm not alone.  I traveled 1200 miles and made a family vacation out of picking up my ST machine last summer.  Incidentally, I bought it after being reassured by AGCO's Todd Stucke at the end of June that getting rid of orange was just a rumor.  The dealer/owner I bought it from had a painted AGCO tractor Oliver green because that was his first choice.  He asked me the same questions I'm asking you, about offering color as an option, and I said Amen brother.  I emailed the same thing to Todd before I went there.

So, why is AGCO essentially shooting themselves and their brand loyal customers in the foot?  Honestly I can only see two possible logical reasons and non of them have to do with reducing brands, epa emissions, etc.  First is this move is definitely going to get rid of some dealers and I think AGCO wants a legal and easy way to get rid of some underperforming ones.  They want to do this thinking that those dealers are taking business away from the "good" ones so if we kill them off the good ones will have more money to spend on advertising and training.  That will not work as those dealers will only pick up other brands like Deutz and Kubota.  Second is that AGCO has definitely gotten and European mentality and they like CAT over there and they like MF.  They also think they can tell the North American customers what they need instead of asking them.  And, Europeans like big looking companies hence CAT and MF.  This second option lends me to believe that parts for the older heritage equipment will go away or go way up in price from AGCO so that they can "push" the old equipment farmers use into new equipment.

AGCO spent a lot of money investing in the new AGCO DT tractors and "long live the family farm."  They made AGCO a core brand only a short time ago.  They've reassured farmers that orange will be around as long as they sell and they did outsell red and yellow 4 to 1 in NA.  So why in such a short time has it all reversed?  It seems like AGCO is rudderless with decisions being made at the whim based on emotion rather than logic.  Maybe if I could get a logical reason why my orange equipment lost 4% of it's value overnight and why they've decided to dump their "core" brand it'd make it easier.  I have yet to hear that logical reason at least one that is more logical than the one I, and others, have offered here and before.

Byron

P.S. - I was writing as you were posting.  As I recall Martin R. announced orange going away a week or so before the dealers got any letter.  Then the letter was posted online before the dealers got it.  Then the day after the dealers got their letter, if they were one AGCO wanted to keep, they got a new contract for an all MF line.  The dealers positive spin on it was that they would only have to pay AGCO once for advertising now instead of for both MF and AGCO.  The dealer I talked to thought it would never happen and thought it only happened because Martin R. opened up his *** mouth.


Edited by Byron WC in SW Wi - 20 Feb 2010 at 8:42am

    In my estimation, this is not about which AGCO brand has the better tractor.  For most of us who use equipment supported by AGCO, the dealer we use is of supreme importance, and often the reason we have that equipment at all.  Dissolving the AGCO brand has caused a great deal of angst among us for a variety of reasons. Perhaps the most important is what many of us see as very poor treatment of the people who have bent over backwards to serve us for so long.  My local dealer was shoehorned into a Massey-Ferguson contract right before the "end of AGCO letter" was sent, and was given very little if any explanation.  A new MF sign and brochures just started showing up on his doorstep. Other dealers, many of whom are long respected institutions are not being given the opportunity to continue with AGCO in any capacity.  Unfortunately it seems that AGCO has joined the John Deere bandwagon for "dealer consolidation", AKA dealer elimination.  The difference is that AGCO really can't spare any dealers for ANY of their brands, as the network is so sparse that many folks don't even know where their dealer is. There have already been so many consolidations of branding within AGCO that many people are confused about where to go for service.  This confusion has given rise to the idea that AGCO does not service its brands as well as Deere and CNH.  More confusion can't possibly help this situation.    

Edited by BrettPhillips - 20 Feb 2010 at 9:22am

Well. this is definitely not a tracors and farm machinery only subject, but does have some credibility in this compartment, so here goes. The AGCO decision was a decision arrived at by primariy yhe bean counters, and seconded by the bowers that pee, who only want to see immediate bottom line results, not long term effects. All emotional issues and hyperbole (i.e. Steffensen) aside, it looks to me like AGCO is is making a valient last gasp attempt to right the ship, by a common methodology (kill the goose that layed the golden eggs so that you can eat the goose now because you are hungry now), which only works short time. When this finally fails, along with the company, there will be more hyperbole about that, just to cover the truth. For example, we all remember when Agco first started business, saying " AGCO means Allis-Gleaner Company"?? Now they are saying they never said that, in spite of factual evidence to the contrary. Which brings us back to Steffensen, our current hyperbole fountain. It's over, let's get on with the funeral and the wake! We still have the original orange and all the memories, meetings, Go To's, etc, no one can take that away from us. time to thumb our noses at the ilk who wish to use their so-called grandiose ideas to convince us thier dea is better.

One point I would like to make is that of AGCO's dealer net program. They admitted to me and others at the NFMS that it isn't what it could be, but also didn't feel they needed to do anything about it. We lost probably the best A-C/AGCO dealer in pour area a few years ago, it was a decision the family made, not forced out,or not selling enogh etc. They were the place to go for anything AGCO had or supported. They had parts!!! whether for an A-C,oliver,white,N-I, they had them. Now for us we either have to go north to the Wisconsin border, or southwest towards Galesburg. To me that is not feasible nor does it serve well to the customer. I don't see anything changing for their so-called rival dealer network once its ppoor word choiceed its "training stage" I could travel 30 minutes in all 4 directions of the comppoor word choice and run into a JD,N-H,Case-IH dealer, in our area how do they think they are going to rival that? Sounds like more BS to me. What I can't understand is how you could pull a line that carries your flagship name. There were a few reps at the NFMS that admitted what AGCO stands for ALLIS-GLEANER company. Take some notes AGCO people, a man from the N-H booth told me they can't make the boomer8n fast enough, and CaseIH is coming out with a new midsize compact farmall with the old circle A decal on the side. Maybe if they tried some of these strategies in the market a few more of us would have bought into the concept, just an idea. A midsize tractor truely showing A-C's heritage in the styling or model name would have been a hit. Now the only thing left orange will be slowly faded away. The other problem is at one time AGCO was big on Heritage Line parts, and was advertised well, A close friend of mine even had one of their Whites in one of the posters that was made, over the last few years that has faded to nothing, and prices seem to increase to ridiculous amounts. We are fortunate enough to have our own shop to keep up on the repairs of our Gleaner, but what really ticks me off the most is that JD is close, now AGCO is not, the whole dealer network is hog wash to me. And there are a few Gleaners and AGCO units in our area still today, mainly because at one time we were flooded woth true A-C dealers in the good old days. Those of us who are diehard A-C/Gleaner didn't move on to another color, we stuck it out through the Deutz merger, and hoped for the best. Now I think that this could really change people minds, I think Gleaner may survive but just how long and at what cost. Bottom line is How can you quit building a product that carries your companies name, to me it just does'nt make sense. Steve is right with his post, what we have now with our A-C heritage no-one can take that away, but right now I think if people want to make AGCO feel some hurt on their decsion, look for other sources for parts and service, it may be a difficult thing to do, especially to those who have been loyal to dealers for so long, but that may be the one effort that can make some noise at AGCO, Thats what we plan to do, unless it is absolutly nescessary and all other resources are exhausted we will purchase AGCO parts. Dad and I have already maade the decsion to quit buying OEM AGCO filters for our tractors and Combine, once we go through our stock of what we have in our shop, they will come from another source. Those who have given their input have spoken well with both emotions and facts, thats what make this country so great, this will be one more thing some of us can talk about at a show or to our future farmers generations to come, just one more piece of the puzzle the orange and silver line had to detour through

It seems like the thing to do is tell them to sell their junk to the chineese. They've already gotten rid of White, Now their getting rid of AC. Me, I'm going all Green and yellow. I would'nt have a mpoor word choiceey on my farm or a fendt unless it was for resale of course. LOL. Our local Agco dealer witmers inc was out trying to sell me a mpoor word choiceey. I want nothing to do with agco except parts for ACs. and Whites. Aside from compacts your not gonna shove mpoor word choiceeys down out throats. As far as I'm concerned when it comes to farm equipment in this day and age its deere or fiat and like it or not deere is an American Company so I choose deere. I like the 8000 series AC And I like the Whites with the Cummins but Mpoor word choiceey got rid of the best thing they had. The 354 perkins. Just my 2 Cents