Man O Man did AGCO hire people to talk us down

I personally dont support agco other than buying my AC heritage parts through them. We have all hesston hay equipment though. Im neutral towards the Agco name staying and going though. I feel that the orange tractors today just dont compare to the original Allis Chalmers tractors. I like the looks of the RT and old DT series Agcos but I am not a fan of the CVTs or the Sisu diesels which is why I probably wouldnt buy one. Im sure the CVTs are okay, but I wouldnt trade a powershift for a CVT. I would rather the Agco company keep making the orange ones, and like said above why would agco drop their own tractor? Why did agco need to join with Cat for the challengers? My dad ran a new Challenger MT655C for a friend last spring and he said he wouldn't trade our NH with a powershift for it. There are far more orange tractors sold around here than the MF's. The local agco dealer is one of the largest in sales in the state. I just hope that the heritage parts line stays.

Obviously, this individual is misinformed. The company is already taking a big hit on this, industry tractors sales are up and AGCO's are down - a lot! The Challenger plan is failing, already 4 CAT dealers dropping with substantial sources saying more to come. The Tier 4 argument has been debunked by 2 separate sources, (1 of them being powertrain engineering from a large engine manufacturer - hint: they use yellow paint) There is NO Requirement to test all 3 tractors separately if they are identical; a bald face lie from the top! What else are they lying about? Obviously lots! The AGCO tractors are Mpoor word choiceey tractors painted Orange: since 1994, there are no Mpoor word choiceey tractors, MF is now simply a brand name owned by AGCO corporation. Gleaner sales are being lost as a result of this and MF and Challenger combines don't make a blip on the radar, with Challenger in the high single to low double digit sales/year, but the big marketing dollars just keep flowing. This is a company headed for trouble!

Nice one Steffensen. Join the forum yesterday, get everybody all worked up and pissed off, and then dissapear one day later to do your honey do list?? You,Sir, are a coward.

I am not a teenager putting the oranges out I am 30 years old farm with my dad and uncle we own a agco allis 9655 (supported agco) was looking at a new LT95a with a loader, not now we dont know what to buy now,  We dont farm acres and acres of ground so we dont get to buy new tractors all the time there is years between but its always been orange when we did, we have never bought a new combine because it is not cost effective they are wayyy to much money 200,000 plus we  but we do update when wew can, we can buy a used combine and rebuild it for less than half the cost of new not a hard deccision, I WISH we could go and buy a new combine and tractor every year but we cant, we halve always supported are local dealr witch keeps getting further and further away ,do to bad company bussiness (deutz allis, agco) we drive 100 miles to get to one for orange tractors   NOW WE CAN DRIVE 10 MILES TO BUY A KUBOTA

Here is a couple of logos I came up with back in June of last year and I think I sent these to Todd Stucke but never heard from him.





I just came up with MF one.


While I'm at it I put Challenger in here too.


Or for consistency how about this?


Thinking on advertising it'd be easy to take a picture and make the equipment different colors to save on advertising costs.  One dealer wondered why AGCO didn't do that already as they spent a lot of money shipping equipment from his dealer so they could take pictures of it.  Anyway, I learned a program and did up a MF in a couple of hours.  I'm sure a  pro could do it faster and better.



I know they don't own the AC badge so the orange tractor would probably just have to be an AGCO like they are now.  They do own the White, Oliver, MM, MF and Challenger names though so those could work.

I know AGCO thought of doing it's implements in neutral colors possibly so they could match all their lines with them.  They went away from that but ended up making the underbellies of the Hesston balers black during that time.  But if you look at what CNH did with the New Holland line is they left the colors alone but put a little blue on the sticker.  You could get away with that with Hesston, Sunflower, etc. with a little creative design.






Edited by Byron WC in SW Wi - 21 Feb 2010 at 8:41am

I like them, well except for the 1st challenger, the consistant one looks better. With that pholosophy you could just as easily add Ag-Chem or Willmar to cover the applicator side.

Edited by steffensen - 21 Feb 2010 at 9:09am

I've got to tell you guys that I am quite impressed the the ideas. honesty, sincerity and passion that has been written on this post.  You all get an orange star, maybe two for keeping on subject and not doing much name calling!  Two bad this board isn't the AGCO board,  They would be flying right in a few weeks with all your leadership.

GBACBFan wrote: Whatever AGCO does as a company, no matter if they're right or wrong, no matter what we think of the decision, no matter if they survive or fail, no matter how dumb or smart, it's their decision to make. All the oranges in Florida won't change that. Denegrating Mr. Steffensen for an opposing viewpoint won't change that. All the pissing and growling in the world won't change that, nor should it. If AGCO's Board of Directors support the decision, following through on the decision not only is AGCO's, right it's their responsibility. They own the company!

rian could you post some of those pics of them Ads here on ac.com (i want to rub it AGCOs face on the AGCO/facebook page) thanks!    If not thats ok..:)

Agco is much like the Obama Administration. They just don’t get it. They don’t get it because they don’t listen. They don’t listen because they are always right.

Edited by TerryMN - 23 Feb 2010 at 10:24am

I'm by nature an emotional prideful guy.  I became a Christian in 91 and since have tried to be a humble guy.  But, I understand the feelings some of the younger ones because I've been there and still have them.  The internet and email work for me because I can rewrite, erase, edit etc. my thoughts.  If I were talking to Martin in public I'd have a rough time restraining myself so it's probably good I don't.  Either way I doubt very seriously anybody does anything for me on here.  They might do it for IG who owns a one year old Gleaner combine, older DT's and some other AGCO stuff.  He hasn't been on here for this conversation but I'm sure he owns more than a half million dollars in AGCO equipment.  His next tractor was going to be a new DT but because AGCO dropped orange he's going Deere and has already ordered his new large frame Deere.

I try to keep my emotions in check and be humble but I'm still ticked at AGCO.  I'm one of the few, along with IG, that will never buy another piece of AGCO equipment hay, tillage or otherwise because they've dropped orange.  I'm among many though who bought AGCO equipment because it was the "Allis Gleaner" company and made orange ones.  And among many who drove past several other brand dealers to get to an AGCO one because they sold orange.  And despite all those European countries, the size of Kansas and with the population of Maine, that have more pull than the North American market and Brazil who has more AGCO brands available to it than North America and still has the AGCO Allis brand, I think AGCO is going to miss North America and in particular the upper midwest.  North America has made Deere 1, CNH 2 and single handedly built AGCO from the ashes of Deutz.  AGCO can manipulate it's numbers all it wants to show how unprofitable North America is but when the tax laws change where income earned overseas will be taxed by American companies and AGCO will actually have to show that all those upper management salaries, engineering R&D and advertising expenses are paid for by the NA market then maybe it'll make more sense to them.  As I said before they only have two logical reasons why they are doing what they are doing and more and more it points to the fact that it really has become and Arrogant German COmpany.

I appreciate you being on here and if your at the show in Wisconsin maybe I'll see you.  Maybe I'll even bring an orange who knows.  I appreciate you being humble to other ideas that possibly make more sense than what AGCO is doing.  Maybe you can make a difference where I, and others, have failed.  You have given me some hope.  If you need more conviction I suggest taking the AGCO shirt off and going in and talking to some dealers.  They can't make heads or tales of how AGCO is run and most of that feeling existed long before Martin opened his mouth.

-My grammar has always stunk.  I watch Between the Lions on PBS with my kids and I learn stuff I never knew or long forgot about grammar so please forgive that. 

-Spell check is a must for me.

-The numbers I've heard, that AGCO orange outsells MF 4 to 1 in the larger tractors was from an AGCO salesman that overheard and AGCO region rep and was told not to repeat it.  I've heard from my brother, (who converted to Deere from AGCO largely because they didn't offer a complete orange line), who heard it from a Deere dealer manager who heard it from his high school friend who is a regional rep for Challanger that they have to work so hard on price just to get someone to look at a Challenger and then the dealer support isn't there.  I've heard the AGCO dealers say that the Challenger dealers don't stock parts.  I've heard from AGCO salesmen that AGCO used to have a guy who I think headed up Hesston.  He'd have a couple of large balers sitting at the factory and would offer extended financing to the dealers to take the balers and try to sell them.  They always did and they always sold them before they needed the extension.  They took the balers in the first place because of that security blanket and it worked for everyone.  AGCO thought so highly of this individual that they fired him because he didn't get permission from the higher ups before doing that.  The perception is, from the dealers, that if you make your boss look bad at AGCO you get fired.  My perception is that dealers are afraid to talk to AGCO.  I heard it from another AGCO dealer/manager/owner that he's asked AGCO about offering different colors for years and he guaranteed he could sell more if they had other colors.  He used to be on their dealer advisory board but isn't anymore and he says AGCO was glad to get rid of him.  I heard rumors for a long time from multiple sources that Challenger lost money since it's inception until it finally made money last year for the first time.  I've heard from a salesmen that AGCO has far fewer defunct owners than MF or Challenger and that can be backed up by looking at the tractors for sale by AGCO finance on Tractorhouse.

So unless my information is all wrong AGCO is getting rid of its brand that leads in sales, profitability and has the least returns because they want to try and make MF and Challenger bigger.  And, they think that those farmers who already drive past several other brands of tractors to buy their orange one will do the same thing for a Ferguson.  Hum...

I think by the simple fact that there will be more MF dealers from former AGCO ones MF sales will increase.  But, I would venture to bet that they won't get to the point where the orange ones were.  Since I'm in the betting mood I'll bet that AGCO raises prices on parts to try and force farmers into new equipment.  And, I'll bet that silver Gleaner combines are not long for this world.   I've heard people say that won't happen because Gleaner outsells MF and Challenger 3 to 1.  I say we'll AGCO outsold those same colors 4 to 1 and they got rid of it.   Pretty safe bets don't you think?

Ok, I'll get off my soap box.  It's just bad for my blood pressure.

Byron

steffensen wrote: I in no way meant I was good at any of it. (Spelling, grammar, keeping my emotions in check)  I also do not have any inside access for me to verify the sales. So I am going to go off your statements for now.   But I can easily respect what you have said.   Steffensen

Byron WC in SW Wi wrote: Here is a couple of logos I came up with back in June of last year and I think I sent these to Todd Stucke but never heard from him. I just came up with MF one. While I'm at it I put Challenger in here too. Or for consistency how about this? Thinking on advertising it'd be easy to take a picture and make the equipment different colors to save on advertising costs.  One dealer wondered why AGCO didn't do that already as they spent a lot of money shipping equipment from his dealer so they could take pictures of it.  Anyway, I learned a program and did up a MF in a couple of hours.  I'm sure a  pro could do it faster and better. I know they don't own the AC badge so the orange tractor would probably just have to be an AGCO like they are now.  They do own the White, Oliver, MM, MF and Challenger names though so those could work. I know AGCO thought of doing it's implements in neutral colors possibly so they could match all their lines with them.  They went away from that but ended up making the underbellies of the Hesston balers black during that time.  But if you look at what CNH did with the New Holland line is they left the colors alone but put a little blue on the sticker.  You could get away with that with Hesston, Sunflower, etc. with a little creative design.

This is awsome! Obviously you won't be working at the Arrogant German COmpany anytime soon, this is clearly too good and creative. Just another example as to how they could have resolved their NA dilema without destroying their customer base!