Poor dealer experience

[accuratelawn]

I visited the Examark dealer this afternoon to look into trading one of my 3 Lazers on a new 28 EFI model.
There were two sales guys sitting in the showroom. I had to go inside and ask for help. They both had very limited knowledge of the products and seemed like I was a bother.
I was told a 28EFI 60" Lazer (an 03, I think - no roll bar) would be $9,500.
That price seemed high, but I asked what they would give on trade. Lazer 25 Kohler 60"with 1400 hours. The mower is in good condition. Used by me and my brother in law only.
To make a long story short I was told my mower and $7,500 for the new unit.
I was insulted and no counter offer, just some B.S. about good financing
This is the last time I will ever visit this dealership. I currently run three Lazers, but will replace with another brand! Very sad, I have run Exmark since 1998.
BTW the same deck and engine combo can be purchased for $1,000 less from another manufacturer.
Just needed to vent. Email if you want to know dealer.

[eXmark]

Accurate,

Sorry to hear that things did not go well. If you can please send me a pm with the name of the dealer to terry.eckert@exmark.com and I'll do a follow up with our regional rep.

Some dealer do get quite a bit more for a given product than others. Often it's due to better service after the sale but not always. I've also talked to several operators who feel that if they can't negotiate a lower price than initially quoted then they didn't get a fair deal. This often forces dealers to leave a little room to maneuver when it comes to pricing.

Also if you look at the list price on that model in 03 it would have been around 9800. If you subtract 7500 from that he's giving you about 2300 in trade. For him to resell the mower he'll need to put on new blades, belts, filters, fluids etc. at a minumum. He'll also need to repair anything else that he finds on the machine and possibly offer some type of extended warranty. This is all on a machine that he'll probably hafta sell for $3500. I don't get involved in used equipment so my numbers are a bit of a guess.

I'm not saying he's offering you the deal of the century but I'm not so sure it's a terrible deal either.

As far as other machines offered for less money I'm sure there are plenty out there. Some of them are very good machines and some of them may not be quite up to the standards your accustom to. I'd spend some time looking at the decks. Does the other brand your looking at offer the same cut quality and deck construction, what it the parts support like, how long has the dealer been carrying that product, what is his level of knowledge when something breaks. There are always many things to look at when purchasing a new lawnmower.

The other thing to look at is how much income can you generate with this investment. We get pretty good marks for cut quality. Many Exmark users will tell you that while we may loose a race against brand X in the parking lot we cut much faster in the grass where cut quality counts. The cut quality our customers appreciate often allows them to cut more grass at higher speeds than may "faster" machines and still leave the lawn looking much better.

Again I apologize that your visit to your dealer didn't go as well as it could have.

Thanks

Terry

[korelandscaping]

Dealers don't like to take in used mowers to often. That wasn't that insulting of a price considering. Your better off putting it up for sale locally, you can probably get 4k plus. I sold my 25hp for 4k in one week with the same hrs.