Cat Dealers droping like flies

[Desperado]

In my area we lost 2 dealers in a matter of a few weeks. They simply told cat to come and get the sleds I guess Cat and the Finance holding company were two hard to deal with. What is Cat thinking they have a great product, come on Cat work with these guys times are tough!!!!!

 

[dogtownbutcher]

is this hinsons you're talking about?

 

[summitchaser]

You'd think with hard times, the manufacures and their finace companies would jump through their own a$% to move their sleds.

 

[mattymac]

the problem might be that you have two local cat dealers. To many of em around! Cat narrowed down their mileage radius around here. My local cat dealer was pissed! Cant blame em either!!

 

[acs47x]

both dealers he is talking about dropped cat, yes one is hinsons, the other is council mountain machines, theses dealers are very far apart, hinsons dropped to skiddo and polaris, council just didnt have the sales im assuming

 

[mattymac]

whats "far appart?"

 

[Blu Du]

alot have gone in mn. i think most dealers are just giving it up becuase cat are *******s

 

[jhurkot]

probably 50 miles apart. like the trees that yamaha riders claim to ride through.

 

[acs47x]

42.7 miles apart, but about a 50 min drive from each other. also in different counties if that makes a difference

 

[mattymac]

42.7 miles apart, but about a 50 min drive from each other. also in different counties if that makes a difference

So less than 1 hr drive appart...


To close for two of the same mfg dealers to be within each other IMO!

The whole chrysler thing, they shut down (around my area) half their dealers that only sold 10% of their product... THEY NEED TO BE SHUT DOWN BECAUSE THEY SHOULDNT HAVE BEEN ABLE TO DO BUSINESS THAT CLOSE TO ANOTHER COMPANY DEALING WITH THE SAME PRODUCT!

 

[Fatrunt]

Heres the deal for years we had two polaris dealers in nearly the two same locations and they did quite well. Move ahead a few years and the Polaris dealership in mccall sold to Hinsons and the polaris dealership in Council was bought out and moved to Mccall and later to Hinsons. Council Mt Machines took a Cat dealership that was in Council and thats how we ended up with two dealers. I won't speak for Hinsons however I spoke to someone very close to the dealership and they had the same problems with Cat as did Council Mt. Piss poor support from Cat, Council Mt could not pay the outrageous flooring and gave up there dealership. Thats enough of that here is the real killer now us guys in and around one of the best riding spots in the lower 48 will travel no less than 120 miles for a dealer. Yea we could go to Boise or Baker City but a two hundred mile round trip to get a sled down for service and another two hundred mile round trip to pick it up is just a slap in the face from Cat. I think Cat should rebate me the value of the warranty on my sled because it is now up to me to handle any break downs. There is no way I am driving two hundred miles to drop a sled off then wait a week for it to be worked on then drive two hundred miles to pick it up. The season is way to limited for that kind of crap. Cat your customer service SUCKS!!!!

 

[Hardass]

Thats going to be the problem in many cases, one dealer in a huge radious and it will turn out to be a crap one that you can not count on. Then there will be no close compition so pricing power will certainly go up.

 

[Adrenaline Revolution]

Lost a Cat dealer in my area as well.
The shop owner will stick to selling Kawi bikes and that's about all now.
He said Cat was imposible to deal with so he told 'em to come and pick 'em up.

 

[UintaVentureBoys]

probably 50 miles apart. like the trees that yamaha riders claim to ride through.

LOL agreed!
Lost only cat dealer in our town about a month ago.. Skidoo has pretty much monopolized the rider base in our area anyways, no rides a cat around here anymore.. Kinda sucks cause I was rather impressed with the M7

 

[03rmking]

Dear Arctic Cat,

Put out a factory pump gas turbo. If you build it, they will come.

Signed,
Captain Obvious



*FLAME ON*

 

[Extreme-One]

Sign of the times... Too bad about Hinsons though.

I bought all my Cats for a long time, mid 90's, in Valley county... Bomb Shelter. I didn't like the dealers in Boise, there were three, and I drove to McCall to purchase, service and parts because they took the time to talk to you.

This would give Rob at RK a shot at Cat, but with today's economy ... Sounds like Cat needs to look at things a little differently.

Phil... did Hinsons drop Yamaha too???

 

[UintaVentureBoys]

Heard that Weller's in Kamas was gonna give up the Cat end of things today. Don't know how much truth is behind this claim, does anyone have any input on this?? It would be ashame. When we had our Yamaha franchise in the 80's we bought EVERYTHING from Wellers place. We used to race with them in the early 90's and what not. Any Utah guys know the story behind this?

 

[Unklsnomobile]

Same problem different brand

In our area the skidoo dealership is closing down. Now I gotta drive 2 hours for service, yet there's a cat dealer less than 10 minutes away. Anyone wanna trade their Cat for an 09 XP? I think service is more important than the brand these days.

 

[Beavis]

Yep, I've also heard it's the new flooring terms Cat is implementing to dealers that's making them quit. Maybe Cat is playing hard ball or maybe they are trying to clean things up a bit.

In my area there are a couple of great dealers that understand how to run a good business and then there are several others that probably can't balance their own personal checkbook and should probably go back to fixing lawnmowers.

Either way, it sucks to see them leave!

 

[diggerdown]

Ski-doo closed a lot of dealers around here a few years ago by forcing them to floor plan many more machines than they could sell. I don't understand why the manufactures spend all that time and money to develope a top performing product and then not give the dealers the support they need to sell and service it!