Farm equipment dealers are busy preparing for a harvest that looks to be high yielding. Jeff Sloan is the president of Sloan Implement, a full service John Deere dealer. He says August into September is the busiest time of year for the service department.
“Looks like there’s a big crop out there,” Sloan says. “And just with the timely rains that we’ve had, maybe we’re going to get a little bit of a buffer just with a later start than normal, and we’re going to need every minute we can to get all this stuff out the door.
It’s always when you’re trying to beat the rain or racing the clock when something breaks. And then you’ve got to go get parts. This year though, the question is: will the parts be there? Sloan says they’re the most prepared they’ve ever been for the harvest, at least for common makes and models.
“I think we’re in a better position than we have been in the last three years,” he says. “As far as parts availability, we made a concerted effort just to stock up, have more parts on hand than we ever had in our history. We’ve got about $17 million more parts on the shelves right now than we did a year ago.”
If you’re using older or antique equipment, you may not see a quick turnaround for parts.
“I feel like with the full line of John Deere equipment and going back 60, 70 years of machinery that are still in production today, are you going to have every part for all those machines on the shelf? No, that’s an impossibility,” Sloan says. “But we do feel like we’ve made a good effort of stocking up on those fast moving parts so we aren’t caught out in the cold with the shortage or anything.”
Sloan predicts new tractors will still be in short supply going into 2023. He’s expecting to get the same number of tractors as last year. For John Deere, new tractors are in highest demand of all their products. He says the wait time for a tractor is around eight to 10 months, “not too far off” from the normal six months.
“If you look at harvesting equipment for next year, we should be able to sell the same amount that we sold for this year and same with heads as well, so we feel pretty good about that,” Sloan adds. “We’re not going to be constrained. We are going to be able to go out and make a similar number of sales as we did for this year.”
He adds that every customer that wanted a planter was able to get one with inventory to spare.
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