Dealer Issues

[wakerider107]

Is anyone really running into dealers being slow or refusing warranty work because you didn't buy your boat there? I've personally never experienced that, as I guess our WI and MN dealers understand that my current boat is likely not the last one I'll buy. Why would they risk a future sale of a boat or accessories? I recently helped a friend buy their new 210 at a MN dealer, although they live in southern WI. Lauderdale welcomed them with open arms for service and some warranty work. If someone actually gets grief from a dealer, I'm sure Correct Craft would like to hear about it.

While technically a dealer could refuse to do warranty work if you didn't buy from them, as you said, that wouldn't be a good move on their part.
What myself and others have been saying is that if you buy a boat out of territory, you will not be a priority at your local dealer. They will service customers who bought from them first. You simply go to the back of the line. Maybe they can take care of you right away, but service can get backed up quickly and if something happens in the middle of summer, you can't expect your local dealer to drop everything and come to your aid.

[swc5150]

While technically a dealer could refuse to do warranty work if you didn't buy from them, as you said, that wouldn't be a good move on their part.
What myself and others have been saying is that if you buy a boat out of territory, you will not be a priority at your local dealer. They will service customers who bought from them first. You simply go to the back of the line. Maybe they can take care of you right away, but service can get backed up quickly and if something happens in the middle of summer, you can't expect your local dealer to drop everything and come to your aid.

That makes sense. I personally wouldn't expect a dealer to drop everything and take care of me regardless, but there are certainly customers who do. I experienced this first hand while selling MC's back in the day. If it was something quick and simple to repair, we would likely get a good customer in and out. If it was something major, we kept our first come first serve policy. Anyone bringing their boat to us for service was a future prospect, and were treated as such.

[Quinner]

While technically a dealer could refuse to do warranty work if you didn't buy from them

I also find this very hard to believe. In your scenario anybody purchasing a CC that originally sold outside their dealers territory, second hand boat, promo boat or even if you happened to just move to that area, the dealer is supposed to turn away your warranty work that you quite possibly paid extra to transfer the warranty on back to the original selling dealer?? Your on vacation away from home and have a problem, sorry didn't buy it here?? Sorry that makes no business sense and if not already illegal it should be.

[Nordicron]

Swc5150, who is your friend and where does he ride????
And your right Lauderdale is top notch

[wakerider107]

I also find this very hard to believe. In your scenario anybody purchasing a CC that originally sold outside their dealers territory, second hand boat, promo boat or even if you happened to just move to that area, the dealer is supposed to turn away your warranty work that you quite possibly paid extra to transfer the warranty on back to the original selling dealer?? Your on vacation away from home and have a problem, sorry didn't buy it here?? Sorry that makes no business sense and if not already illegal it should be.

You took this far out of context and to the extreme. Maybe i should have gone into more detail...

My understanding is that it is situational and more so applies to those who try to price shop dealers, purchase out of territory, then demand immediate warranty service from the local dealer. This wouldn't apply to used or promo boats, however, they would join the first come first serve line.

[swc5150]

Swc5150, who is your friend and where does he ride????
And your right Lauderdale is top notch

The Dr. Murdy family from Janesville. They alternate between the Rock River and Lake Powell.

[Quinner]

You took this far out of context and to the extreme. Maybe i should have gone into more detail...

My understanding is that it is situational and more so applies to those who try to price shop dealers, purchase out of territory, then demand immediate warranty service from the local dealer. This wouldn't apply to used or promo boats, however, they would join the first come first serve line.

And in that situation isn't it the dealers responsibility to not sell out of territory, why is the consumer being punished for the dealer breaking the rules?? Anyways, not arguing I just feel this policy, which I suppose is for some good reason, potentially works against the consumer, different dealers having varying business plans or capabilities put's the consumer at the mercy of whatever dealer they happen to be near. We have had about 5 different dealers in our area over the past 20 yrs so dealer loyalty is not an issue.
One of my own experiences the dealer local to my primary residence quoted me 20% more then the dealer local to my lake house on a new boat order, of course I am going to buy it from the guy asking +10k less, had I not had that option I likely would have bought used. And both those dealers did service/warranty work for me after the fact.

[Tallredrider]

We sometimes forget that Nautique does not sell boats to customers. They sell boats to dealers. So the company rules are generally rigged in favor of the dealers. Their goal is to keep their customers happy...and Nautique's customers are the dealers, not the end users. So if you happen to live in an area with a dealer not interested in lowering prices, you will generally pay more, or go out of territory and pay for it with passive/aggressive treatment at the time of service.

[wakerider107]

And in that situation isn't it the dealers responsibility to not sell out of territory, why is the consumer being punished for the dealer breaking the rules?? Anyways, not arguing I just feel this policy, which I suppose is for some good reason, potentially works against the consumer, different dealers having varying business plans or capabilities put's the consumer at the mercy of whatever dealer they happen to be near. We have had about 5 different dealers in our area over the past 20 yrs so dealer loyalty is not an issue.
One of my own experiences the dealer local to my primary residence quoted me 20% more then the dealer local to my lake house on a new boat order, of course I am going to buy it from the guy asking +10k less, had I not had that option I likely would have bought used. And both those dealers did service/warranty work for me after the fact.

Yes, the dealer should not sell out of territory. They should encourage the buyer to purchase from your local dealer and/or quote them high on a boat so they have the money to compensate the local dealer if a purchase is made - i have seen this happen a handful of times without issue because both dealers communicated and a deal was made. The problem arises when the out of territory dealer competes with the local dealer for price. Do this too many times, and the manufacturer will pull the plug on that dealer. Theres a certain dealer i heard about in FL where the manufacturer dropped them as a dealer because they were sending boats to the whole southeast.

I understand your situation and would have done the same thing. Its unfortunate that you havent had a stable dealer in your area.

Tallredrider also explained it well.

[Jeb1974]

This protectionist way of doing business is something that's been around a long time that is of huge benefit to the manufacturer and the dealer(and not necessarily the customer). Their goal is to maximize margins and unfortunately it can be at the expense of good customer service since the dealers essentially have a monopoly on the product.

I used to work in automotive audio and we really pushed the brands that were exclusive to us within the city because we had the highest margins since they couldn't shop us. Even though we were a small shop, we were the #1 dealer in the country for a few of our product lines. It worked well for both of us. The distributor generally did the same thing in all cities so there couldn't be much competitiveness on pricing. Not to date myself, but this was back in the 90's when there no really no internet shopping and it was much more difficult to shop around. It's almost impossible to do that with electronics these days and it's even easy for customers to shop around for things like cars and boats. You also have forums like this where people learn what others pay for things.

I'm sure Nautique does business this way to help protect dealer margins but what sucks is that there's less incentive to give the best customer service. I'd like to think that a complaint to Nautique would help but I'm guessing all they look at is how many boats each dealer sells.