Sure it's a concious decision. When you look at the number of people here who will deliberately go elsewhere before going to a dealer when seeking parts for an older tractor.... that pretty much tells you that they've lost the biggest part of that market already. Owning A&I is a practical way to maintain market share in that segment while finding a way to compete on a similar cost base with the other aftermarket suppliers. I don't think a lot of people realize the cost involved in maintaining a mainline parts system like Deere, CNH, AGCO, etc are running. Really... stop and think about that. They're maintaining parts support in some cases for probably close to 90 years worth of equipment... sourcing from whereever they can, ~maintaining~ those cross refrences, then at some location they're trying to maintain stock on these items. When you look at the newer equipment and the simple volume of parts and part numbers that exist. You could have 10 different variations on one basic part on one model. Gone are the days when you went in for a set of points and they fit 7 different models over 25 years. This takes an incredible amount of space to maintain that inventory, the logistics to keep track of it... mind boggling. If they can dump a bunch of that off onto A&I where the common stuff can be stocked and maintained in a simpler system and get reasonable turnaround... probably everyone is better off.
A person never puts any value or price on all of that logistics that come with the part when they can go to NAPA and buy a 51515 filter for half the money... because they know that they just need a 51515... but when you get some obscure bearing and you don't have the knowledge to do the cross... then mabey you realize why you pay a big price sometimes at the dealership.
You're paying them to maintain the paper on the part...
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Today's Featured Article - Restoration Story: Fordson Major - by Anthony West. George bought his Fordson Major from a an implement sale about 18 years ago for £200.00 (UK). There is no known history regarding its origins or what service it had done, but the following work was undertaken alone to bring it up to show standard. From the engine number, it was found that this Major was produced late 1946. It was almost complete but had various parts that would definitely need replacing.
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