That's normally true for "most" dealers. Local dealer not so much. I worked there for a long time and still order a few parts so long as the customer isn't in any kind of hurry.
In this case the customer want's their stuff back.
Local dealer? I order & pay for the part (prepay on all special orders). Then they submit the order into the computer system. Dealer GM reviews the order, might take a few days since he only works 1 or 2 days a week. Then he makes any changes, then sends it to the "parts & service coordinator" who oversees all of the chains' ordering. That's a LOT of parts to have to look through for 12 or I think 13 dealers now. Then once he ok's it and makes the changes needed, he'll dump it to kubota. 2-3 days from that time it ships and shows up at the dealership. That's if there's no back orders or it doesn't ship from a different warehouse. Then the local dealer gets it, and the way they do things there, it takes them a few days to check it in and call the special order customers, who come AFTER the shop and stock order customers....
having worked there I know how they do it, and I also know that a special order OTC customer gets put at the back of the priority level. It takes up to a month to get parts that are in stock at the closest warehouse. Even then, they hit the customer with shipping and handling charges and all of the many taxes.
in short they use the worst possible methodology for parts ordering and receiving that one can. They check in each part individually, manually....using a check sheet, check it off, toss the checked in part into a separate box and once it's all done THEN go through everything, again manually. Inefficiency at it's best. They make bar code scanners for this purpose but local dealer doesn't do things the efficient way....never have, and I'm told by the parts manager that they probably never will as long as the general manager has anything to do with it. But, the GM will do anything (and I mean anything!) to make sure the salespeople are very well taken care of....when your parts people are being paid $14/hr but your sales guys are being paid a quarter million + a year, there is an issue. And there is also the issue of high turnover in all departments except sales. I knew the GM from the deere dealer and it was no different there.
once it's all said and done, this dealer is considerably more expensive and considerably slower than ordering it myself from one of the online dealers. And, with all that said, my customer isn't in a "rush", but he's getting antsy--thus why I asked if there's any other options.
