My local Kubota dealer will pick it up for warranty work, but they charge. You can trailer it there yourself. Our local Deere dealer- dad has a 5065E, and when it needed warranty work, they sent a full service truck and trained mechanic to our place, to work on it here. I like that- they work on it, but it stays here.
The Deere techs are much more professional, and better trained, than the mechanics at my local Kubota dealer. Much better, cleaner shop, too.
These comments are not a Deere vs Kubota thing, but one local dealer vs. another.
You're right.
Deere dealers got SCREWED back in the early 2000's. Deere forced the smaller mom & pop dealers to update/expand their dealerships, among many other things, mostly at the dealer's expense. Deere didn't offer much assistance. I worked for a small JD C&CE dealer for a long time and really enjoyed the equipment, the professionalism of the JD factory techs and reps, but hated so much more. The equipment was nice when I got into the business in the 80's, nice and well-built. Then they made changes in the late 90's that took full effect in the early 2000's....instead of JD building a nice stout piece of equipment, they went to mass marketing, meaning selling junk at Home Depot, Lowes, Wal-Mart, etc.....and for them to compete with the Murray's, they had to cheapen up. JD did quite well with the tactic and their entire line of C&CE still shows this mass marketing. Compact tractors included.
So far, Kubota hasn't required the small dealers to follow JD's lead, instead, they've elected to keep their equipment acceptably well built to attract consumers vs mass marketing and cheapness.
So there's a little insight, from "inside".
When I did dealer only work, my boss (the owner) had only one regret about getting rid of JD. And that was that he didn't buy the 25 acre vacant lot next to him and build a bigger dealer. Kubota blew up after JD left town, and I mean exploded. In 1990, we were lucky to sell 5 tractors a year and they were mostly B7100's. In 2010, about 1500 and they're a mix/match of different models, sizes, etc...and that's just tractors....not counting the mowing equipment. It was around 2011 when Deere built another dealer in town, and they've changed hands 4 times since that I know of. I worked there about 2 months, and then a big chain of green dealers sent their guys in and bought the place, then fired every single person myself included. Not laid off, not offered different job, flat fired. We don't want you here, go home, don't axe no questions, we won't answer if you do, take your stuff and don't come back......that kind of fired.
