Union Farm Equipment Inc

I have bought a tractor and several implements from Union Farm Equipment and regularly shop there for parts. My experiences have generally been pretty positive. Their prices are not low, but farm equipment is expensive and they are competitive with other dealers. The Kubota line is slightly cheaper than the New Holland line, but I buy New Holland because it is better quality. I can only report two negative experiences. First, they sold me a Woods Brush Bull that turned out to be much less ruggedly constructed than they claimed. I bought one level up from the base, but wish I had gone one level higher than they recommended. Second, the Ford/New Holland parts distribution is ridiculously error prone. This is not Union's fault per se, but expect to receive parts that do not match the description (or sometimes, even the part number) that you ordered. I recommend having parts shipped to the store so that you can examine and reject them there. Union will have parts drop-shipped directly to your house, but that just complicates the inevitable return issue. Note: Union does rent some equipment, but I have never rented from them. This is the only Angie's List category that I could find that was relevant to farm equipment.

The sales manager Craig Dehrer (sp?) did a great job for us. He patiently answered my questions on several phone calls. He helped us to decide on a specific model and did the paperwork for us to by that tractor, about $22,000. We were going to take advantage of Kubuta's zero percent financing. We flunked their credit check with Kubota's headquarters even though we have no debt at all, and even own our house free and clear. The sales manager told us, "You don't have a bad credit rating, but no credit rating." That's what he was told, and believe him truthful. This was odd, because for years we have charged between $1,500 and $3,000 per month on a credit card and paid off the balance. Kubota said that didn't count. Later, I went online and found our credit rating put us in the top 3% in the U.S.A. Union Farm Equipment had even called Kubota finance to try to appeal to them on our behalf, no luck. A couple weeks later we got a letter from Kubota finance saying that they flunked us because we had carried an unpaid balance of $8,000 on an account for six months. Back online, I found a credit report to be in error--showing exactly what they said. However, if the loan officer would have looked down about one inch he would have seen solid green indicating full payment for every month in question. Obviously, he didn't--even though Union Farm Equipment had called him. And so while we rate Craig first rate, the entire experience was a wasted day and embarasing. Then our neighbor sent us to John Deere. Previously we'd thought we could not afford one, but found that the same size tractor with same implements was within a hundred bucks of the Kubota. The features are so far beyond the Kubota that I am now very thankful to God that we were turned down. Just the "drive over" and "auto-connect" mower deck feature alone would be worth the difference, were it not for the other benefits like made in U.S.A. (except for the engine), full suspension seat, plate steel (not tubular) backhoe, quick mount loader with no silly "landing gear", etc.