Ky hills
Well-known member
For years, we had a local equipment rental business that’s sold Stihl equipment and offered reasonably priced and prompt service on the Stihl products they sold.
I’d been noticing that Rural King about a 1/4 of a mile from them had been having Stihl products for sale too.
We had a huge tree come down between us and a neighbor. Like us the neighbor also has a smaller Stihl saw and we left our bigger one with him in between both of us using it on the tree. There came a point where it wouldn’t start for him and I couldn’t get it started either.
Wife was going into town the next morning so she ran it by the local dealer.
She said she was surprised by seeing a bunch of empty shelves when she walked in. They told her that they were out of the Stihl business as the company had pulled their products from them in favor of Rural King.
So that was disappointing to say the least. Rural King has a service dept but a retired man only is in there 2 days a week, and wait time was at least 2 weeks out and there was a $40 charge if they took it in and you decide to take it elsewhere before they get to it.
So we later go to a tractor dealership in an adjoining county that also handles Stihl products. They aren’t much more impressive as they say a week out and a sizable hourly rate.
So we go into the dealership and two men behind the counter don’t even look up to acknowledge us there. Another counter for their other tractor brand has a young man behind the counter waiting on another customer. So we fall in line and wait our turn. After 10 minutes of the customer and worker chit chatting small talk it’s finally our turn. We are told to go around back to the service dept. Back there they are about as visibly happy to see us as a dog is to have fleas. Said they’d take care of it, might be a week if they had to order parts.
We’re halfway to a week and no word yet.
I get that Stihl went where they thought they’d sell more, but the convenience and service for the customers is going to be a lot worse.
I’d been noticing that Rural King about a 1/4 of a mile from them had been having Stihl products for sale too.
We had a huge tree come down between us and a neighbor. Like us the neighbor also has a smaller Stihl saw and we left our bigger one with him in between both of us using it on the tree. There came a point where it wouldn’t start for him and I couldn’t get it started either.
Wife was going into town the next morning so she ran it by the local dealer.
She said she was surprised by seeing a bunch of empty shelves when she walked in. They told her that they were out of the Stihl business as the company had pulled their products from them in favor of Rural King.
So that was disappointing to say the least. Rural King has a service dept but a retired man only is in there 2 days a week, and wait time was at least 2 weeks out and there was a $40 charge if they took it in and you decide to take it elsewhere before they get to it.
So we later go to a tractor dealership in an adjoining county that also handles Stihl products. They aren’t much more impressive as they say a week out and a sizable hourly rate.
So we go into the dealership and two men behind the counter don’t even look up to acknowledge us there. Another counter for their other tractor brand has a young man behind the counter waiting on another customer. So we fall in line and wait our turn. After 10 minutes of the customer and worker chit chatting small talk it’s finally our turn. We are told to go around back to the service dept. Back there they are about as visibly happy to see us as a dog is to have fleas. Said they’d take care of it, might be a week if they had to order parts.
We’re halfway to a week and no word yet.
I get that Stihl went where they thought they’d sell more, but the convenience and service for the customers is going to be a lot worse.
