I too just saw the video. Tried a quick search, found some info at tractor data but that's about it. Kinda intriguing with all the extras. Their website didn't give any pricing and no dealers near me.

 

Without a decent dealer network and ready access to parts and support it’s a no bueno for me.

 

They're rebranded Indian tractors made by a company called ITL.

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summittractors.com

 

It will be interesting to see how this goes. It's a pretty crowded field to enter, and imo, everyone has a pretty good product. The things that come standard are nice, but it's the dealer network and support system that will make or break them. I wish them luck because I'll be in the market for another tractor.

 

Not another rebranded tractor! Where will it end?

 

When people stop buying them.

 

I like it. If deere would actually offer premium features to go with their premium price there would be no competition.

 

If deere would actually offer premium features to go with their premium price there would be no competition.

It certainly wouldn't take much to accomplish that. Adding a mid 3rd function SCV and a pair of rear SCV's would make a huge difference in today's market.

 

Deere is Dum......They just Don't get it.

This is simple.........they will go down like Sears if they don't Up their Game.

Whats a couple hundred bucks to be Spectactular........pencil pushers are wrecking it.

 

If you use the numbers in the video. 340,000 tractors per year, 120,000 of them in the sub 25hp range. Figure $200 bucks in hardware x 120,000tractors = $24mil

Ya, I bet that goes over well in a board room. And that is just hardware, nevermind the margin loss calculation. I fight these battles everyday in my company with our product portfolio.

Summit has a good business plan, knowing JD won’t ever cannibalize their margins, or won’t until the point the competition is eating their lunch too much, and it will take a while for Summit to have an impact on JD’s sales & margin, if Summit stays in business that long. Summit’s business plan is probably to sell enough tractors to irritate a Kioti or Mahindra, who is more likely to compete for the same customer, in order to be bought out by them.

 

Looks like they'll be available at Atwoods Farm and Ranch stores in Aug. Lots of Atwoods stores in this neck of the woods. I watched the video. Lots of nice features and that sucker is heavy! 3400+ pounds with loader and RimGuard. That's 50% more than my 3025E.

I'm always for more competition in the marketplace. It tends to make other brands step up their game. Not gonna rush out and buy one, but more choices aren't a bad thing.

 

I'm always for more competition in the marketplace. It tends to make other brands step up their game. Not gonna rush out and buy one, but more choices aren't a bad thing.

Sadly what this usually does is make more expensive brands look for ways to cheapen their products to compete with countries where the production costs are pennies on the dollar as compared to domestic manufacturing.

 

While it looks interesting, I don’t see myself buying one. I don’t consider myself brand loyal, but the only small tractor brand other than Deere that I’d consider buying is Kubota.

 

Those standard features are going to sway a lot of buyers over to the Summit.
Some are front and rear hydraulics, drawbar, two mirrors, steps, filled tires and a 24.7 HP Mitsubishi engine. All of those are extra cost on the John Deere.

 

And doesn't it also come standard with a MSL? Oh, and let's not forget that they even included a horn. I wanted a horn on my 2032R, so I installed one while also installing rear work lights and 3rd function remote. One might think that for $30,000, Deere would have included a $10 horn, but the bean counters and pressure from the shareholders dictate otherwise.

That little Summit tractor looks really pretty nice. I wonder if it is aluminum or cast iron HST/gear case.

 

When I bought my loader, the standard deere loader wasn't even offered through the dealer. Base model was a mechanical self leveling bucket with a diverter valve and a 4-in-1 bucket.
It's probably cheaper to ship it here without them, but small grapples and similar attachments are rare as hens teeth and prohibitively expensive.

It does look very much like what is sold as a Solis, just in green and R14 tyres. Mirrors, fuel filler on the side, looks like a pretty close match. It probably is delivered on a pallet, they bolt on US made wheels with beet juice fitted and claim its Assembled in the US of A.

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Hi Hoyks
The reason the loader probably wasn't offered was the JD loader was crap it had an electro hydraulic unit on the side of the loader to comply with ADR and it didn't come with a 4 in 1 bucket. My local dealer strongly advised not to get the JD FEL and get the Burder loader, they offered with the 4 in 1 bucket as standard, I did and I am extremely happy with it. Regards John

 

Yea I seen that. Interesting but like others said dealer support would be a concern.

 

As said, a tough road to become established.
I cannot imagine buying a monkey brand, but if I were to there are many other established ones with some semblance of dealer support that would get my consideration before another newcomer to the market.

 

People gotta let go of their desire for Deere to be priced along side all of the lesser brands.
We buy Deere because it is the premium brand. The bargain seekers can have their choice from all of the monkey brands. Deere & Kobuta are wise to keep themselves separated from the rest. Reputation is also part of the value equation.
Maybe a good comparison would be Snap On vs Harbor Freight tools. Snap On does just fine without the customers that think they are overpriced.

 

We buy Deere because it is the premium brand.

Then many go cheap price shopping for all the implements and bash those that still stick with the premium brands.

 

Saw the video GoodWooksTractor posted. Definately interesting that's for sure. If the sales number they stated is correct 1/3 of tractors sold are in the 24ish HP range that's impressive and would be the market to get into to. Seems the "cheaper" tractors are avaialbe for less and come with more options than the larger brand tractors. Really not sure why the larger brand names don't make some of these options standard espeically as they become more popular. Seems the 3rd function and a rear port would be helpful to about half the people that buy tractors. Has to be way easier to add this function at the factory than have it installed after the fact.

 

Doug Rehor, “RK Tractor Guy” on this forum is co-owner of Summit. He was in Good Works’ video.

Hadn’t seen anyone make that connection yet in this thread.

Tim

 

Whether it's tractors, implements or accys, there is no wrong answer. That's why there are choices out there. I hope someone doesn't think my opinion and preference aught to be the same as everyone's. I am fully aware that my choices will certainly not be the best fit for someone else.

 

I'll all for different level of choices out there. Some people use their tractor and implements 7 days a week, others use them maybe once a month. Myself I use my tractor maybe once every other week or so. Just bought a new Sothern (Rebrand Titan) 5' rotary cutter for $1200. Do I expect the same quality and cut from say a Wood or Brush Hog cutter that cost double that, No, but I'll probably only use the cutter 3 times a year to mow some pastures so it will do the job I bought it for. If you expect to use stuff often and hard, don't buy cheap. Sometimes you get what you pay for but also sometime stuff is over inflated. It's best to look around and do some research before making purchases, I do it with just about anything I buy.

 

Good point and applies to all sorts of equipment. You can pay $8 or $10 thousand for a commercial grade zero turn mower, $5K for a pretty good residential mower, or maybe $3K for a mower that will be just fine for your suburban lot. That mower probably wouldn't last a month for a lot of commercial guys but you aren't cutting grass 60 hours a week and a commercial mower would be overkill. I have 6 acres roughly 3/4 of which get cut regularly (or not. I need more in a zero turn than the guy with a suburban lot. Maybe I could justify a commercial grade mower because I am hard on the one I have but I am getting buy with a pretty sturdy residential mower in the $5K range and thinking of getting a compact or subcompact tractor. I have a driveway to maintain, some woods/field that could use bushhogging, and something more than the small tiller I have would be nice to expand the garden.

One thing that perplexes me about buying one of those green or orange tractors is virtually everything is optional and extra. I mean really should you have to pay extra for a brush guard? Why isn't a third function hydraulic line standard these days? What's with an arm rest being a big leap up and why do you have a proprietary quick hitch that only works with your implements? I have $5K green garden tractor (an oversized lawn mower) and frankly I am not really impressed with JD. The mower deck cut well but it was the biggest pain in the lister to take off if you had to replace a belt or blades. I finally went out and bought a zero turn. I still use the Deere to haul a cart around but that is it. The mowing deck sits in a horse stall.

Needless to say as a consumer I like the Summit approach of including so much stuff as standard. I hope they get off the ground but it looks like a bad time for a launch and I'd be afraid to plunk down cash for a new line of tractor in a crowded market with a recession going on.

 

For me, it’s not worth wasting my time on startup brands. A friend of mine’s brother has a 10 acre farm that he grows vegetables for a farmers market. A few years ago he bought a Mahindra from the local RV dealership who decided to sell tractors too. He’d been looking at Deere, but thought I’ll just save some money and buy this instead. After a month he started having problems so he contacted the dealer who told him they weren’t really setup to service tractors. A couple weeks later the problem was getting worse and he called and said he was getting concerned about continuing to use it. They said to bring it in and they would see what they could do with it.

It took another two months to get somebody from Mahindra to verify it was a warranty fix and get it repaired. In the meantime he had no tractor on his farm and was losing valuable growing time and sales until he found one he could rent. The RV dealer didn’t have anything to help him out. He sold it the next season and by that time the RV dealer no longer carried them, but the used car lot across town did. He bought a Deere. My friend looked at Kubota and they gave him a price on both the BX and LX series. Then he went to my salesman at Deere for a price comparison. He bought his 3025E for less than the BX quote.

I won’t fault anybody for trying to save money, but sometimes those good deals turn out to be not such a good deal in the big picture.

 

One thing I'll give Summit, you can go on their website and readily download a Brochure, Specification sheet, Operator's Manual, Service Manual(s) and Spare Parts Manual all for free. I'm not aware of any other brands doing anything remotely similar.

 

I'm all for entrepreneurs and competition; having options is great. However, with something like a tractor I'll let someone else be the early adopter. I personally don't have the time or energy to gamble on unproven equipment, but others do, and 5-10 years from now guys like me will benefit from guys like them sorting the wheat from the chaff.

 

I see that they were smart enough to include a rear work light as standard equipment, too bad JD doesn't at least do that.

 

On the other hand, every single work light that came on my 3039R has been swapped out for LED, so they netted no value to me.

 

It should be pretty easy for any manufacturer to install LED lights from the factory. It’s not rocket surgery.

 

For them it is not as simple as installing LED bulbs. Especially if machine is also meant for any other than american market. These tractors are road legal and lights have to be also. Road legal halogen bulbs and housings are simple. For leds you usually need different housing. Or there are leds that mimic light pattern of halogen. But even putting those in makes the tractor not legal.
Thats also a reason why brush guard is not standard as that part is not road legal here in Europe.

 

This is a exciting for a multiple reasons……the first being that they claim they will have a 25hp cab tractor with AC! And the second is they are supposed to come out with a MMM….will it be a competitor to Deere’s auto deck connect?? I would love to see someone else come out with a form of the auto deck connect.

 

Personally, I'm for reliability and dealer support.
My dad got by for years with a 20 year old Ford that he got 4th hand and pretty sure it only had oil changes and a spraygun overhaul.
There was nothing flashy on it, the only electrics were the starter and headlights, but it started when you needed it to, was easy to service and get parts for.
Most of the tractors where I grew up were the same, 40hp MF, Fiat or Fords that had been pushed hard for years, all the lights and mirrors had long fallen or been ripped off, but the core tractor kept plodding along.

Subcompact and most compact tractors aren't sold to farms that you want to make a living off (not in the west anyway, if they are, you could count them on a blind butchers left hand), they are sold to home owners that want to play at being farmer (guilty as charged).
They want reliability, but aren't going to starve if it breaks down.
As its pretty much a discretionary purchase (Its a toy, you can justify it how you want), the main selling point on this segment is either a brand name or features.

As a new company trying to get into the game, you don't have 40+ years to build a name, so you have to go with features to differentiate yourself from everyone else and make it look like better value until you get a name. It worked with Japanese new cars in the 70's and 80's, Korean in the 90's and the Chinese are trying it now. Car turnover is a lot quicker than tractors though, so they will need to play the long game to get the name and reputation out there. In their favour is social media and youtube, so wait for a few small farm shows to get a new Summit tractor in the pole barn in the near future.

Good luck to them, hopefully they will support their product, sell good attachments and make the big companies have to sharpen their pencils to be more competitive and give us a better deal. Where I am there are too many 2nd hand chinese tractors that people bought cheap, but now can't get parts for, or even give away, as they are junk and no one wants them. As a result the main 4 dealers pretty much charge what they want as where else are you going to get a good tractor and dealer parts?

 

For me it really comes down to dealer network (for parts and service if needed) near me. Deere wins that battle all day long here. But I'd sure like to see a new upstart build the same thing near me too and succeed!