For those of you who have been on Case forums for at least five years, should be aware of Ed Beudro's site known as http://www.casegardentractors.com/. You should also be aware that a year or so ago, Ed decided to close his on-line parts business without giving any reasons. However, his old site still remains. To a degree, a void was created in the parts world for some people. I have nothing against Ed but he was notorious for not communicating with his customers in a timely fashion. If you ordered a part that Ed had in stock, it was shipped very quickly. If you ordered a part that Ed did not have in stock or you ordered a list of parts and Ed did not have one or two of them, that's where the problem arose. The customer often did not get told that the part was back-ordered and was left hanging to wonder if he was ever going to get his part/s.
OK.....that was then. And I only bring that up because it is relevant to the following. It is my belief that the site shown below is owned by Bob Myer's, a well-respected Case/Ingersoll dealer and a former contributor to the Yahoo CCI forum. Bob is a member of this forum too (myerslawnandgarden). When Ed shut down, there was considerable discussion on the Yahoo CCI site about someone stepping up and either buying Ed's existing site or starting their own on-line business. As I recall, Bob made an announcement at that time, he would do just that. Other dealers COULD have done this and one in particular did talk about doing so but backed off months later for his own...very understandable reasons. Starting up a site like this is a MASSIVE undertaking, as well as a long-term commitment because essentially you are open 24/7/365.
The new site is scheduled to open May 1, 2011 which is just a couple weeks from now. In other words, the writing was on the wall for this to be a topic anyway. Brian Hildreth is currently our resident Ingersoll dealer and he enjoys an excellent reputation for customer service on our site, as well as Yahoo and MTF. Aside from Brian, we also have Tom Hanson, another well-respected Ingersoll dealer that is a member here but Tom has apparently cut down his forum activities to just the Yahoo forum. One of the bones of contention between the Ed Beaudro and other Ingersoll dealers was two-fold. Unlike most dealers, Ed did not sell anything but parts. He had no showroom of any kind and never sold a tractor or implement to the best of my knowledge.
At one point, Ed did participate in discussions about tractor problems but then stopped......likely because of time constraints with his growing on-line business. Many site members felt that other members should support Tom Hanson and Brian Hildreth because they supported the forum with information on a regular basis. That seems like a reasonable stance, does it not? But coins have two sides and so does this discussion. While I consider Tom and Brian to be friends of mine and agree that members should support them, no one can deny that Ed's site brought something to the mix that I feel was very important.
Eastman/Ingersoll has been a massive disappointment to me and to many other people and I have been quite vocal about this every since they launched their so-called new and improved website. By and large, it is the worst piece of shit to be found anywhere on the internet when it comes lawn and garden tractor manufacturer's websites. If you disagree, then you better include a URL to a worse site in your reply. For some reason that totally escapes me is that it is not possible to go on-line and find a single MSRP for any product that leaves the Eastman plant. Ed's old site posted parts prices front and center. I know that our two resident dealers are honest but I also know that there are dealers out there that charge 10 to 20 percent more than the MRSP that the old Ingersoll company had. Ed's site helped owners to figure out whether they were getting screwed by other dealers and I welcome that happening again because it is my belief that Bob Myer's won't charge prices greater than MSRP. The site shown below has not been populated with product so far but as May gets closer, I expect that to change very rapidly. Anyway.... I just thought you might want to know about this.
http://casegardentractorparts.com/
OK.....that was then. And I only bring that up because it is relevant to the following. It is my belief that the site shown below is owned by Bob Myer's, a well-respected Case/Ingersoll dealer and a former contributor to the Yahoo CCI forum. Bob is a member of this forum too (myerslawnandgarden). When Ed shut down, there was considerable discussion on the Yahoo CCI site about someone stepping up and either buying Ed's existing site or starting their own on-line business. As I recall, Bob made an announcement at that time, he would do just that. Other dealers COULD have done this and one in particular did talk about doing so but backed off months later for his own...very understandable reasons. Starting up a site like this is a MASSIVE undertaking, as well as a long-term commitment because essentially you are open 24/7/365.
The new site is scheduled to open May 1, 2011 which is just a couple weeks from now. In other words, the writing was on the wall for this to be a topic anyway. Brian Hildreth is currently our resident Ingersoll dealer and he enjoys an excellent reputation for customer service on our site, as well as Yahoo and MTF. Aside from Brian, we also have Tom Hanson, another well-respected Ingersoll dealer that is a member here but Tom has apparently cut down his forum activities to just the Yahoo forum. One of the bones of contention between the Ed Beaudro and other Ingersoll dealers was two-fold. Unlike most dealers, Ed did not sell anything but parts. He had no showroom of any kind and never sold a tractor or implement to the best of my knowledge.
At one point, Ed did participate in discussions about tractor problems but then stopped......likely because of time constraints with his growing on-line business. Many site members felt that other members should support Tom Hanson and Brian Hildreth because they supported the forum with information on a regular basis. That seems like a reasonable stance, does it not? But coins have two sides and so does this discussion. While I consider Tom and Brian to be friends of mine and agree that members should support them, no one can deny that Ed's site brought something to the mix that I feel was very important.
Eastman/Ingersoll has been a massive disappointment to me and to many other people and I have been quite vocal about this every since they launched their so-called new and improved website. By and large, it is the worst piece of shit to be found anywhere on the internet when it comes lawn and garden tractor manufacturer's websites. If you disagree, then you better include a URL to a worse site in your reply. For some reason that totally escapes me is that it is not possible to go on-line and find a single MSRP for any product that leaves the Eastman plant. Ed's old site posted parts prices front and center. I know that our two resident dealers are honest but I also know that there are dealers out there that charge 10 to 20 percent more than the MRSP that the old Ingersoll company had. Ed's site helped owners to figure out whether they were getting screwed by other dealers and I welcome that happening again because it is my belief that Bob Myer's won't charge prices greater than MSRP. The site shown below has not been populated with product so far but as May gets closer, I expect that to change very rapidly. Anyway.... I just thought you might want to know about this.
http://casegardentractorparts.com/
