Tilton Equipment no longer Distributing Jonsered Equipment

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spike60 said:
For a dealer that already has Husky, Jonsered would primarily be attractive in areas where the brand has, (or at least had), a decent following. NY, PA and New England along with the upper midwest would be my first thought. Not sure how well known the brand is in your area.
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I do not know if Jonsered would have enough of a following anymore around here. I was told that the last dealers dropped the brand because of Tiltons and issues with reps., but that is only one side. Those dealers only carried saws and never the full line.

It will be interesting as it has been long enough now that the commercial cutters have mostly switched to Stihl(2186 chased them away), Echo and Husqvarna if they are still cutting. Hardly even hear the name Jonsered anymore.
 
spike60 said:
For a dealer that already has Husky, Jonsered would primarily be attractive in areas where the brand has, (or at least had), a decent following. NY, PA and New England along with the upper midwest would be my first thought. Not sure how well known the brand is in your area.
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To me, a dealer that sells Husqvarna and Jonsered would be like having an Oldsmobile/Buick dealer - too similar. Although, it would be nice if a Husky or Jonsered dealer could service both brands (like a GM Goodwrench mechanic).

If a Husqvarna dealer carried a second line, it would make more sense if they were different (Stihl, Dolmar, Echo, etc.) to offer an option, or perhaps 'Pro'/consumer lines (e.g. Husqvarna/Poulan, etc.).

JMHO

Philbert
 
Justsaws said:
I do not know if Jonsered would have enough of a following anymore around here. I was told that the last dealers dropped the brand because of Tiltons and issues with reps., but that is only one side. Those dealers only carried saws and never the full line.

It will be interesting as it has been long enough now that the commercial cutters have mostly switched to Stihl (2186 chased them away), Echo and Husqvarna if they are still cutting. Hardly even hear the name Jonsered anymore.
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Why did the 2186 chase them away? IIRC you posted "the terrible 2186" or something similar in an earlier post here. What was so bad about the 2186? The 385XP was a good saw (and a 2186 is a 385XP with different 'clothes' unless I'm mistaken), as are the newer 390XP and 2188.
 
Philbert said:
To me, a dealer that sells Husqvarna and Jonsered would be like having an Oldsmobile/Buick dealer - too similar. Although, it would be nice if a Husky or Jonsered dealer could service both brands (like a GM Goodwrench mechanic).

If a Husqvarna dealer carried a second line, it would make more sense if they were different (Stihl, Dolmar, Echo, etc.) to offer an option, or perhaps 'Pro'/consumer lines (e.g. Husqvarna/Poulan, etc.).

JMHO

Philbert
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jred dealer here carries echo
 
A lot of the early 385s had pto bearing problems. I would say that's what he is referring to.
 
It’s interesting to sit and read through this thread. We where a Jonsered Dealer (as well as Husky, and McCulloch) at the time of the Elux Buy Out of JRed. Initially it wasnt that big of a deal, but once Tiltons took over, it went down hill fast. We continued to offer Jred but we had an extremely hard time even bringing saws in to stock the shelves. We started Pushing McCulloch Titan as our other option at that time (second to Husky, which had previously been 2nd to Jred in sales for us- in ID) but then McCulloch folded their Titan line and we were left with Husky. For us, we just sold Husky from there until we could no longer compete with Lowes and Home Depot selling the same "brand" for less, we just couldn’t convince the consumer that they were buying a lesser product, eventually we locked the doors and walked away (after we were told that we WOULD warranty the equipment being sold by the other box stores, it killed us :angry: ) Now Idaho, so far as I know, has only one Jred dealer that actually stocks saws and its 200 miles from me. I currently have four Jreds (52, 90, 2077, 450) and 2 huskys (2100CD, Rancher 460) that I use (not to mention the dozen or so muscle saws in my collection) when the last Husky was purchased (as a gift by my wife, I had planned on a XP: she had good intentions :bang:)I had wanted a Jred, but with no dealer support I shopped for a husky... I've been happy, but it’s not red! I would hope with the changes that are coming I would see a return of Jred to the area, with the hope that I could add a new modern Jred into the fleet. Currently my uncle runs a Stihl, it’s not a bad saw... but it’s a stihl, slow and steady, but even he wishes it was a Jred. Stihl is a joke now, with every John Deere dealer selling them in our parts it is killing the "real dealers" not to mention now the local chain of farm stores has them (incidentally they also now are a FULL line Husky dealer :angry:). I would believe around here if Jred had an actual functioning distribution source that we would see a resurgence of Jred through the local saw shops as it would give them a viable "pro" saw that could not otherwise be bought at a local box store.
 
"We where a Jonsered Dealer (as well as Husky, and McCulloch) at the time of the Elux Buy Out of JRed. Initially it wasnt that big of a deal, but once Tiltons took over..."

Jonsered dealers in Idaho would have been buying through a well known distributor in Oregon until Husky made the distribution change and took it direct in the mid-90s. Is that right?
 
Heard yesterday that a distributor in Jersey would be handling Jonsered. Bummer.:(:(:(
Cant for the life of me remember which one though. Maybe the coffee will help.

Oops, didn't see Bob's earier announcement.
 
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cambl said:
Jonsered dealers in Idaho would have been buying through a well known distributor in Oregon until Husky made the distribution change and took it direct in the mid-90s. Is that right?
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Are you talking Husky or Jonsered? Prior to the Buyout that was the case and for some time after we continued to have our choice of distributer for new saws (until we gave up on trying to deal with any one for Jred, around 93), the issue that arose was Tiltons had more weight and was becoming the replacement parts source (after all they had been the original importer since the late sixties or early 70s and that weight carried with Elux) and the other distributor option just new saws and stocking less parts so we were pushed in Tiltons direction, when we needed a new saw we could get it from the Oregon distributor but In the end it came down to the difficulty with getting anyone to work with us, either option wanted volume (so they could keep Elux content), and we sold 2-3 saws a month in the winter and around 10 total (Husky, McCulloch, Jred) in the summer months, we just couldn't meet the mass numbers they wanted per order at that time. I have a friend who still owns a shop, he ran into a similar issue with B&S when they closed down the SLC distributor and moved to a larger "More Centralized" distribution... it kills him now, the cost of parts and time. In the end i Just think it is so sad that in an effort to make more money, Elux undercut their dealer net work and unwittingly destroyed a large portion of their individual brand name. Try selling a saw when the customer can go and buy the "same" brand at the box store, hard unless you have a pro shopping for a pro saw. We sold Dixon ZTR for almost 20 years, quite literally we could not keep them in stock, Husky bought them, painted some dixon models orange and some husky models blue, now the Dixon dealer that replaced us is no more, he couldn't compete with the box store selling the same unit for 800 less. It's sad market for the consumer in our area because now for warranty work, all Husky products have to be shipped out as there is only one warranty dealer in the area and he will understandably only work on units he sales. How he pulls it off, I do not know, we sure tried and had our hands slapped.
 
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SawTroll said:
Maybe, but wasn't that issue fixed by the time the 2186 came out?
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I don't know for sure. I know I have a husky dealer friend and a jonsered/dolmar dealer and both didn't really like the 385 and 2186. Said they wouldn't stay running long enough to make money. The jonsered dealer has a shop at his house and cuts logs 5 days a week. He loved the 2171s but didn't like the bigger brother. The husky dealer couldn't keep a couple tree service guys in a running 385/390 for more than a month. He said he replaced about 7 cranks out of 10 385/390s that 2 tree service guys bought. They all ended up with 394/5s and forgot about the 385/390.
 
SawTroll said:
Maybe, but wasn't that issue fixed by the time the 2186 came out?
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No, the only 2186 parts that I have are the other halves of the cases, did not keep the bad cranks. Then there was also the overall lack of umpf, it was a "lame duck" and a fragile one at that compairitively speaking. It was a hard sell, the last I knew only two cutters stayed with the 2186s, maybe 3 saws in total, the 2095s had a much much much larger fan base. Clearly the 2095s had been around much longer and positve word of mouth advertising played a huge part, just as negative word of mouth advertising hurt the 2186. Hardly ever see any 385/390 Husqvarnas, still see way, way, way more 395s. The last local 2186 that I knew of was sold at a loss to clear inventory.

When the 2186s fell flat a couple of dealers started selling the less expensive and more durable 80cc Efco, still a couple of those in use.

Best thing that happened to the local sales of Stihl 660s was the introduction of the 2186.

I wanted to add that part of the problem was also customer expectation and perception. Many of these people were expecting to run a 3/8x8x20-24" setup in the same fashion that they could with the 2095s. That was simply not possible with a 2186, it could do it but it did not do it well. Old habits are hard to change and nobody is happy when they have to pay to change them. The 660s were not the replacemnt because of the power but because of the durabilty, even more so with the Efcos, plus the price. The 660s were more expensive but they appearently felt it was the better value in the long run.

Do not have any idea how the new plan for Jonsered will work around here, it will be interesting to see if anyone picks it up beyond TSC.
 
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mdavlee said:
The jonsered dealer has a shop at his house and cuts logs 5 days a week.
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And that's why the Jonsered brand has lost share the past 20 years. He's probably a decent guy and all, but that's not the issue. A real dealer isn't closed all week.

This type of "shop" became the rule rather than the exception, and a line is going nowhere but down with that approach. I never understood why Tilton was content to let this happen. I think a lot of it was they just couldn't get out of their own way and offer competitive programs that compared favorably to other brands. Also, there's plenty of people who share the view of many who have posted here that Tilton could be very difficult to deal with. I got along with them, and I had a great rep, but a lot of times they left me shaking my head with the way they did things.
 
spike60 said:
And that's why the Jonsered brand has lost share the past 20 years. He's probably a decent guy and all, but that's not the issue. A real dealer isn't closed all week.

This type of "shop" became the rule rather than the exception, and a line is going nowhere but down with that approach. I never understood why Tilton was content to let this happen. I think a lot of it was they just couldn't get out of their own way and offer competitive programs that compared favorably to other brands. Also, there's plenty of people who share the view of many who have posted here that Tilton could be very difficult to deal with. I got along with them, and I had a great rep, but a lot of times they left me shaking my head with the way they did things.
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Well said, Bob. Probably why after 40+ years that the "mother ship" is floating in a different direction. Hopefully we can all stay afloat together!
 

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