Boria,
they have had it a long time, ever since I have been paying attention to Kubota they seemed to have 0% on most all tractors.
Now here is something to consider, like with a car dealership, you get $1500 cash back or 0% or something like that, some people DO not have great credit, some people are going to pay cash and so on, but all of this is simple math. Which way to go ?? take the cash back or zero % ?
lets take a new Bx-25D, the base price w/ 60" MMM and 3 point kit "Sells" for about $22,346. That was about the price that is was last year, maybe a little higher, typically a dealer will knock off 10-12% ......the actually cost to me was 19,998 and some change( filled my tires for free too), now I had to pay freakin 5% tax on that, and the cost of the ins too - ( i would have studied up more on this but didnt) cost came in under $22,000 - this boils down to the nice price of $367.60 a month for 60 months. However, you say dealer, I want to buy it with cash, mine said that he would knock off $750 more off. Now, I do not have $21,250 just laying around, so I would need to go the bank, no bank is going to loan money like that for a tractor, unless you have a long history with that bank, now maybe I take out a equity line against my house ( I have about that to do) I still have to pay a % higher than zero, even with great credit, equity line is still going to be 4% or better, plugging that in @ 60 months = $391.35!
Someone might say, I can take that % off my taxes every year with the IRS, maybe true, but I dont think it will be worth the effort! The downside of this is that my equity is now tied up for a good period of time, I have no room left to "buy" something else. Where the 0% locks me in for 5 years, seems like a long time, but it is at 0% and there is no reason to pay it off early!
Plus as someone old and wise told me a long time ago, money is worth less every year, so the 367 I pay in the future is worth a little less than the 367 I have in my hand right now!
Now does Kubota make money hand over fist? Sure they do! But unless you have the money in hand OR have someone to loan you money at a crazy rate approaching ZERO, the 0% works very well.
Sorry for the long rant, but it simple terms, anytime you can borrow someone else's money at 0%, even if you had to pay a little more, it is well worth it!
I used my Bx for about 3 hours yesterday, moved 2.5 tons of topsoil, dug up a stump on a side of hill that was a pure PITA and pushed up some fallen trees into a pile. 3 hours of pure heaven, and even after looking at the cost of using that girl per hour so far, pure happiness! My back doesnt hurt, my hands are not soar and my wife was happy( hell that was just a bonus) and I was outside on a rare #$%#$%#@@ nice day around here!!
My only regret is that I didnt buy the machine 5 years ago!
