Another Cat Dealer Says Fuck It

[Jimmy Snacks]

From Facebook

Moorhouse Motorsports

Dreams aren’t always what they make themselves out to be. From a young age it had been my dream to own an Arctic Cat dealership. My dad would take me to the local dealer and I’d be in awe; new snowmobiles, the smell of two-stroke, walking around the shop area. Dreaming one day I’d have this, it would be great. 2017, I finally own a shop of my own. 2020, the local dealer contacts me and says they are closing, give this rep a call. Paperwork signed; I can officially say I am an Arctic Cat dealer. Butterflies and rainbows! Negative. It’s all downhill from here. Non-existent dealer support. Sitting on inventory that won’t sell, paying interest and fees and selling at a loss over and over and over… Very small or no margins at all. Being told we need to charge fees to make money. Yes, we were told to charge made up fees to make money. Talking to other dealers who all say if they didn’t sell other brands they wouldn’t be in business… Being a dealer for a company that doesn’t market themselves let alone market at all. “The dealer should market our brand for us”. A company that has not changed their off-road product in three years, is laughed at by their competitors, and says they won’t be making 2025s. A company who is always playing catch up with their products… We were a top 5 selling spring order dealer, not good enough. We refuse to do preseason parts orders. We refuse to stock inventory units. We refuse to charge make-believe fees. We refuse to use their flooring. We tried to compromise and stick through the fall for snow deliveries, for our customers, nope. Didn’t even get a response. The hand has been dealt and we lost. We gave it a run, but the dream was just that, a fairy tale fantasy. From the outside it looked great, once on the inside, it’s shit. Back to reality. We are a business and need to do what’s best for us. We are officially parting ways with Arctic Cat. We are still here. It is business as usual. Boats, snowmobiles, ATVs, service, parts; we will still do it all. We will continue to fly the black flag and push forward our way... -HMFIC

[Crnr2Crnr]

@ZR6000RR @krom @Not greg b etc

 

[ActionfigureJoe]

Sounds like artic cat is gasping for financial air. 

[krom]

They've been shipping MY 23 atv's and begging dealers to take more.

[dz246]

As soon as Textron bought them it was only a matter of time before they turned to shit.

[dz246]

My local Cat dealer only sells lawn mowers now. 

[racinfarmer]

10 minutes ago, krom said:

They've been shipping MY 23 atv's and begging dealers to take more.

I had a 2015 700 XT or whatever the first year of that platform is.

It was a perfectly fine machine, really quite nice, especially for under $5k.  

The Sportsman 850 that replaces it makes it feel ancient.  

The Prowler Pro.  Again, fine machine.

But it is behind the competition.

It is a shame.  Potential, but cost cutting has probably cost them the dirt business.

[krom]

1 minute ago, racinfarmer said:

I had a 2015 700 XT or whatever the first year of that platform is.

It was a perfectly fine machine, really quite nice, especially for under $5k.  

The Sportsman 850 that replaces it makes it feel ancient.  

The Prowler Pro.  Again, fine machine.

But it is behind the competition.

It is a shame.  Potential, but cost cutting has probably cost them the dirt business.

Textron fired most the engineering / r&d staff, gutted the line up, don't even have a model to compete in any of the segments experiencing growth..
 

Supposedly a couple new engines are on the way, but haven't heard anything in a few years

[Vtblizzard800]

29 minutes ago, krom said:

Textron fired most the engineering / r&d staff, gutted the line up, don't even have a model to compete in any of the segments experiencing growth..
 

Supposedly a couple new engines are on the way, but haven't heard anything in a few years

If the engineering/ r&d were worth keeping why was cat going down the tubes. The people that were running cat are the ones that killed them before textron took over. Textron hasn't helped but cat was already dead.

[racinfarmer]

33 minutes ago, krom said:

Textron fired most the engineering / r&d staff, gutted the line up, don't even have a model to compete in any of the segments experiencing growth..
 

Supposedly a couple new engines are on the way, but haven't heard anything in a few years

With all the money they saved on grease zerks on the Prowler, they should have been able to keep Engineering fully staffed for years.

[Not greg b]

23 minutes ago, Vtblizzard800 said:

If the engineering/ r&d were worth keeping why was cat going down the tubes. The people that were running cat are the ones that killed them before textron took over. Textron hasn't helped but cat was already dead.

What killed cat was the 2015 snowmobile order program to maintain being dealer. 2014 was the best snow years in a long time so pretty much everyone sold out. The requirement for stock was like double of what you sold the previous year. When the 2015 season hit it was a low snow dud of year and dealers had way more inventory than they do now at the end of the season. The other problem they had doing this to the dealers is they maxed out a lot of the dealer’s line of credit available for arctic cat to use so arctic cat couldn’t sell anything to most of their dealers. This is when they started burning out their cash pile and textron came and bought them out for cheap. You can see this if you go back and look at the arctic cat stock history. 

Edited September 20 by Not greg b

[Deephaven]

Didn't help that by 2015 the pro cross felt really old compared to the other brands as well.

[Doug]

3 hours ago, dz246 said:

As soon as Textron bought them it was only a matter of time before they turned to shit.

Textron did the same thing when they bought Polaris.  The best thing that happened to Polaris is textron sold them.

[Kivalo]

My Cat dealer, when I was riding a Cat, lost its dealership about a year ago. Seems like Cat is actively trying to shrink.

[Not greg b]

17 minutes ago, Kivalo said:

My Cat dealer, when I was riding a Cat, lost its dealership about a year ago. Seems like Cat is actively trying to shrink.

They didn’t loose their dealership they told textron to get fucked 

[Not greg b]

2 hours ago, Deephaven said:

Didn't help that by 2015 the pro cross felt really old compared to the other brands as well.

With the life cycles of the industry the procross should have been phased out after 2016. The stupid dealer program and the Yamaha contract killed cat. The procross is a garbage can of chassis that was designed to house way to many engines which it did. They should have made a mass marketed sled based off the sno pro500 chassis as the 800ho would fit in that chassis with some minor work. Now we have the catalyst and if you have spent any time on both sleds the catalyst screams a modern version of the sno pro race chassis. It has all the fun factor and characteristics of the snopro and a lot of the faults were worked out of it. When I picked up my catalyst I swung by C2c house to compare it to his little kid 500. You sit lower on the sp but the lines of sight, the shortness on the sled are very similar. Riding a catalyst it behaves way more like the sp than a procross. When getting into the big differences from a sp to the catalyst you are up higher and your legs aren’t mashed into the shitty fitting panels as they moved at all forward on the catalyst. 

Edited September 20 by Not greg b

[Kivalo]

2 hours ago, Not greg b said:

They didn’t loose their dealership they told textron to get fucked 

Yes, I read that. 

[Voodoo]

 

The cost of the machine to build and the gamble on it selling, makes it an industry few make money at.

Covid stupidity, inflation and interest rates have backed up inventory in many industries. 

Look at RV and car lots. Bursting at the seams with overpriced inventory.

Bad snow year after bad snow year have amplified the problem.

My closest Ski doo dealer is now 60 miles away. There used one 5 miles away and another 15.

BRP wants someone local to build a fancy facility and fill it with product.

They will be looking for that chump a long time, and we will suffer as consumers.

The future may be presales only and short production runs.

 

Edited September 20 by Voodoo

[Crnr2Crnr]

6 hours ago, Not greg b said:

With the life cycles of the industry the procross should have been phased out after 2016. The stupid dealer program and the Yamaha contract killed cat. The procross is a garbage can of chassis that was designed to house way to many engines which it did. They should have made a mass marketed sled based off the sno pro500 chassis as the 800ho would fit in that chassis with some minor work. Now we have the catalyst and if you have spent any time on both sleds the catalyst screams a modern version of the sno pro race chassis. It has all the fun factor and characteristics of the snopro and a lot of the faults were worked out of it. When I picked up my catalyst I swung by C2c house to compare it to his little kid 500. You sit lower on the sp but the lines of sight, the shortness on the sled are very similar. Riding a catalyst it behaves way more like the sp than a procross. When getting into the big differences from a sp to the catalyst you are up higher and your legs aren’t mashed into the shitty fitting panels as they moved at all forward on the catalyst. 

yes... they released something for 2024 that was just slightly more ergonomic than their own 2008 race chassis.

[Mainecat]

They need to go back to the distributor business model. Dealers can pick of sleds from their regional distributors as they sell them and keep a few popular models on their floors for customers to see.

You know like back in the 70’s and 80’s.

[Zambroski]

5 minutes ago, Mainecat said:

They need to go back to the distributor business model. Dealers can pick of sleds from their regional distributors as they sell them and keep a few popular models on their floors for customers to see.

You know like back in the 70’s and 80’s.

"TheY nEEd TO Go BaCK to HoW it Was WheN i Was In MY FOrties!!!!!!!"

 

[Mainecat]

1 minute ago, Zambroski said:

"TheY nEEd TO Go BaCK to HoW it Was WheN i Was In MY FOrties!!!!!!!"

 

Asshole non topic reply noted.

Edited September 20 by Mainecat

[Zambroski]

2 minutes ago, Mainecat said:

Asshole non topic reply noted.

I've got your obituary already printed out.  It's going to be awesome!!!

[Mainecat]

15 minutes ago, Zambroski said:

I've got your obituary already printed out.  It's going to be awesome!!!

Is that a threat Twinkie?

 

[Zambroski]

35 minutes ago, Mainecat said:

Is that a threat Twinkie?

 

What is a "threat twinkie"?

I'm simply saying I'm going to do you a solid by paying your local papers to publish your obituary.  It's subtle (genius) in nature.  It goes into some detail on all your accomplishments in life.