I buy OEM most times but I prefer to bypass the dealers as I am a repair shop myself. What happening is the manufactures are still buying out China, Mexico, Philippines, etc but are now holding up the buyers as they now trying force us to buy only from the dealers instead of distributors. By buying from a distributor gives us a little more profit margin to work with. Some the very aftermarket companies they are trying to force out of the market are American manufacturing companies here.
One thing I have notice lately is a lot less of the John Deere mowers are coming into the shop as users and owners are dumping the brand as they now starting to do to the Stihl brand too.
What crazy is that I took me 9 yrs to get into a couple distributors and they can't even provide all the parts I need. I kinda glad I am planning on retiring in 2025. I am a small shop as I only done 20K gross this year but apparently I am worrying the local dealers as I am growing in volume of work.
