YNM Tractors

There seems to be a lot of confusion (and rightly so) over the new 'YNM' brand tractors that recently popped up. This article was published by request to help clarify what is going on.

The YNM brand came about in early 2013 in a response to Yanmar's legal roundup of gray market dealers in late 2012. The Cliffs-Notes version of what went down- Essentially Yanmar filed lawsuits with many of the 'refurbished' tractor dealers stating that those dealers were misrepresenting the tractors, violating Yanmar's trademark, and giving Yanmar a bad name. Many of these dealers were setting the tractors' hour meters back to zero, marketing the tractors as being as much as 35 years newer than they actually were, and saying (or very heavily implying) that the Yanmar factory was involved in the 'reconditioning' process.

An agreement was made between the dealers and Yanmar that essentially let the refurbishers continue to sell their tractors in the USA but they had to remove the Yanmar name and logo from the tractors. This was accomplished by using a new "YNM" decal. It also appears that, in the process, many or most (maybe all) of the dealers have also stopped advertising their tractors as 'new' and 'zero hours'.

So are YNM tractors a good buy? Well... YNM tractors are really Just Yanmars with a new sticker. But, just like any used piece of equipment or automobile, you need to check the tractor out carefully before buying and only buy from a reputable dealer that has an established history of good service after the sale. Since the refurbishing process can hide a lot of problems and since any work that was performed is only as good as the mechanic that did the work- it is especially important to find a dealer that will stand behind their product.

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