In our last episode we took a look at how the full line manufacturers performed in the North American Equipment Dealers Association’s annual Dealer-Manufacturer Relations survey. This time we are going to take a closer look at how some of the shortlines performed. 

Linamar owns four of the shortlines rated by dealers — Bourgault, Salford, Highline and MacDon, and all of them showed improvement in their scores over last year. 

Dealers’ ratings for Bourgault were up in 11 categories, and the manufacturer had the highest average mean score of all the shortlines at 6.22 on a scale of 1 to 7. It also nabbed the highest score in 9 of the 12 categories — Overall Satisfaction, Product Availability, Product Quality, Product Technical Support, Parts Availability, Parts Quality, Communication with Management, Marketing & Advertising Support and Manufacturers Response to Dealer Needs/Concerns

Highline Manufacturing saw improvement in 7 of the categories, with its largest improvement coming in Marketing & Advertising Support. It had a strong average mean score of 5.71. 

MacDon improved in all categories over 2024 and its largest improvement was in Product Availability. MacDon’s average mean score of 5.46 was up 8.32% over last year. 

To be included in the report, manufacturers must receive enough dealers rating them. This year Salford was included for the first time. Its scores ranged from 4.72 to 6.62, with its highest rating being Parts Quality. 

We will have a full analysis and breakdown of the shortline and tractor manufacturers in the September Shortline Edition of Farm Equipment. 

Watch the full version of this episode of On The Record