Altorfer CAT - Cedar Rapids, IA — Local services in Cedar Rapids

I had a motor get a platinum kit here and it made it no more than 85k miles. Just happened to be 48 days past the one year warranty. This is a 2ws with a factory tune at 475. The problem with this overhaul was the head gasket and it washed the cylinders. They pressure checked the head for cracks and found none. They checked the ECM for low coolant and overheating found nothing. During that time they also found I had a broken ring. So we got a gold kit for it. This motor has unknown miles since its last overhaul. The reason this is important is because CAT has reusable guidelines, in these reusable guidelines they state that anything over 15,000 hours or 750,000 miles must get counter bores cut. The ECM has 1,450,000. Service manager (Bill Pierce) was so proud of this motor at this point he said it’s probably the first time it’s ever been overhauled. I thought that was neat, but who was he to say for sure? Although, his opinion quickly changed at the time of the second overhaul. With the Caterpillar guidelines saying anything over 750k or 15,000 hours must have counter bores cut, they however did not get counter bores cut on the first overhaul despite their understanding this motor had yet been overhauled but they did on the second 85k miles later. If they were so sure that protrusion was correct on the first overhaul then why in 85k miles do they feel that they should cut them now? Not only was I frustrated with the work that had been done, the service manager then told me “life’s not fair” and it’s “operator error” in a completely unprofessional manner and hung up the phone on me. They gave me 20% off parts and labor to make themselves feel better about robbing me. I will attach some pictures of CATS reusable guidelines and...

I have dealt with this dealer on ag tractors for 15 years. It has always been a struggle. Service has been slow and often cannot diagnosis the problem. Every trip fee, computer connection, spritz of brake cleaner is billed in addition to labor rate including travel time to your farm. The final straw was an issue with my 755c this fall they continually failed to misdiagnosis. We have spent over $10,000 and months on repairs and still struggle to run a solid day. Billing is an absolute disaster with numerous errors. Watch your bill closely, there were items on there that were not even related to my account. Parts are outrageously high priced but that's probably true with any dealer. What really gets me is their parts drop fee to drop parts in their drop box that is already on their route. Most other dealers will deliver to my door for no extra cost. If you ever do try to get things straightened out be prepared to be on hold for hours. I'm done with altorfer cat. Hopefully zeigler will be better...

Every time we use them, they end up billing overtime or out of shop rates when I deliver the equipment to them myself. They just decide to work on it on the weekend on their own and bill me the OT when I did not request it to be worked on over the weekend. If I needed it done fast or asked to rush I would totally understand but they bill me higher rates for reason.

We rented equipment for a month and asked to extend the rental pro-rated and when we got the bill they absolutely did not do that. $3000 for a month, we added two weeks and they billed us $2,500.

Every time we use Altorfer and we try to discuss or ask questions about the billing that does not match the service requested, we are met with an unpleasant staff.

It is unfortunate that they essentially are the only option for CAT equipment repairs in the Cedar...