So I've heard the term "gray market" get tossed around from time to time. What exactly is a gray market machine? What sets them apart from a normal machine?
A gray market machine is one brought into and sold in a country that it was not specifically manufactured for. Back in the early to mid 1980's a few companies started to source used machinery from Asia in general and Japan specifically. There was apparently a time limit that machines like excavators were allowed to operate and as those machine hit that time limit they were surplussed and parked. The currency exchange rate and cost of shipping was such that those machines could be purchased and shipped to the United States or Canada and sold for many thousands of dollars less than machines manufactured specifically for these countries. The market started to fall apart in the mid 2000 when the air pollution regulations started kicking in and some manufacturers started to not support the grays. There were safety issues on the gray market ag tractors that went along with the pollution issues on the engines. Currency exchange rates got closer and it wasn't particularly profitable to bring them in anymore. There are still some curb stone dealers bringing them in but for the most part those machines are rentals for a year of two to get the prices down.
Machines that were not supposed to be in the country. They either came in by shady importers or auction sites. The down side, no product support from mfgs. They dont have the right parts catalog, or out of serial range. Service literature is near impossibly to get. Now, its worse yet, with emissions and other add ons. Steer clear of grey machines. Regardless of how well they work at the time, you may not be able to repair down the road, let alone perform routine maintenance.
In the case of mine, a Kubota L2202 farm (rice paddy) tractor, it was imported over here, in a shipping container, with as many others as they could fit in said container. Common things different in gray mkt tractors are backwards operating throttle linkage, non standard PTO's and NO safety switches. I found out over at the Kubota forum, that it is from a short lived partnership between Kubota (motor) and Kiote, in the early 80's, that ended in several lawsuits... I have a good running engine and 16 speed gear tranny, on rust-bucket sheet metal. Only part I have put in it was a locking twist throttle cable ($15), and a couple filters. Can get wix oil and fuel filters, but the hyd filter got stopped up, found that one, the hard way, by making an adapter and threading it to mpt, then took same to a tsc store, and going through almost every metric threaded filter they had, box by box. Its much smaller than the oem, but the gasket and thread don't leak, and it got it going... Gotta do some brace-up on the fenders and floorboards, this winter, but still worth the $1300 I have in it. Good enough to run a 4' bush hog over rough ground...
I'm not going to be in the market for any machines in the near future. Just remembered hearing the term used at a previous shop I worked at but never really got an explaination as to what it meant.
Grey market machines that I've delt with have all been imported legally. Hitachis, in Canada at least, are quite often Grey Market, if the cab has Chinese writing in it, then it's Grey Market. For the most part they're the same as North American sold machines but you do run into weird one off parts or sometimes complete components, engines or hydraulic pumps that don't match with the north american machines....that's where it can get very challenging as the guys above mentioned above. Acquiring the correct parts can be next to impossible. However, with today's global market it really isn't that difficult to deal with suppliers and bring parts over from Japan or China.
It used to be that gray market Komatsu excavators had different sized boom cylinders so unless you have a parts book for that machine you might have a problem sourcing new packing. Gray market Cat excavators have a different cab shell and you likely won't be able to get parts here for them. Hitachi used to be the best supplier of parts for gray market machines. Now that they are tied to John Deere in the US I think that is probably changing. Gray market Kobelco is now very hard to find parts or even information on. The Sumitomo line, Link-Belt and Case, is not supported at all if the machine comes into the US as a Sumitomo brand. There is a big variation on the mini excavators these days. Yanmar and others of lesser known names you should do some home work before purchasing. The swing boom machines didn't have much for electronics but the articulated booms can be a mess. They have a safety system incorporated with a digging depth system that uses potentiometers on the boom and stick that if they don't work properly the machine just stops. The issue can be bypassed in order to make the machine work but if someone gets hurt then you bypassed a safety system and committed a willful violation. I'm not against gray market machines as I made a lot of house payments over the years from fixing them. Everyone considering purchase of one needs to be aware that the low price might not be a good deal in the long run.