Blown & Repaired Head Gasket: Red Flag for Buyer?

[Suburban Plowboy]

Dude says he will give me the number of the guy in charge of the repair at the dealership so I can ask what they know.

 

[EddieWalker]

Most people only run their tractor 50 hours a year. Since it was under warrantee, it sounds like it was being used commercially to have so many hours on it in just a few years. I'm assuming the warrantee is 3 to five years.

If it was defective, I would think that defect would of been caught in just the first couple dozen hours.

I would look really close at the rest of the tractor for abuse and excessive wear. But in all honestly, I can't imagine the price being so good that I would take a chance on it. What's going to fail next?

 

[Suburban Plowboy]

The owner has a tree service, and the tractor has a Land Pride grapple. That's how he put in 800 hours. He does pretty much the same things I do with my little Kubota, but I put in about 25 hours a year.

The warranty is hard to pin down, which is another reason to talk to the dealer. TYM's site doesn't clearly state how long it runs. There is a commercial warranty, and there is a residential warranty, and TYM refuses to give a clear statement of the dividing line between commercial and residential.

You make a good point about defects.

The seller ended up buying a bigger Kubota because he had to keep renting tractors while he got the head gasket issue resolved. That speaks poorly of TYM and the dealer. On the other hand, the local Kubota people kept my tractor for several weeks when I needed to have the engine front cover replaced.

 

[Torvy]

Design or factory flaws tend to show up frequently on the same model. In this case, the same model engine. They aren't hand-made. A factory defect would affect many units.

That engine has a long history of reliability and no evidence of flaws in the head. That same engine is on 474, 4815, 4820, 5520, 494 and 574 models.

Occam's Razor...the simplest explanation is typically the right one. The guy abused the tractor (or he had an employee who did). People will always paint themselves in the best light possible. They want companies to pay for their own mistakes.

 

[Harry in Ky]

I see tractors nearly every day. Not as many as I once did, but more than enough to keep me occupied. During my many years as a dealership journey level mechanic I saw my share of engine problems. When they failed it was usually pretty obvious why. Granted, I freely admit that just looking at it I wouldn't know a Kukje motor from a Daedong from a Yanmar, but I hear and read about head and head gasket failures so frequently, I can't help thinking they CAN'T all be operator error. A good many, probably, but there has to more to it. Back when I was doing tractor engine overhauls the failures were usually self evident. The "worn out" ones may have run eight to fifteen hundred hours, so they deserved to be worn. Others were often abused in some way. Overheating was common enough, but would often result in what we called "pulled sleeves" where the pistons would overheat, expand too much and start grabbing the cylinder walls. The result (and the reason) was obvious. I don't recall any that just cracked heads or blew head gaskets, and certainly not within a few hundred hours. That sort of failure is all too common these days and I feel sorry for those who own these machines. It seems these tractor makers start up, stop, change names and partners every six weeks or so, and last years models become orphans next year with zero parts and product support. If that prospect doesn't bother you, then by all means, go for it.

I work on some newer machines but many are between twenty and fifty years old. I can't imagine where the machine in question here will be in ten years.

 

[Suburban Plowboy]

Winchester, Kentucky? Until I was a year old, I lived in Bel Air. I believe my house was across the fence from Jerry's. I was born in Winchester.

I don't know what happened, but somebody convinced TYM it wasn't the owner's fault. I don't know if that means anything. Maybe it's not that hard to get TYM to cough up $10,000 for an owner-error problem.

 

[Harry in Ky]

I guess I'm just a downer, but I have my opinions of TYM. They're not favorable opinions.

 

[5030]

Why not just ask Chat GPT or whatever it's called and let it guide your purchase????

 

[Suburban Plowboy]

That sounds like a bad idea until I consider the horrible advice human beings have given me with great confidence.

 

[Hay Dude]

The owner has a tree service, and the tractor has a Land Pride grapple. That's how he put in 800 hours. He does pretty much the same things I do with my little Kubota, but I put in about 25 hours a year.

As a business owner that uses tractors, I can tell you that having multiple operators, as your TYM seller probably has, means other people run his tractor. Those other people don’t generally care very well for the sellers tractor. Sometimes, thats a red flag.

The warranty is hard to pin down, which is another reason to talk to the dealer. TYM's site doesn't clearly state how long it runs. There is a commercial warranty, and there is a residential warranty, and TYM refuses to give a clear statement of the dividing line between commercial and residential.

You make a good point about defects.

The seller ended up buying a bigger Kubota because he had to keep renting tractors while he got the head gasket issue resolved. That speaks poorly of TYM and the dealer. On the other hand, the local Kubota people kept my tractor for several weeks when I needed to have the engine front cover replaced.

Note “bigger” Kubota. That means the tractor he is selling was too small for the work he was doing. That means it could have been pushed beyond its’ limits. Another possible red flag.

My advice in those situations is buy it IF its really cheap, but also be prepared to fix it.

Also: Check front axle bearings and loader/bucket pins for excessive wear. That will tell you if it was overloaded, too.