Re: \'WARNING\' BX2200.
I would tend to agree with Tony's post, that is inspect EVERYTHING! Unfortunately unless you rent one for a day and use it on your own property you won't discover much on a dealer lot. I'm quite confident that the day they stop selling the BX2200 it will be PERFECT! Maybe...
They try to design these to fit the most people. If you, Tony are on the lighter side you may find the seat stiff, I like a stiffer seat. Of course I'm not the correct weight. /w3tcompact/icons/frown.gif I went out and played on mine to duplicate what you were talking about. The stiffness you feel might be able to be absorbed by a seat I don't know, if the ground is rough, and the BX is a multi use tractor not a lawn mower, a soft seat would have you all over the place. If would be tough to have an adjustable tension seat and not have it sit up to high on that little tractor. I like my L35 seat the best as it has a very high back. You could probably experiment with some lighter springs, in fact Kubota could offer those, they come off in a jiffy. If they don't you could take another similar spring (big cities usually have places that have gobs of different springs) and weld a plate to one end so you can bolt it to seat.
As to the wobble, if you can live without being able to adjust the fore and aft movement (only one operator) you could pin the track and slider together with a bolt, which would take a lot of the movement out.
I find the hst pedal far to close to the seat, and I'm not very tall! Some of you guys that use these must be in danger of hitting your chin with your knee caps! But that's one of the trade offs with this small a machine. Depending on how the wife eventually feels I may make a bracket to raise it up. (Then I'll look REALLY goofy sitting on it)
There never seems to be one design that fits everyone or works for everyone, but that's why drills, hardware stores and welding torches were invented! I think Kubota wanted to have a unit out the door at X number of dollars.
Unfortunately they haven't discovered the "option game" that Ford and Chevy know so well. You want a new full-size pickup? $14,000 or $35,000 with a few additions.
With some of these BX's ending up spending most of their time as mowers I would think a cushier seat would be an excellent option. Of course looking at the seat it's just a straight pivot forward affair with to springs on the back.
I have to go now, I'm going to take a look at one of my extra van captains chairs I took out when the van was new! Now that's class! Since I live in slightly moist Washington State I guess I'll have to go for the blue-tarp seat covers!
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