I don't know if I would go that far, it takes a team effort to engineer, produce, market and deliver a product good enough to capture a market share. In hindsight it's been the only real downfall (that I'm aware of) of one product that they contracted out and put their stamp on. It's basically the same loader on all the CK series. Sounds to me like your shooting yourself in the foot, considering you went and bought another Kioti if that problem was dealt with as poorly as I take it from your negativity.
Steve
I think it's pretty clear that I am a Kioti fan. I've owned two and been very positive about both. I am one of the first people who reported the cracking back in early 06 as I recall and therefore I have followed this issue closely since the beginning. What I am reacting to in my negative portral of Kioti management is how poorly they managed this product defect repair campaign. I am not actually criticizing Kioti the manufacturer in Korea because I don't believe they are the ones who have mismanaged the program. It is Kioti in North Carolina which is basically the importer. They may be great at marketing, they obviously have done well in selling tractors and in coming up with new popular models. They just did a really crap job with the loader issue.
I don't blame them for the cracks. The loader design except for one seemingly small detail was great. I can understand that they were dealing with a subcontractor and that made things a bit tougher. I can understand that not all the facts were immediately known (eg that there were at least three different production types of KL130 loaders with different torque tube dimensions), I can appreciate that it take time to engineer a fix and to test it out. What I cannot understand is why they shot themselves in the foot with such a lame communication strategy and why in the end they were so inflexible in requiring owners to bear the expense of transporting their tractors or loader to the dealer when the kit could easily be installed by the owner.
I believe they had their head in the sand because they thought by ignoring it the problem would go away and because they were not strong enough managers to just face up to the fact that it's better to acknowledge a problem even if you cannot fix it immediately rather than trying to perpetuate a series of silly notions to minimize the issue(e.g. it was only "cosmetic" cracking). A strong leader would have issued a statement to all owners indicating there was a problem, they were sorry about it, they were working on a fix and they would keep us updated at regular intervals. They only begrudgingly issued a fax to dealers after about six or more months as I recall and that was mostly fluff with the infamous "cosmetic crack" smokescreen. I don't recall any announcement about the problems they were having with the initial repair kits as they basically just left everyone in the dark.
I also don't think the management has been fair to customers who were unable to easily get their tractors in to the dealer. Even though the official line was that there was no risk to the cracked loaders being used, they somehow convinced themselves that it required a dealer to install a dozen nuts and bolts on the repair kit. That was purely a CYA move for Kioti and the customer be damned.
Most of us were happy with the repair kit as an acceptable solution but for some the aesthetics are a problem. Kioti should have had a cost sharing alternative for those customers to permit a swap out of old for new FEL arms.
The common theme here is basically that Kioti (USA) management has not been either open or customer focused in how they went about dealing with the loader issue. I appreciate that in other service issues they have been very cooperative so I'm not trying to say they are as bad as Dick Cheney but they are definitely in that mold of management style. Keep them in the dark and feed them BS. Doesn't work for me.
