IXLR8 said:
The "kit" is out there somewhere, I would ask your dealer. One dealer I talked with said he received enough kits to do all the units he had. He is putting them on all units that come through his shop, if the loaders are cracked or not. I don't know if there is a charge for them or not. Another dealer told me there is no cracking issue on the 130's, only the 120's, so he didn't know anything about any 'kit' to fix a nonexistant problem.
Because Kioti Korporate has never bothered to provide official updates on this problem there is still a fair amount of misinformation floating around. As best I can tell:
1) the problem absolutely affects KL130's and the original posting of this loader cracking problem was related to Highbeam's KL130. Cracked KL120's and 130's seem about equally represented in reports on TBN and while there is no accurate denominator data it seems that up to a quarter of these loaders (pre 2007) have developed cracking.
2) There is no problem with the 2007 and later loaders that have the "B" designation on their riveted name plate (the KL120B and KL130B). The new loaders are easily identified by the presence of a true round torque tube that projects all the way through the loader arms.
3) No actual loader failures reported by anyone.
4) The KL120 repair kit has been out for more than a year and has not presented any problems. Just about anyone with a KL120 can get the kit dealer installed. There was clearly no charge for this installation by the dealer at least through last September per the original Kioti announcement. I suspect they are still installing them without charge (they'd be morons not to).
5) The KL130 kit has been problematic. There were apparently at least three, perhaps more, slight variations in the construction/dimensions of the KL130 loaders over the years and Kioti was apparently not aware of this (they outsource the loaders to anohter Korean company). There were apparently not very good records kept of serial numbers and modifications. This resulted in finding out that the original KL130 repair kits issued last year only fit a fraction of the KL130 loaders and that no one could tell which ones would fit and which would not. Kioti withdrew (or more accurately never released) the KL130 repair kit and went back to their very slow drawing board (at least 9months since they found out about this issue). As far as I know they have not yet released either a universal KL130 repair kit nor have they sorted out how to identify which loader needs which specific type of repair kit.
6) A few frustrated individuals have simply bought new version (KL130B) loader arms and installed them. I believe the cost was somewhat over $600 but never looked into this myself. Seems to me that Kioti should offer these things at cost or below cost and include free dealer installation as a sign of good will for those who want to go that route. Given Korporate Kioti's head in the sand mentality, I consider this just another pipe dream.
Bottom line is that the loaders are all still functional even when cracked so there is no functional issue but when this whole issue will finally be resolved and put behind us is anyone's guess.
