jnug
New member
I had one of the gas engine Kubota tractors for a couple of years and while I thought I had purchased enough tractor to just mow my lawn. it was a little short on power. So I traded it back to the dealer for a GR2100 long before it has been used for very long. Mind you all my GR2100 does is mow my 1.25 acres of easy sloping lawn. That is it. I have had it since May 2007. Today, the thing is leaking UDTS fluid. The Kubota dealer tells me that 90% of the time, is is caused by a gear or spacer breaking inside the drive which runs the width of the rear of the tractor sending metal through the system and cutting a seal. Further the only way to fix it is to tear down the back of the tractor, find the broken part, repair it, repair what it has damaged and put everything back together again...roughly a $3,000.00 job!!! Occasionally a clamp goes and that causes the leak but that is very very rare. This was a $7,600 tractor which has been used about 35 minutes per week about 30 weeks per year since 5/07 on nothing more dramatic than a lawn and now needs a $3,000 repair.
I bought a Kubota figuring I would buy more tractor than I needed from a reliability standpoint and make out on the back end in reduced down time or repair needed. That equation does not work with this tractor. I live in NE so it is used about 30 times per year, about 35 minutes per usage to mow my lawn. That is only 90 hours of very mild usage to date!!! I could have had my lawn mowed by a contractor for what this has cost me over the short period of time is has been in service and would actually have been better served financially. What by the way would a contractor that bought this tractor do? This is about 1.5 seasons of usage for a New England contractor. Needless to stay I am extremely disappointed in this tractor and in Kubota for designing something at a $7,600 price point that requires such extensive servicing after such limited usage. We are talking about 90 hours of lawn mowing and not tough lawn mowing at that! It was not even conceivable to me before this happened that I would be facing such a major repair after 90 hours of usage.
I am now between a rock and a hard place. The repair will cost just about what the tractor is worth at this point. So I can't repair it. To do so would be at least as bad a decision as buying it was in the first place. I am going to be left to top of the hydrostatic fluid that is leaking out of the system and try to run it through at least one more summer as it will require at least one more summer of cuts just to get close to breaking even on cutting myself vs having a contractor cut my lawn. Lets say the actual hit for repair is $2,000. Still does not work financially to repair it. I would have to get the repair done at closer to $1,000 to make it at all palatable financially and even then given only 90 hours of operation, I would just be shoving myself farther down the rat hole against simply having had a contractor cut my lawn! Trust me, I was planning on doing much much better than breaking even as that does not even account for my time....a tremendous disappointment....
Anyway...has anybody tried just topping off the fluid and running it to cut the lawn. Wondering if it will work for at least a summer or if the thing is likely to just drop dead after a couple of cuts.
I bought a Kubota figuring I would buy more tractor than I needed from a reliability standpoint and make out on the back end in reduced down time or repair needed. That equation does not work with this tractor. I live in NE so it is used about 30 times per year, about 35 minutes per usage to mow my lawn. That is only 90 hours of very mild usage to date!!! I could have had my lawn mowed by a contractor for what this has cost me over the short period of time is has been in service and would actually have been better served financially. What by the way would a contractor that bought this tractor do? This is about 1.5 seasons of usage for a New England contractor. Needless to stay I am extremely disappointed in this tractor and in Kubota for designing something at a $7,600 price point that requires such extensive servicing after such limited usage. We are talking about 90 hours of lawn mowing and not tough lawn mowing at that! It was not even conceivable to me before this happened that I would be facing such a major repair after 90 hours of usage.
I am now between a rock and a hard place. The repair will cost just about what the tractor is worth at this point. So I can't repair it. To do so would be at least as bad a decision as buying it was in the first place. I am going to be left to top of the hydrostatic fluid that is leaking out of the system and try to run it through at least one more summer as it will require at least one more summer of cuts just to get close to breaking even on cutting myself vs having a contractor cut my lawn. Lets say the actual hit for repair is $2,000. Still does not work financially to repair it. I would have to get the repair done at closer to $1,000 to make it at all palatable financially and even then given only 90 hours of operation, I would just be shoving myself farther down the rat hole against simply having had a contractor cut my lawn! Trust me, I was planning on doing much much better than breaking even as that does not even account for my time....a tremendous disappointment....
Anyway...has anybody tried just topping off the fluid and running it to cut the lawn. Wondering if it will work for at least a summer or if the thing is likely to just drop dead after a couple of cuts.