Tractor Supply now carries Countyline attachments and not KingKutter.

[fried1765]

Fast Forward......Friday, Feb 10, 2017. Looked at TSC www and they listed their 6' roto tiller as being County Line. Got to the store they had 2 units in stock with no mfgr. ID. Sticker on the back said made in China. Black plastic paper container on the unit has Behlen Country (2015 updated ) instructions. Did a www on them and they have 3 US locations, one is in Texas and a main "International" US office. Date of mfgr was 3/10/2016.

Units are manufactured and shipped dry, no grease for the shaft bearing nor gear lube in either gearbox (from China) except for the PTO shaft which may be added upon arival at CONUS, already greased, maybe not, who knows. It had the zerks greased. The gear boxes were rusty inside as were the full pipe plugs and fill/vent port threads on the top of both. Took a 6 (not 12) sided (hexagon shaped) wrench to get the full plugs out.

Shining a flashlight down into the gear boxes showed significant rust and condensation on both gear boxes. Not really what you want to see when you pay $2000, er excuse me $1999.99 for a NEW implement. PTO gearbox is said to be rated at 60 hp making it pretty large. The whole rear of the box is a 6" square plate mounted with 4 screws (one at each corner) and a rubber flat gasket that is partially pooched out which you can grasp and squeeze with your hand. I had gear oil on the machine yesterday from filling and not sure if the gasket has started leaking already but I don't like it. It may be Neoprene to resist oil degredation.....who knows. WWW speaks of powercoat durability but all parts weren't completely covered (on the outside where I could see the voids during assy.

It took me several hours yesterday to get it put together and I'm mechanically inclined. Not sure if I'll keep it or take it back. Going to check the satisfaction guarantee time line and before it expires will determine then.

Part of my chap here is that you are led to believe something via advertising. When you go to purchase it you get something else from China made for a song and sold for what you would expect to pay for something made in the USA. I have bought some premium parts from China and some that weren't. Getting parts from China doesn't help "Make America Great Again" by providing manufacturing jobs here. We can build things here for a competitive price. We have the technology and know how for "Design to Cost". We have CNC milling machines and design engineers and all. Design to cost doesn't mean it's cheap crap. A Ford Pinto and a Cadillac Sedan DeVill are two American cars designed for 2 different markets. The Ford is not cheap junk if it it's design, components and manufacturing techniques are industry standard. It's designed for the guy/gal that wanted affordable transportation, forget the frills. That was the market. That is what they did.....yeah I know about the fuel tank. They had to put it somewhere and on that car there wasn't much room to find a place for it. Besides, how far do you have to go to "protect us from ourselves".

I am sorta reluctant to tell you this. Don't want to make you feel worse than you already do.
I have a new 60" King Kutter tiller, and it is a great piece of machinery!
I got what I consider to be a great deal (few months ago) from a seemingly rather strange/distant source.
I played around on the internet (I am always patient for a good deal), and found a deal at Blaine's Farm and Fleet in Wisconsin.
Now, I wanted this tiller in Massachusetts. Blaine's shipped the 590 lb. tiller to me for a $160 shipping charge, and .... they had the best KK 60" tiller price anywhere!
That same deal (sale) may no longer be available, but at this time of year it is likely that another might pop up. Rural King might be another option, though Rural King shipping tends to be way high.
Shipping cost can vary widely, and can make the difference between a good deal, and no deal.
I think most, if not all, implements currently sold by TSC are bottom feeder cheap junk!

 

[Ford850]

TSC has turned into the next Sears. They created their own brand so they can source to low bidder and still keep the County Line name. I still like TSC for some things, but I stay away from their brand name junk now.

 

[fried1765]

TSC has turned into the next Sears. They created their own brand so they can source to low bidder and still keep the County Line name. I still like TSC for some things, but I stay away from their brand name junk now.

I do the same!

 

[Clay45]

Don't know why the need to bash TSC. My Tartar mfg rototiller works great. I like my carryall and my landscape rake...yep, all TSC. Wouldn't suprise me that the tines were all Chinese made, heck maybe all of it and Tartar just assembles it in order to sell under its own brand name to TSC who rebrands it but kindly leaves the mfg sticker info on there. Ofcourse the units drop ship directly from Tartar to you so no secrets there anyway. Why does that bother anyone as long as the units work as they should? The gearbox on my tiller has some rusty spots but overall pretty good. From my shopping around I believe a bunch of manufacturers do the same. Sort of like John Deere compact tractors are truly rebadged Yanmars. Nevermind that Yanmar invented the small diesel engine in the first place.

 

[Texasmark]

I remember when Yanmar first started selling tractors in N. TX. New name, foreign mfgr, 1970's (I think I recall), no body to ask how they were.

In looking around for a unit, shipping was definitely on the agenda. Availability was too. Northern Tool is marketing the King Kutter unit for right at $2000 but you had to pay freight and since they opened a store in TX. (as I recall) TX. 6.5 to 8.5% sales tax and you had to wait for it to be shipped. I researched the Tartar mfgr too. It was better part of a day moving around to KK, Tartar, Land Pride, and another couple I forget. If you looked closely at them they were pretty much a carbon copy of each other and all with gear drive which was a must.

I hit another mfgr. that was not geared as I recall and looked like the JD offering on their www. JD supplier around here wanted $3500 for their version of the 6'. That price was out of my budget regardless of what you got for it.

I spent most of today out turning under some Austrian Winter peas (it's 6 pm here and still 80 and clear skies) and I am duly impressed with the implement's generic ability to mulch. This spring I'm going to plant more in Soy Beans and turn them in this fall tool. With the high price of chemical fert. this just looks too good to pass up. This plot will go to hay production this spring.