Danger! Stop using your bx (and other models)

lugbolt

Well-known member

Equipment
ZG127S-54
Oct 15, 2015
4,807
1,575
113
Mid, South, USA
The letter states that it can be modified and will work. Unfortunately not everyone will have a drill bit and the knowledge of how to do it, and that' understandable and respectable. A doctor may not be a good mechanic, but I bet most of us would rather go to a doctor who knows what he's doing if we're having a heart attack than a mechanic, right?

Anyway, again it's an easy modification-or it was for me.

If you (as an owner) don't feel like doing it, or don't feel comfortable, Kubota will pay the dealer to do it for you, at no charge. It takes like 1 minute. I do them on the trailer while customer waits, it's the least I can do for someone who just took time out of their day to haul their new expensive equipment to the shop. I'd like to just give everyone a new tractor because of stupid little stuff like this but I can't do that.

The fact that they have a stop-sale/stop-use notification on this deal is mostly a matter of liability, and prevention. Yeah it's your stuff and you can use it however you want when you want, but if it does for some weird reason overheat and burn the engine up, and you have a letter, it's yours, just like any automotive recall. I remember the Ford cruise control issue. Got a letter that said don't operate, might burn up and take your house/garage with it. I drive to Ford, they unplugged the cruise control and sent me on the way-no parts available at the time. In a few months I get a call saying the local dealer has parts in stock. Great. I'm 1200 miles from the local dealer. Called the closest to where I was, told 'em my truck was unsafe to drive because of this recall, they said come on by. They did it in a few minutes, and I was on my way again.

They (dealers and manufacturers) try to make stuff like this as painless and smooth as possible but sometimes there's things that are out of their hands.

How do recalls work? There has to be a certain number of the same failure (and they have to be certain kinds of failures...) reported to the US Government. When they get wind of it, they tell the manufacturer to issue a recall within a certain period of time. Manufacturer (Kubota in this case) may only have, say, 100 coolant caps in their parts supply, which would "normally" cover the need for, say, X amount of time. But when the government says "you need to recall them", manufacturer calculates how many of caps they're going to need, which will overwhelm the current stocks, so then they've got to get in touch with whoever makes the caps for them, notify them of an issue, then notify them that they need to FIX that issue. Now manufacturer has to wait for supplier to retool the assembly line(s), then they have to be shipped to and sorted by the manufacturer, then sent out to dealers. Time frame? Days to years--all depends on the suppliers, OEM, government involvement (which almost always extends the time frame), dealer parts stocks, etc.
 

Orangeglow

Active member

Equipment
2015 BX2370
Jun 19, 2014
316
144
43
Prescott, Ontario
I just went out to check my BX2370 overflow bottle cap.
Mine was partially obstructed.
The drill bit size to check for obstruction is 11/64ths.
Remove the cap from bottle and hose, and with the drill bit in your hand, slowly and gently turn it into the overflow tube, until you can see it thru the center hole in the underside of the cap. Clear out any debris, and you should be good. Top up anti-freeze fluid bottle, if required, and re-install the cap and overflow hose.
 

tiktock

New member
Jun 27, 2018
225
3
0
Plaistow
Received my free replacement cap in the mail last week. I swear it was worse than the original cap that I repaired when I got the letter. I "repaired" this one too and put it in the spare parts bin. Why ship caps with basically the same problem?