I've been seeing parts unavailable for 1 month old machines as of here lately.....Kubota is really making me mad over it too.
There is no definitive answer for the question. They sourced or made X amount of replacement parts for whatever tractor model. If said part isn't sold at a certain quantity over a certain period of time, they'll make or source fewer of them on the next run. At some point they won't source or make that part again if there's no demand for it. Maybe that L1500 part is still in demand? Maybe it fits a different newer tractor?
manufacturers are only required to maintain replacement parts for 10 years after the last model was purchased. At one point I was working for a dealer and had a vehicle come through that was exactly 10 model years old, it needed a wiring harness....no longer available. That customer was super mad, but there was nothing I could do, I couldn't just poop one out to make him un-mad. I don't blame him for being a little upset. The vehicle wasn't even paid off yet-although I don't know how. Maybe refinanced, I do not know nor do I care at this point. The 10 year deal only applies to automobiles, not to motorcycles or tractors-at least not to my knowledge.
Had a similar issue with a motorcycle at one point that burned up a wire harness due to the owner hooking the battery up backwards. 6 years old. Just paid it off. Had 1,200 miles on it. Harness NLA at that time and the manufacturer said they couldn't get one because the company that built those harnesses was out of business. I had to remove the entire harness and physically rebuild it, at the cost of the customer, per hour of labor. If any of y'all have ever built a harness, you know that they are quite labor intensive to do this. Another dissatisfied customer but he got his bike back and still owns it to this day, and rides it about as often as he did way back then-once every 3 months or thereabouts. This deal is when I found out about the 10 year parts availability on cars; because I had called the manufacturer's sales rep and asked him about it....and he said the fed law only applies to automobiles and obviously motor-cycles aren't considered automobiles.
Recoil starter assembly for Yamaha 4 stroke 25hp...if you look up the part, it shows 0 available in the USA warehouses, and shows NLA. But if you actually order it, it comes from Japan directly and in less time than it takes to get it from a USA warehouse...just went through this.
So.....you just don't know. They (manufacturers) do weird things.
