RTV 520 owners, is this normal?

[Greasemonkoid]

This looks like an interesting forum, hopefully there are some RTV 520 owners here who can offer their experience.

I just purchased a 520 from an individual who was selling out and moving, the machine is 6 months old and had 10 hours on the clock when I bought it. I'm amazed with how slow the thing is, but its purpose is to do work anyway. What I'm concerned about is the noise in the front gearbox. With 4wd engaged the thing almost has a grinding sound when under a positive or negative load - meaning that driving on perfectly flat ground it is quiet, but uphill it is loud and downhill even louder. Is this a normal occurrence for these?

There is supposedly another 1.5 years left on the warranty, but it's a long drive to take it in to where it originally came from to have it checked.

Thanks for any thoughts/info.

 

[Russell King]

No idea about your machine and the noise.

But any Kubota dealer will be able to do the warranty work (if there is one closer).

 

[lugbolt]

noise in 4x4 ain't uncommon. Check the front diff fluid.

they are indeed slow, rough riding, no ground clearance, no suspension travel, no power, won't pull much, they're made to run to the mailbox and back and that's about it. Not the easiest to work on either. 500 and 520 never did sell very well here. My coworker (when I was at the dealer) bought one and put 30 hours on it in 11 years. He hated it and neither him or his wife would drive it much because of how rough it rode through the pastures. He tried to hunt with it, didn't go so well. Sold it last year for $2000, and it took several years of advertising to get someone to buy it for that. Not many people want them; when the Mule rides better (and that's not saying a whole lot either), has more power, a little more ground clearance, better brakes, quieter, less expensive, and much easier to repair/maintain. we (at the dealer) sold kawasaki and kubota and yamaha and you could not sell a 500 or 520 against a mule, period. I think in the many years I did dealer work they sold 4 RTV500's, 2 520's, but hundreds of mules, thousands of vikings and rhino's and wolverines.

 

[Greasemonkoid]

The drive system (and opportunity) is what made me go the direction of the rtv. At our place the hills are so steep that it's borderline of sliding going down and I wanted all 4 wheels to be locked to the engine (minus the front diff of course). Size was the other problem with the 4010's, I felt the SX was just too small, but the kubota seemed just right. It's a tough call on which vehicle is right for the application without actually taking it to the site and doing a test run.

Well, I'm stuck with it, but if it will haul a heaping bed full of firewood out of the hole and it holds together, then I'm good with it.

Thanks for that info.