UPDATE:
My dealer came by yesterday afternoon to look over the tractor. He got there a few minutes before I did, and when I walked up he was already apologizing. We went over the tractor pretty thoroughly, and my dealer took a lot of photos of rust and other things. He also couldn't remove and reconnect the loader without getting off and shoving the loader arm into place with his shoulder. He didn't give me one bit of 'it's a tractor, it's supposed to be rusty' or anything like that. He said that he should have personally looked it over more closely before delivery. He said the other dealer (turned out to be a different company, not another dealership in his company) "basically lied" to him. He said he needs to take this to Kubota and see what they want to do, but he's going to push hard to get me a brand new tractor (the quality control issue that was stopping shipment of new BX23S's might still be an issue though).
I haven't heard from my dealer today. He did mention that one issue is that there is no area Kubota rep available right now (maybe he's out of the country or something, I can't recall). So I guess whomever my dealer would normally go to on these kinds of issues, can't be got at the moment.
I have not handed over any money at this point. The night my dealer delivered the tractor, he had me sign a simple invoice stating that I was buying the tractor and that we would enter into the Kubota financing agreement soon (adding the implements as well). Maybe I'm the fool, but I don't feel that it is likely that anyone will force me to keep/pay for this tractor. I'm more concerned that situation is in limbo and I still don't have a working tractor/implement solution going forward.
It has been 2 business days since I first contacted Kubota using their online contact form, and I haven't gotten a reply. Last night I emailed some other Kubota people, but none of them responded to me today. I find this lack of response on Kubota's end rather bothersome.
At this point, my mind is less focused on this particular tractor deal and more focused on the idea that choosing Kubota was a mistake. I'm going to shoot an email to the John Deere dealer I met with a couple times to let him know what happened, and see where he's at on inventory and price.
Here's the funny part of the story: turns out the dealer that pawned this lemon over to my dealer, was the next dealer in line if I was going to switch to a different dealer.
Here are the Kubota contacts I was able to find:
Todd Stucke – Senior Vice President, Marketing, Product Support & Strategic Projects
Email:
todd.stucke@kubota.com
Phone: 310-294-0877
Alex Woods – Vice President, Sales Operations, Supply Chain & Parts
Email:
alex.woods@kubota.com
Phone: 817-532-3875
Jon Cheek - National Accounts Manager
Email:
jon.cheek01@kubota.com,
jon.cheek@kubota.com
Phone: 817-532-3875, 817-914-2055
Mike Spillars - National Accounts Business Development Manger at Kubota tractor Corporation
Email:
mike.spillars@kubota.com
Phone: 817-532-5592 or 817-756-1171
Cell: 817-915-2743