I am starting this thread as an addendum to a discussion that took place on this thread here: https://www.orangetractortalks.com/forums/threads/kubota-response-to-questions.50121/ starting with post #18. After a lot of research and study I feel that this discussion deserves it's own thread now.
To do a recap, I was reading through the operator's manual for the MX series tractors when I came across the maintenance schedule and noticed Kubota was calling for all the rubber hoses to be replaced under the hood within 2-4 years regardless of condition. It struck me as very odd and unnecessary that they would require the owner to do that and when I went knocking on Kubota's door to find answers I wasn't getting any. After some run around and push back from Kubota I was eventually put in touch with the Kubota Territory Rep who I directed my questions towards. He assured me that not replacing the hoses would not void the warranty and he thought there was possibly a mistranslation when Kubota translated the manual into English but it still didn't explain why Kubota would use the language they were using in the manual. I speak some Spanish and I am very experienced with mistranslations and that is not what I believed was going on with the maintenance schedule. When the topic was brought back up again in the thread above it got the wheels turning in my head and I had a hunch one night when I was over at a friends house. My hunch was the answer could be found in the Warranty Guide. Sure enough after I opened the Warranty Guide the pieces all came together. What I learned is Kubota actually has 3 different warranties. The first warranty is what they refer to as their 'Basic Warranty' and it covers the whole tractor for 2 years or 2000 hours. The second warranty is the 'Powertrain Warranty' and this is where things get confusing. If you look on first page of the document that I have uploaded you will see that Kubota is defining the powertrain as the following:
Driveline: 4 wheel drive front axle assembly, and all gears, seals, bearing, etc., contained within, clutch
housing (except clutch disc), transmission case, and rear axle housing and everything contained within,
and hydraulic pumps and valves associated with driveline operation.
Does NOT include external parts such as shift cables, linkages, steering, etc.
Diesel Engine: Valve cover, cylinder head, cylinder block, oil pan, timing cover, crankshaft, flywheel
housing, and the parts enclosed therein.
However, they are excluding:
Does NOT include external engine components including, but not limited to: fuel, electrical, cooling,
intake, oil/lubrication, and exhaust components.
So basically every system connected to the outside of the engine is not covered under the powertrain warranty. Kubota is looping all this under the title of the "emissions system" and this is where the third warranty comes into the picture. Kubota is putting all the outside components of the engine under what they call the 'Federal Emissions Warranty'. This warranty is supposedly for 5 years or 3000 hours but there is a caveat. Kubota requires maintenance of this system and the so called maintenance is the replacement of all the rubber hoses by year 4 which means that those components are not covered the entire 5 years and if you don't replace them Kubota could deny extending the warranty coverage to year 5. So you may only have 4 years of actual coverage. After reaching this understanding, I went a step further to investigate if there was a possibility to extend coverage of the emissions warranty through the extended warranty known as Orange Protection but I discovered that there isn't. Kubota offers no extra coverage on the emissions warranty. They will extend coverage on the powertrain warranty but not the emissions warranty. It becomes clear at this point that Kubota has gone out of their way to exclude these components and will not even offer the consumer the option to purchase extra coverage for them if they wanted it which leads you to the question why? I think the answer to that question can be found in this thread here on TBN: https://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/threads/kubota-l6060-engine-failure.434620/
To do a recap, I was reading through the operator's manual for the MX series tractors when I came across the maintenance schedule and noticed Kubota was calling for all the rubber hoses to be replaced under the hood within 2-4 years regardless of condition. It struck me as very odd and unnecessary that they would require the owner to do that and when I went knocking on Kubota's door to find answers I wasn't getting any. After some run around and push back from Kubota I was eventually put in touch with the Kubota Territory Rep who I directed my questions towards. He assured me that not replacing the hoses would not void the warranty and he thought there was possibly a mistranslation when Kubota translated the manual into English but it still didn't explain why Kubota would use the language they were using in the manual. I speak some Spanish and I am very experienced with mistranslations and that is not what I believed was going on with the maintenance schedule. When the topic was brought back up again in the thread above it got the wheels turning in my head and I had a hunch one night when I was over at a friends house. My hunch was the answer could be found in the Warranty Guide. Sure enough after I opened the Warranty Guide the pieces all came together. What I learned is Kubota actually has 3 different warranties. The first warranty is what they refer to as their 'Basic Warranty' and it covers the whole tractor for 2 years or 2000 hours. The second warranty is the 'Powertrain Warranty' and this is where things get confusing. If you look on first page of the document that I have uploaded you will see that Kubota is defining the powertrain as the following:
Driveline: 4 wheel drive front axle assembly, and all gears, seals, bearing, etc., contained within, clutch
housing (except clutch disc), transmission case, and rear axle housing and everything contained within,
and hydraulic pumps and valves associated with driveline operation.
Does NOT include external parts such as shift cables, linkages, steering, etc.
Diesel Engine: Valve cover, cylinder head, cylinder block, oil pan, timing cover, crankshaft, flywheel
housing, and the parts enclosed therein.
However, they are excluding:
Does NOT include external engine components including, but not limited to: fuel, electrical, cooling,
intake, oil/lubrication, and exhaust components.
So basically every system connected to the outside of the engine is not covered under the powertrain warranty. Kubota is looping all this under the title of the "emissions system" and this is where the third warranty comes into the picture. Kubota is putting all the outside components of the engine under what they call the 'Federal Emissions Warranty'. This warranty is supposedly for 5 years or 3000 hours but there is a caveat. Kubota requires maintenance of this system and the so called maintenance is the replacement of all the rubber hoses by year 4 which means that those components are not covered the entire 5 years and if you don't replace them Kubota could deny extending the warranty coverage to year 5. So you may only have 4 years of actual coverage. After reaching this understanding, I went a step further to investigate if there was a possibility to extend coverage of the emissions warranty through the extended warranty known as Orange Protection but I discovered that there isn't. Kubota offers no extra coverage on the emissions warranty. They will extend coverage on the powertrain warranty but not the emissions warranty. It becomes clear at this point that Kubota has gone out of their way to exclude these components and will not even offer the consumer the option to purchase extra coverage for them if they wanted it which leads you to the question why? I think the answer to that question can be found in this thread here on TBN: https://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/threads/kubota-l6060-engine-failure.434620/
