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.
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.