Kubota L4701 150 hours rear end stripped gear popping noise. NOW WITH VIDEO

[NCL4701]

The L4701 has wet disc brakes. I would have difficulty trusting a dealer who told me wet disc brakes squealing is normal. It seems odd you say the parking brake never worked. My wife can set the parking brake on mine and it goes nowhere even on significant hills.

BTW, for those who don’t think a HST will roll under its own weight, maybe some won’t. Mine will, slowly not freewheel, but I do operate it on slopes that would have flipped our 9N over backward which are well within the Kubota’s capability.

And check with your lawyer before you proceed with your plan to film your demise on a machine you know to have a dangerous mechanical defect. Kentucky may be unique, but most jurisdictions that’s assumption of risk which will either greatly reduce or completely bar your estate’s recovery following your death. Hopefully your attorney can guide you on your next steps to achieve just treatment and compensation under the warranty or whatever insurance you have. If your attorney advises you to continue operating it as is, strap on a Go-Pro, and have your heirs bring him the video of you being squashed like a fat spider under your tractor; maybe consider getting a second opinion.

 

[lugbolt]

the way it's described, doesn't sound "too" abnormal.

the brake lining is not attached directly to the axle, rather a gear reduction inside the axle housing, up near the rear differential housing. The gear reduction. There are two gears. A big one and a lil one. The lil one is powered from the differential, which meshes with the big gear which is attached to the axle. When lil gear powers the big gear, there is a speed reduction and a torque increase. But there is a clearance between the two gears and it's a pretty significant clearance because of the size and application. So if you quickly mash the brake while the wheels is turning, it wouldn't surprise me one bit if there is a pop that gets your attention, which would be caused by the two gears' clearances being taken up by the change in loading. Then there's splines that also have a bit of clearance, plus the differential, also has some clearance. There is a tolerance stack-up between parts and a quick mash of the brake is going to make those parts' clearances change quickly resulting in noise. Sorta like dropping a hammer from 3 foot high, when it hits the floor it makes noise. But if you set it 1/8" above the floor and drop it, a lot less noise is made. Same principle.

That's what I'm thinking and I may be wrong. Without being there to see what it's actually doing I'm simply firing off stuff that might not apply.

And lastly it's been mentioned at least 3 maybe 4 times that I read, where it "might fall off a 100 foot cliff"....now if I were a KTAC agent reading this, I'd take note. If I worked a case of a certain L4701HST with about 150 hours on it that was involved in a tragic farmin accident, I could refer back to this post and think to myself, "hmmm...I wonder if this is an insurance fraud deal?". All I'm saying is, be careful.

 

[Rdrett]

Here is the one thing that gets missed if it is a warranty issue then there will be no bill to you as it's covered by the warranty.
If it's not covered, as they deem it abuse then you will have to pay.
I think KTAC insurance will pay for it at that point as that insurance covers everything on the tractor.
So not getting it fixed is just foolish.
Loss of a brake lining, is the most likely issue and not a gear issue.

And enough with the Drama Queen Theatrics, it doesn't do you or anyone else any good.

I don’t understand what to do, KTAC said it was a warrant issue, warranty said they won’t pay to fix it. According to kubota warranty I need to continue to operate the unsafe tractor until it doesn’t move anymore

 

[NCL4701]

I don’t understand what to do, KTAC said it was a warrant issue, warranty said they won’t pay to fix it. According to kubota warranty I need to continue to operate the unsafe tractor until it doesn’t move anymore

If you’re at a dead end in where to go with it, and it sounds like you are, get with that attorney you mentioned earlier and at least have a consultation to get a little legal advice from someone that can back it up with action if needed.

I strongly suspect what you’ll hear is something along the lines of you’re going to have to risk a bit of your own money to tear into it sufficiently to make a firm diagnosis before anyone; KTAC, Kubota, or even your own lawyer can tell you for sure who owes who what.

Part of the reason it may be time to spend a little on an attorney consultation is if you or the dealer or anyone else is going to turn a bolt on it and you’re thinking you might really go to the mat litigating who owes what, you need to be careful about proper notice of joint inspections and preservation of evidence to avoid a spoliation (yeah, I spelled that correctly) defense on a claim you’re otherwise owed.

 

[whitetiger]

I don’t understand what to do, KTAC said it was a warranty issue, warranty said they won’t pay to fix it. According to Kubota warranty I need to continue to operate the unsafe tractor until it doesn’t move anymore

You need to take the tractor to another dealer and get that dealers opinion. If you called Kubota, you did not talk to anyone with any authority concerning warranty, it was just someone on the phone bank.

If there is indeed a failure, Kubota will cover the parts and labor under warranty. The dealer does not decide what is warranty and what is not. A case should be opened with Kubota service by the servicing dealer. Kubota will instruct the dealer what steps to take during diagnoses and then a pre-approval is submitted to Kubota. Your Kubota tractor is warrantied by Kubota, not by any dealer.

I do this a couple times a month, it saves the customer a lot of time and aggravation, plus protects the dealership from having to eat a repair bill.

 

[jyoutz]

According to Kubota warranty and the dealer their answer was to continue to operate the unsafe tractor, that is exactly what I was told to do.

I paid $60,000 for this piece of junk Covid tractor That has a full 2 year factory warrant. If it goes over a 100 foot rock cliff because of the defective tractor that isn’t my problem, I was told to continue to operate the defective tractor. I won’t be paying a dollar for this piece of junk unless I pay the $250 deductible for KTAC to pick it up from the bottom of a 100 foot rock cliff. Then I will sell the new replacement L4701 and buy a tractor from a reputable company.

I am going to try and call a reputable kubota dealer 150 miles one way and see if they can help me, if not I will take it back to the farm and hope that the defective tractor doesn’t malfunction and end up in pieces on the bottom of the rock cliff. Accidents happen especially when the tractor is defective and the manufacturer refuses to fix a defect machine. I paid $6,000 for insurance to protect me from accidents, so I am covered.
The defective machine has been reported to the manufacturer and if I get injured or die operating a defective machine under warranty that the manufacturer refusal to disassemble and properly diagnose the machine then they will be liable for any property damages or injuries,
I won’t be operating this tractor without a GoPro recording.
I will be posting videos on this lemon showing the factory defect and to have evidence for my lawyer when everything goes sideway.

Whenever you have warranty issues with a dealer, the best next step is to contact the company representative for your area. Contact Kubota and see how to contact that person.

 

[Rdrett]

You need to take the tractor to another dealer and get that dealers opinion. If you called Kubota, you did not talk to anyone with any authority concerning warranty, it was just someone on the phone bank.

If there is indeed a failure, Kubota will cover the parts and labor under warranty. The dealer does not decide what is warranty and what is not. A case should be opened with Kubota service by the servicing dealer. Kubota will instruct the dealer what steps to take during diagnoses and then a pre-approval is submitted to Kubota. Your Kubota tractor is warrantied by Kubota, not by any dealer.

I do this a couple times a month, it saves the customer a lot of time and aggravation, plus protects the dealership from having to eat a repair bill.

I have one last option and it is to talk to the only dealer left in my area, hopefully they will disassemble the tractor to properly diagnose it because I suspect they will be able to visually identify the damage to the gear that is stripping out. I just don’t understand how a dealer can diagnose the issue with out taking it apart.

 

[Rdrett]

the way it's described, doesn't sound "too" abnormal.

the brake lining is not attached directly to the axle, rather a gear reduction inside the axle housing, up near the rear differential housing. The gear reduction. There are two gears. A big one and a lil one. The lil one is powered from the differential, which meshes with the big gear which is attached to the axle. When lil gear powers the big gear, there is a speed reduction and a torque increase. But there is a clearance between the two gears and it's a pretty significant clearance because of the size and application. So if you quickly mash the brake while the wheels is turning, it wouldn't surprise me one bit if there is a pop that gets your attention, which would be caused by the two gears' clearances being taken up by the change in loading. Then there's splines that also have a bit of clearance, plus the differential, also has some clearance. There is a tolerance stack-up between parts and a quick mash of the brake is going to make those parts' clearances change quickly resulting in noise. Sorta like dropping a hammer from 3 foot high, when it hits the floor it makes noise. But if you set it 1/8" above the floor and drop it, a lot less noise is made. Same principle.

That's what I'm thinking and I may be wrong. Without being there to see what it's actually doing I'm simply firing off stuff that might not apply.

And lastly it's been mentioned at least 3 maybe 4 times that I read, where it "might fall off a 100 foot cliff"....now if I were a KTAC agent reading this, I'd take note. If I worked a case of a certain L4701HST with about 150 hours on it that was involved in a tragic farmin accident, I could refer back to this post and think to myself, "hmmm...I wonder if this is an insurance fraud deal?". All I'm saying is, be careful.

If you operate a motor vehicle and have a mechanical failure that leads to an accident, that isn’t insurance fraud it is an accident. I am just advising that if my new tractor with 150 hours on it has a mechanical failure there is a good chance that if I can’t stop it it most likely WILL go over one of several 100 foot rock cliffs on my property, that isn’t insurance fraud that is an accident caused by a mechanical failure that should of been properly repaired under warranty. That would be an accident which I paid $6,000 to protect myself from. I am not going to jump off the tractor and attempt to stop it bare handed. I will watch it go over the cliff and laugh as it hits the ground. A mechanical failure that leads to damage to the machine by definition would be considered an accident.

 

[Rdrett]

Whenever you have warranty issues with a dealer, the best next step is to contact the company representative for your area. Contact Kubota and see how to contact that person.

Do you know if that person would be the regional service manager? I have a manager from the warranty department who is supposed to contact me back within 24 hours and I will see if they know who I need to contact.

 

[PaulL]

Seems to me they gave you two perfectly reasonable options:

1. If you're unhappy with the tractor, they'll happily disassemble to see what's wrong, and if it's warrantable they'll cover that cost under warranty. If it's not warrantable, you need to pay. That seems pretty fair - if it's not warrantable who else would pay than you?

2. If you don't want to put that down payment on disassembly (that you'll get back if you're right that it's warrantable) then that probably means it's not that big a deal, so you're welcome to keep driving it, and if you get something that is clearly warrantable without disassembly, they'll do that under warranty.

What exactly is stopping you from taking the first path? They've offered it to you. I don't see how they can offer you more if they cannot actually replicate the issue. They'd be taking risk on disassembling a machine that they can't see any issues with, and Kubota saying "we're not paying for that, why'd you take apart a machine that wasn't broken?"

 

[Rdrett]

I am sorry if I offended anyone, I am just trying to figure out what to do. I am pretty upset that I drove 150 miles round trip to be told that a gear stripped out in the rear end that damaged the brakes and is causing loud squealing noise is normal even though it never happened for the first year of ownership. I put $30,000 down on a brand new tractor and I still own $32,000 on it and Kubota wont do anything to fix it. It is under warranty and fully insured and neither party wants to help, they keep pointing the finger at each other.
I am sorry it is so discouraging the way kubota has handled this situation. If you spent over $60,000 and got the run around I believe you would feel the same. I am going to pick up the tractor tomorrow and post videos of what I am experiencing and doubt anyone would blame me for using the brakes on the tractor that were factory installed. Hopefully when I contact ano dealer tomorrow they will agree to disassemble the tractor for a proper diagnostic.

Seems to me they gave you two perfectly reasonable options:

1. If you're unhappy with the tractor, they'll happily disassemble to see what's wrong, and if it's warrantable they'll cover that cost under warranty. If it's not warrantable, you need to pay. That seems pretty fair - if it's not warrantable who else would pay than you?

2. If you don't want to put that down payment on disassembly (that you'll get back if you're right that it's warrantable) then that probably means it's not that big a deal, so you're welcome to keep driving it, and if you get something that is clearly warrantable without disassembly, they'll do that under warranty.

What exactly is stopping you from taking the first path? They've offered it to you. I don't see how they can offer you more if they cannot actually replicate the issue. They'd be taking risk on disassembling a machine that they can't see any issues with, and Kubota saying "we're not paying for that, why'd you take apart a machine that wasn't broken?"

What is stopping me is they are a liar, they said it is normal for the tractor to make a loud squealing noise every time you hit the brake, never did that until the gear stripped out. I owned an L2501 for 6 year on the same property and never had an issue with the brakes not working. The L4701 never squealed for the first 150 hours of use and didn’t start until the rear end stripped out.
The main issue is that they won’t give me a price to diagnose the manufacturer defect. What if they tell me after they disassemble the tractor that I owe them $5,000? How about $10,000? I don’t do business like that.
I would rather bring it home and continue to strip out whatever is stripped in the rear end until it either doesn’t move anymore or I lose control of the machine.

I don’t think it will take many more of the loud popping noises that causes both rear tires to shutter until it destroys itself, hopefully I can maintain control when that happens, if not I am going to jump off and if I am still alive I will stand up and laugh while it careens out-of-control down the hill.

 

[Rdrett]

I spoke to another kubota dealership And he said that it wasn’t normal for the brakes to make a loud squealing noise. He said he has seen HST tractors with 1,000’s of hours on it and never seen any brake issue.
He told me that what the other kubota dealership told me to do isn’t safe and recommended that I not do that.
‘Confused on what to do now. Going to pick it up today and will post videos of what is happening.
John Deere is getting an estimate together for a trade-in. Hopefully they have better service than Kubota.

 

[NCL4701]

I don’t think it will take many more of the loud popping noises that causes both rear tires to shutter until it destroys itself, hopefully I can maintain control when that happens, if not I am going to jump off and if I am still alive I will stand up and laugh while it careens out-of-control down the hill.

I understand the emotional component of having a major investment fail and then getting a finger pointing response from warranty and KTAC. I wasn’t exactly pleased when I received a stop use recall on mine 45 hours into ownership when I was just getting started good on a backlog of deferred property maintenance the tractor was purchased to address. Finding out the potential defect could send me and the tractor over one of my own 100’ cliffs and there was no process in place to address the recall didn’t help. Continuing to press the issue in a business like manner to get it resolved approximately 45 days later did help.

However, you have two contractual relationships, warranty and KTAC, either of which may address the issue but don’t overlap. While there is a modicum of a chance neither will respond once the root cause is positively identified, that possibility is quite remote. The first step is diagnosing the issue. Once that is done, the next step is to pursue Kubota or KTAC, whichever provides coverage for the failure. If neither the warranty nor KTAC voluntarily steps up, you have a civil action for breach of contract against whichever contract covers the damage. It is incumbent upon you and no one else to prove causation if you get to a real dispute.

You took a reasonable first step by taking it to a dealer for diagnosis. That was unsuccessful. You took a reasonable second step by asking for advice on next steps here. You have been provided with good advice on next steps. Listen to what White Tiger is advising. He deals with this sort of thing from the dealer side so he knows of what he speaks. If that is unsuccessful, you need competent local legal counsel with experience in insurance and warranty claims.

While I do understand the emotional component here and am not denigrating the intense emotional desire to set it on fire or roll it off a cliff, the plan of run it until it grenades, bail, and hope you survive is not a reasonable, viable option. I have jumped off a tractor to avoid probable death. It is a last resort, not a “plan”. You have reasonable, viable options which you need to use to continue pushing the issue to an acceptable resolution.

 

[jyoutz]

Do you know if that person would be the regional service manager? I have a manager from the warranty department who is supposed to contact me back within 24 hours and I will see if they know who I need to contact.

I believe that’s the person I am referring to.

 

[JasonW]

Following this one. How did you end up paying $60,000 for a L4701? And $6,000 for insurance?

Might have missed it but what are you doing on steep hills? Skidding logs, bush hogging? Keeping it in 4wd and low range?

 

[Rdrett]

I believe that’s the person I am referring to.

I called and asked to speak to the regional service manager and kubota said I am not allowed to speak to them.

 

[Rdrett]

Following this one. How did you end up paying $60,000 for a L4701? And $6,000 for insurance?

Might have missed it but what are you doing on steep hills? Skidding logs, bush hogging? Keeping it in 4wd and low range?

$62,000. $6,000 for insurance. $20,000 for backhoe with hydraulic thumb. Also got 3rd function and box blade. Never logged with it, was going down hill to pick up brush with grapple to take to burn pit.

 

[Rdrett]

I took the tractor to a kubota dealer in Corbin Kentucky to trade it in on a MX6000 and they refused to take it in on trade and refused to repair it under warranty. They said it would take them 6 months to look at it. I called messicks in PA and they said they would take it on trade. i called 3 John Deere dealerships and they said they will take it in on trade.
3 kubota dealerships said that the brakes squealing are not normal.

 

[Rdrett]

Update, I talked to a reputable kubota dealer about 3 hours away and told them exactly what happened and they said it is not normal for a one year old tractor with 150 hours on it to have a loud squealing noise when utilizing the brakes. She said the same thing I said if they take it apart to diagnose the squeaking noise with the brakes, most likely, they will see the issue with the popping noise. Really nice lady unlike the other half a dozen Kabota dealerships I talk to she told me that you can run the tractor 24 hours a day seven days a week for a year and the brakes still should not be making a squealing noise. She told me that she will have no issue getting the tractor repaired under warranty.

 

[RCW]

@Rdrett - glad to hear you’re making progress!