NoobAsNoobGets
New member
- Joined
- Sep 12, 2019
- Messages
- 1
I have no experience with construction equipment other than renting a mini ex three times and the 28 hours I've put on this mini track loader we purchased. Somewhere around 15 hours or so, on occasion, I'd start it and it would die about five seconds later. Then I'd start again and no issues so I didn't think too much about it. Then around 20 hours it started to happen a bit more. Then at around 26 or 27 hours it would not start. So I kept the key in the on position and let it wait for a minute to bleed any air that might be in the fuel lines, and it would start. But it would only run for a minute or so and then die. That then became not starting and I have to let air bleed (not sure if that's an issue or not) for a 3 minute period before it would start. At around 27 hours when trying to start it I began to get the DPF light for the first time. Mind you during all of this there have been absolutely no error codes or error lights. The DPF will not complete a cycle though as the engine won't continue to run long enough. I've run it on all idle settings. I checked for water in the fuel and the fuel is fine and no water is shown and none drains out. Checked the air filter and it's clean. It's possible something got into the fuel system as around five hours I was driving it back from my work site when I saw the fuel cap in front of me that must have fallen off on my way to the work site. I did hours of work in dusty conditions without knowing the cap had fallen off (I had never touched the cap and had not fueled the brand new machine up at that point). I put the cap back on and it fell off again a couple days later. It eventually broke while I was messing with it, but I am able to keep it on the machine without falling off now. I have fueled the machine twice total with diesel. While this is a possible issue (something getting into the fuel) I have no evidence this is the issue and no error codes have been thrown. After troubleshooting with the nearest dealer (that we bought the machine from), they initially said they could send somebody to take a look at it for $125 an hour (including the ten hours there and back to travel to our location). We offered to buy a plane ticket since that would be cheaper but they said that wouldn't work (understandable given equipment). So we agreed for them to drive the 4.5 hours down to us but they changed their mind and said they can't send anybody because our place is located one mile from the nearest road (we use a 6x6 on our trail to get to our place). We told them we could haul their equipment and person up with the 6x6, but they weren't interested. They said we could bring it in to them, but there is no way we could get a truck and trailer to our machine that keeps quitting after two minutes or so. We called Kubota yesterday and they said they would contact the dealer. Today we called them and they said they had contacted the dealer but couldn't force the dealer to service us, and they recommended we get a third party to come look at the machine but they would not guarantee us that after doing so that they wouldn't void the warranty from a non-Kubota person touching the machine. We're now having a lawyer review our warranty and we're considering whether to stop payment (we financed through Kubota) and just have them pick up their machine with 28 hours on it. We had a camera recording the machine while it was operating and recording us doing required checks and we'll be making a review video before long since there aren't many on the brand new SVL65. While we're hoping this gets resolved, this is proving to be the worst financial decision we've made despite Kubota's reputation for being bulletproof. Anybody dealt with something similar?
