King Kutter Quality

[countrybumpkin]

The blade could have been sold as a factory second originally.

 

[Sawyer Rob]

Just reading about the problems in THIS thread alone, there must not be any quality control at king cutter, at all!

SR

 

[robertm]

View attachment 536938
Heres the pic...

Oooooh! Someone went on a bender. Maybe you should dabble in making some of those fancy architectural steel components. That flowing gentle bend is soothing.

 

[fried1765]

If they don't eventually respond that certainly says something about their customer service.
I tend to be like a dog with a bone on these things; I would be reaching out to their corporate office directly by phone/email/letter. You need to do what you feel comfortable with. Even an apology from them is worth it.

I did Exactly as you suggest.
Made several calls until I found the correct person.
They stepped right up and sent replacement tiller parts.
I have no real beef with KK.

 

[fried1765]

There's nothing wrong with that blade! It has a built-in crown angle for road maintenance! You must be very lucky as King Kutter normally charges extra for that feature.

On a more serious note, I was looking at a KK blade at TSC last fall and noticed one that had the vertical pivot tube welded on crooked as well.

Are you SURE KK is currently making blades for TSC.
I think TSC is using Tarter Gate as their blade supplier.

 

[The Deerslayer]

I did Exactly as you suggest.
Made several calls until I found the correct person.
They stepped right up and sent replacement tiller parts.
I have no real beef with KK.

Excellent :thumbsup: Glad it worked out for you.

 

[1M05]

Excellent :thumbsup: Glad it worked out for you.

.

Glad you had success. My experience is disappointing. I also won't work that hard to give someone my money when there are so many good manufactures to choose from. They should be calling me over and over to keep my business.

 

[Sonny580]

I bought a KK 72" tiller from TSC 15 or so years ago and it is still on everything original , tines/ gears/pto shaft/ etc. and it has always tilled our gardens MANY times per year.--gardens are total of 4 to 4 1/2 acres.
Started out with it on IH 404 tractor, depth set 1/2, then for several years it went on the Satoh 650-G tractor. The last two years it's on the IH 706 with the depth set at MAX. Maybe I just lucky, but this tiller has been great. thanks; sonny

 

[daugen]

Sometimes I think manufacturer's HP ratings are too aggressive; they want to fit their unit on the most tractors, and gosh some of those lightweight implements look like they will bend with not much effort. When I bought this farm, there was a bunch of old wrecked implements in
the tree line. I hauled them out, and found a KK rear blade bent into an amazing pretzel. Turns out the prior owner had a 50hp IH tractor and I bet that blade wasn't rated for half that. Almost every piece of steel was bent. Since you can't buy a rock in these parts, he must have hit a tree with some speed.

We do get what we pay for, but never should lower price give us broken welds, ridiculously poor QC like the OP is showing.

Btw, I've had paint sheet off an almost new LP mower. Bad prime job for sure. Dealer gave me a can of paint. That seems to be the fix.
Easier to weld and paint like crap and hand out cans of paint. I bought Extreme Duty blade and rear rake from Everything Attachments. Drove to the other side of NC to pick them up and meet Ted and Peanut. Their paint was thin and I have places where that paint is coming off too. It's always the prep they don't do right, paint won't sheet off if they do their job right... Don't these folks believe in primer? It seems an industry wide issue.

I always include KK in my research because I like the made in USA. I think Tartar and KK are in a big fight for the lower end implements with the Chinese imports. But would I use most KK equipment with my larger two tractors? No. It's why I bought Land Pride and ETA.
Seeing those bent up implements when I came here was a good education. And yes, of course you can wreck just about anything if you work hard at it.

I am reminded of the complaint on the TSC site where someone bought the same carryall as mine, which while very poorly welded, was clearly designed to support weight from above. One guy hooked up the end of a brand new carryall to a chain, the piece sticking out just like a set of forks, and tried to lift a stump out with it. What an utter idiot. Of course he bent the thing, it was never designed for that. So sometimes I wonder if stuff has really gotten abused and folks don't fess up. In the OP case, this was just poor manufacturing and what does not make us proud when we see the Made in USA label.

 

[fried1765]

Sometimes I think manufacturer's HP ratings are too aggressive; they want to fit their unit on the most tractors, and gosh some of those lightweight implements look like they will bend with not much effort. When I bought this farm, there was a bunch of old wrecked implements in
the tree line. I hauled them out, and found a KK rear blade bent into an amazing pretzel. Turns out the prior owner had a 50hp IH tractor and I bet that blade wasn't rated for half that. Almost every piece of steel was bent. Since you can't buy a rock in these parts, he must have hit a tree with some speed.

We do get what we pay for, but never should lower price give us broken welds, ridiculously poor QC like the OP is showing.

Btw, I've had paint sheet off an almost new LP mower. Bad prime job for sure. Dealer gave me a can of paint. That seems to be the fix.
Easier to weld and paint like crap and hand out cans of paint. I bought Extreme Duty blade and rear rake from Everything Attachments. Drove to the other side of NC to pick them up and meet Ted and Peanut. Their paint was thin and I have places where that paint is coming off too. It's always the prep they don't do right, paint won't sheet off if they do their job right... Don't these folks believe in primer? It seems an industry wide issue.

I always include KK in my research because I like the made in USA. I think Tartar and KK are in a big fight for the lower end implements with the Chinese imports. But would I use most KK equipment with my larger two tractors? No. It's why I bought Land Pride and ETA.
Seeing those bent up implements when I came here was a good education. And yes, of course you can wreck just about anything if you work hard at it.

I am reminded of the complaint on the TSC site where someone bought the same carryall as mine, which while very poorly welded, was clearly designed to support weight from above. One guy hooked up the end of a brand new carryall to a chain, the piece sticking out just like a set of forks, and tried to lift a stump out with it. What an utter idiot. Of course he bent the thing, it was never designed for that. So sometimes I wonder if stuff has really gotten abused and folks don't fess up. In the OP case, this was just poor manufacturing and what does not make us proud when we see the Made in USA label.

My implements are simply toys for me.
I don't need to buy the whiz-bang fancy stuff, I just want stuff that is solid, simple, and works.
In my opinion, KK implements are low cost, but sturdily built.
If you can park a Tarter Gate (TSC) implement beside a KK implement you will see a significant build quality difference.
The OP got a bad KK blade, but he bought it used, and probably at a very cheap price.
If I had bought that new, it would have gone back, and the credit card amount disputed if need be.
My minor new KK tiller issue was due to a part not properly fabricated.
I had to make several KK calls, but after I reached the upper management level, the problem was quickly resolved.
In my opinion: KK is the most bang you can get for the buck!