advice on retrofits to grey market kubota ??

[victoriafarm]

brand new owners of a kubota which does not have seat belts or ROPS (really, really brand new - i'm reading the safety section posts and I'm not even sure what rops is - a roll over bar of some kind?)

Has anyone retrofitted a grey market kubota with seat belts or other safety features??

thanks
carol

 

[btolle]

ROPS=Roll Over Protection System

"System" is the keyword here. You need a rollbar and a seat belt. Using a rollbar without a seat belt (or seat belt without a roll bar) is extremely dangerous.

All tractor manufacturers have special deals on ROPS for tractors that did not originally have them. They supposedly sell them cheaper to encourage people to retrofit their tractors. It it is a gray market tractor you may be out of luck.

From the Kubota website:

"These "gray market" units are different in several important respects from the tractors that Kubota makes for the United States, and which Kubota Tractor Corporation sells in the United States. These tractors are not ordinarily equipped with important safety equipment such as ROPS and seatbelt, PTO shield, safety decals, or operator's manual. Neither Kubota Tractor Corporation nor its affiliated company Kubota Corporation of Osaka, Japan, provides parts, service or any warranty support for Kubota "gray market" units in the United States. There is no responsibility whatsoever either by Kubota or its authorized dealers for these "gray market" units."

Bill Tolle

 

[Scrounger]

I've heard that dealers will not even touch them since Kubota will come down on them like a ton of bricks. I thought it was prety hard to buy the grey market stuff in the US anyway. I've heard of alot coming down from Canada however.

 

[Junkman]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( From the Kubota website:

"These "gray market" units are different in several important respects from the tractors that Kubota makes for the United States, and which Kubota Tractor Corporation sells in the United States. These tractors are not ordinarily equipped with important safety equipment such as ROPS and seatbelt, PTO shield, safety decals, or operator's manual. Neither Kubota Tractor Corporation nor its affiliated company Kubota Corporation of Osaka, Japan, provides parts, service or any warranty support for Kubota "gray market" units in the United States. There is no responsibility whatsoever either by Kubota or its authorized dealers for these "gray market" units."
)</font>

I have always found this a strange policy that Kubota has. They only add safety features where it is mandated that they do so, but if the country that it is sold in, doesn't require them, then they don't care that the operator might be killed because of the lack of safety features.

 

[btolle]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( I have always found this a strange policy that Kubota has. They only add safety features where it is mandated that they do so, but if the country that it is sold in, doesn't require them, then they don't care that the operator might be killed because of the lack of safety features. )</font>

It's not about safety, it's about economics. If their competitors are not including ROPS and Kubota did they would have to charge more.

Many manufacturers could not care less about your safety. In fact, Ford knew about the exploding Pinto gas tanks and went right ahead selling them.

From Daily Kos website :

"The financial analysis that Ford conducted on the Pinto concluded that it was not cost-efficient to add an $11 per car cost in order to correct a flaw. Benefits derived from spending this amount of money were estimated to be $49.5 million. This estimate assumed that each death, which could be avoided, would be worth $200,000, that each major burn injury that could be avoided would be worth $67,000 and that an average repair cost of $700 per car involved in a rear end accident would be avoided. It further assumed that there would be 2,100 burned vehicles, 180 serious burn injuries, and 180 burn deaths in making this calculation. When the unit cost was spread out over the number of cars and light trucks which would be affected by the design change, at a cost of $11 per vehicle, the cost was calculated to be $137 million, much greater then the $49.5 million benefit."

Welcome to the "real world" where the $ outweighs your life every time! Makes you want to run right out and buy a Ford doesn't it?

Bill Tolle

 

[slowzuki]

Ah but the thing they left out was the speed of rear impact at which they choose to draw the line for protecting the tank against.

At some speed the tank will always bust open.