Let me list a few reasons-
1. The belly pans are hinged. (Sounds like a great idea, right?) Not a great idea. The hinges of the middle and front pan allow them to drop from the front. When the machine breaks down in the woods (And it will) and you can't run the hydraulics, you can't get to the front of the machine.....
2. The rear hood cover is very heavy, and opens the opposite way from the hood. In a very limited work space, it does not work well to cover the rear acces completely. You can only get at the engine from the side, and that is through a very narrow opening.
3. The rear hood (Again). It is black. Black attracts heat. ASV is hot enough allready without putting a big black metal cover very close to the hood.
4. The "Arms" that you see that run from the roof down to the rear corners. Go ahead and take those off. They are pressure fitted at the bottom with carraige bolts. They will fall off with in a week of twisting and turning. And they will never stay on again.....
5. The "Pre filter Air Intake Cover". This device is a good idea, but.... Don't tilt the cab without removing it or you will spend the next few hours cussing at the rear window assembly that just popped out.
6. The Roof/AC Cover. I hope you have a couple of strong men or a chain hoist handy when you need to blow out your A/C condenser every 4-6 hours. And to put it back together right, you need a transit.
7. The rear swing down radiator acces door. Hope you don't have a winch... as you will not be able to get to the bottom of the radiator to do your daily cleaning....
That's all I can think of right now. I will post a few more when I cool off.
I have had my rounds with ASV, and quite frankly, I am glad they have been sold. If you read the history of the guys that started ASV, you can tell they know nothing about mulching.
I wish that they would fly a few of their end users up to the factory and have a users forum where we could beat, i mean, meet the engineers that design this product.
In a purely dirt moving, landscaping business, these machines would be awesome. And the RC 100 is probably the strongest out of the box, off the shelf 100 hp mulching machine made. I hope you can stand downtime, as I have learned that it takes two machines to keep one running in the woods.
Thats the pkg that I have been improving on. nothing new there
