MinnesotaEric
Super Member
I contacted my selling dealer about my tractor skipping out of range in October of 2015. My dealer contacted Kioti of America who informed my dealer that I had voided the warranty. I called the warranty person at Kioti and asked why was my entire warranty voided and, Tim Fox, the American Importer warranty guy, said:
1) I had worked on my own tractor.
2) I had modified my tractor.
3) I had abused my tractor.
Huh?
1) Tractors are tool carriers. I added my own third function because my dealer, at the time, didn't know how. I didn't modify any electrical system on the tractor and my third function looks like it came from the factory.
2) I was sold on the premise that the tractor would regenerate on average every 50 hours. My tractor was regenerating every 8-12 hours because it was always running rich because it wasn't warming up. This same problem struck the entire diesel industry with Tier IV diesel engines and the field repair among technicians was and is to install a warmer thermostat. As measured, the stock thermostat begins opening at 165 degrees F and is fully open at 180 degrees F. After carefully measuring everything, I installed a thermostat that begins opening at 175 degrees F and is fully open at 185 degrees F and also featured a bypass for high rpm operation as the stock thermostat. This meant that my tractor when not under a load wouldn't cool down enough to go back onto the rich warm-up fuel map and the DPF wouldn't load up as fast as it had been. My T-stat swap effectively solved my problem while also maintaining the factory fuel map as at every temperature, the engine runs on the factory fuel requirements and now my tractor is regenerating at a far more tolerable 25-35 hours.
3) When I specifically asked how I had abused my tractor, Tim Fox, the warranty guy refused to offer any explanation. However, in October 2015, my tractor video collection was rather limited, and I suspect that the video in question was my first and only use of the BX expanded cutting edge mounted on the OEM bucket or that I used a box blade to clean up a pad for building. I used the BX expanded cutting edge to run over light brush that is growing out sphagnum soil. The soil is so soft that I can literally pull the brush out by hand and if this is type of work is deemed abusive, then Kioti's are not designed for any kind of bucket work whatsoever as driving into a lose pile of soil is harder on the loader than running the loader on float over brush to see how well the BX-panded cutting edge worked. Moreover, if using a box scraper is deemed abusive, then again, Kioti’s warranty isn’t worth the paper it is written on, as both tasks are expected uses within the industry for compact utility tractors.
Anyway, the whole episode of having my entire warranty revoked is super disappointing to me and has totally sucked any joy of ownership of this Kioti tractor out of me.
Meanwhile, one dealer told me that they sold five Kioti tractors and all of the customers had mentioned my videos and the Russian importer of Kioti has asked for permission to translate and use my cold weather starting video.
All to say that American Kioti importer, or more specifically their warranty department is amoral and has no idea what their customers are doing with their tractors as nearly every one of us use the tractors for clearing land, material handling, and as tool carriers. My selling dealer certainly knew what my intended uses where, that I wanted and had to have a third function in order to use a grapple or a snow plow on my loader.
Here is a video I made which lead to my thinking that I had been taken by the 50 hour regeneration sales pitch, and the kind of low power my 60 hp tractor was making because the tractor wasn't ever getting warm enough. This video led my carefully puzzling out what thermostat would be a suitable replacement. To test and measure everything, and thankfully, as I am a ASE certified mechanic, my local parts distributor was willing to let me mull around until I found a thermostat that fit, had a suitable bypass and warmer temperature range and solved the problem.
You can feel my frustration in this unpublished video.
My trouble here isn’t with the Kioti dealers, or with the parent company Daedung, but with the amoral culture at the American importer who without ever seeing my tractor voided my warranty and sucked the joy of ownership right out of the deal. Worse, my videos have helped sell a pile of tractors at this point benefitting the American importer, but because of the American importer’s decision to not honor their warranty, they have changed me from a Kioti enthusiast who wanted to help Kioti spread goodwill and confidence in Kioti’s products into a realist who wishes he had never purchased a Kioti tractor.
I wish the American Kioti importer would reinstate my warranty, and fix what I presume is a bent shift fork likely caused from somebody jamming the unsynchronized range fork into gear within the first 7 hours of use before I took delivery of the tractor. That would make me happy and return me to an enthusiastic Kioti tractor owner. Notwithstanding, unless Kioti makes me whole, I cannot recommend their products to anybody because what happened to me, could also happen to you.
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