Well look at this. A lot happens then you take two weeks off and go on vacation. I was at my land in the mountains of CO doing all kinds of great stuff with my skid steer. Sorry, I don't have good internet there yet.
Where do I start?
Well, right before I left on vacation LS reached out to me and talked to me about my tractor. This was nice. +1 to LS for calling me. Then my dealer started responding to me again shortly after. This was nice "mostly". I was asked by LS what would make me give LS another try and hopefully give me a better experience with the brand. Since asking for a refund would make me happier to be done with it but would still leave a bitter aftertaste, I told them if they did what I had been asking for since 2017 (swap out my tractor for a new one that works) I would do my best at giving it a go again and try to focus on the new tractor and not the issues with the old (sorry for the run on sentence). Since it seemed to be going well, in good faith I also made my videos that maybe shed some negative light on the LS brand to "private" in YouTube, as a token of goodwill. Did I have to do this? No way. This should have been fixed years ago and not been an issue we are even taking about. But again, in good faith I did it to see where this will go.
That has been 2 weeks now, and I am waiting on a formal response. If they don't swap it out for a working tractor, I will just reset the videos to "public" again and be on my way trying to fix this tractor to probably sell. If they do swap it out for a new one, which should have been done when they could not fix it, then I will leave them private and see how the new one goes. If it does well then great for LS and I can make all the happy videos like some here do about how I love my tractor (or try my best because some of those videos are just boring). You will know when I know.
As for the floppy bucket issue, yes I have cycled the cylinders over and over and over and over for 4.5 years. That does not matter. After a few times using the bucket it goes back to floppy. If you don't care, then fine; don't! If you want to use the bucket for grading or cutting then you probably will, but whatever. Some of you just don't get it and that is fine. I have a skid steer now that does work correctly and I don't use the tractor for that anymore. I still want it fixed. I have friends I refereed to LS and they have it. I would like to show them a fix and open their world to proper loader function. If I get a new one, I want that to work right also. I want a real fix; that's it. Why is that so hard?
Did the dealer tell me about this. Yes and no. Not before I bought it. I did not check that because I had never seen that issue before. I had a new compact John Deere tractor and it did not do it. My older Kubota subcompact did not do it. As user PCABE5 said, his New Holland that is the exact same model as my LS does not do it. When I asked the dealer about it all I was told was its "normal" and they told me about the "fix". It works for like one or two dumps then its back to floppy. I don't want to keep cycling the loader every few times I use it just to make it work as it should. If they do swap me out with a new one, I will test it and see if it does it. I am hoping they have made improvements that got rid of the issue. I know they changed a lot of parts since 2015.
So YES, I have tried the "fix" and it does not "fix" it. Its a one or two cycle fix and then its back to not working right. That is not a fix. That is a work-around to temperately hide the symptoms. I run my tractor at 2000+ RPMs pretty much always. Mine still does it. I have tried it at 2500+ rpms and it will still do it. Its less floppy, but its still not how it should be.
I want to know why this is common with LS (and the other "off" brands it seems) but not with the New Holland with the same base tractor, JD, Kubota, Mahindra, ... I hear a lot of "sort of" fixes and theories, but no real fixes. I hear about "fast dump", but I do not think these loaders have that. I did not see it in the manual (but I could have missed it). People can keep throwing out guesses, that is fine. That is how the internet works. But I want a real fix.
And no CADplans, I will not complain about getting dirt out of my bucket. I know how to do that just fine. I have a full sized backhoe, a track loader, a bulldozer, an old new holland tractor and a skid steer that do not have "fast dump" and I can clear the buckets and blade with no issue.
