I bought a YM 1700 from a reputable dealer here in NC around 1992...
At the time, they were heavy into Yanmar imports getting containers at a time...
They would take the best tractors and paint them, go through the fluids, and perform typical maintenance before selling them to the public...
But were they being sold as fully reconditioned? or simply re-painted tractors? ... the latter of the 2 questions being the case we are to believe has happened with the OP tractor, Its not really difficult to sort out the good dealers from the bad ones, Just ask around for references, usually you'll have someone or many people step up to recommend someone they trust,.....:thumbsup: Just the other day I was talking with a man who admire my tractor ( YM1700 ) and would like to have one, but he said he was
a bit reluctant in buying a Yanmar because he had heard about the so-called refurbished ones that were only pc together, I told him I understood and had heard some of the same things, my advice to him was to join TBN read and seek out a reliable dealers, one who was willing to back up and put in detailed writing about the tractor and just what all had been done to it, if had in fact been reconditioned or were simply gone through and serviced,..
I also told him that I purchased my Yanmar as probably one of the ugliest he ever seen, it wasn't one of these nice new looking tractors, The type tractor I was looking for was one that looked like it had been being used:thumbsup:
it wasn't looks that I was after, it was the mechanicals, I knew if it was a good mechanically sound tractor I could make it look better later

after talking with the owner and him saying he used it when starting his Landscape business 2 years earlier but found that he needed a larger tractor, he let me use the yanmar just like it was mine before Buying it, he went on to tell me that this yanmar had been purchased through a 2nd party that simply imported and sold them, not a 3rd party business who claim to have reconditioned it,

I think as a good rule of thumb I simply wouldn't buy from anyone who claim to be selling reconditioned tractors, Unless of course they can prove of what extent of conditioning done to them
Remember One bad apple doesn't necessarily spoil the whole bunch,