Cary i did not mean that steve would not send the part. I am sometimes rambling and forget my punctuation so its hard to read and follow my point. I was simply saying if OP is not mechanically inclined, and cant say replace a starter or trouble shoot a charging problem etc this would require him to either take it back to steve, or a local mecanic and have him do it. The later senario or if hes able to do it himself i have no doubt that steve will gladly ship the part to repair anyprom with a tractor he sells. Was not downtalking steve or his business, just pointing out for a warenty specific repair shop (ie Steves yanmar business) there is a point on which you have to weigh your travel distance. If a guy is fine driving to ATL from VA. to get a tractor from steve knowing that barring a catastrophic failure he wont probly make it back to steves, travel time and cost are not worth it, but yes he can get steve to send him parts to fix anything that may go out that is covered under a warrenty.
Look at it this way your this guy (have no idea of his ability at this point) he buys one of steves tractors 6 months battery wont stay charged and the battery is fine, charing problem with tractor. And say he cant get on here and figure it out with our help cause he has no idea what a multi meter are etc and wont learn. His choice is to take it to steve 5 hours away and burn $75 in fuel each way and 10 hours time. When he gets there im sure steve will fix it as he waits, but he has a 10 hour round trip and forks out $150. Or he can take it to his handy shadetree mecanic that he uses for his car maintence and is good with this stuff, that guy offers to look at it for $80 and replace it with steves warrenty part for that amount. The latter situation makes more sense, so the only savings by doing this is the cost of the part, weather it be voltage reg or the alt or just maybe cleaning connections? I was saying try and find a local good used one and take the cost savings and put it toward parts.
But this is all probly pointless except the tral part cause what kind of guy wants to buy a 35 yr old tractor with out even basic knowlege of how it works or can fis most things.
-nate