What is a grey market tractor?

[amanda11270]

I figured I would post this here in Iseki, because I have an Iseki and have only every posted here. I keep hearing on forums about "grey market" tractors. What does that term mean? My guess is that is if Harbor Freight made tractors, they would be grey market tractors?

 

[Code54]

One that is not made here or supposed to be sold/imported in to the US. Nothing wrong with them, often the tractor may be missing some of the US safety features and you have the writing on the tractor in different languages. If you go to Kubota's site they have a bunch of info on gray market tractors on there.
Sometime getting parts can be difficult also.

 

[Ilikeurtractor]

Here's the "gray market" version of your tractor (with 4wd) if it were imported to the US in all its gray-market-glory:



Not really much difference except for paint, maybe the seat, and some attachments that "legitimate importers" such as Bolens could apply from their existing line of tractors. Bolens (and maybe others) did spec out different PTO speeds vs. the original Japenese design in some cases such as the Bolens G19x/G24x and others. In the case of the G244, it had two PTO speed settings, the standard 540/1000 while the Japanese version had four speeds, more suited towards rice harvesting or whatever they do over there.

 

[Ilikeurtractor]

Oh, and the tractors imported under US names tend to inflate hp ratings - i.e. an Iseki TX1500 machine is a Bolens G172 machine with "17" hp while the Iseki TX1500 has "15" PS which is supposedly the PTO power which, at times, makes sense but not always. A "PS" by the way is equivalent to 735 watts while a US "hp" is defined as 746 watts. In your case, Iseki models your machine as a "TX2140". I'm guessing this means "TX" version "2" (?) (3-cylinder engine, etc.), 14 PS PTO, and I can't guess what the "0" indicates.

The Japenese manuals are confusing for power ratings for the TX series tractors. You'll notice they list "engine power", in the case of the Mitsubishi KE75, as 14.8 PS which could in all reality be PTO power. However, they also list "engine torque" as 4.0 kg*m @ 2300 rpm which does not really make sense for PTO outputs since there are multiple speed settings and consequently multiple torque outputs.