Long post here, someone may find it almost comical.
I’m about to go full Karen mode on the local Kubota service manager when they open on Monday.
My BX2380 has been leaking hydraulic fluid from the quick disconnect coupling for the front end loader forever. I just recently learned that there was a recall on that part but my serial number was excluded for whatever reason. I called my local dealer and asked if I could bring mine in and see if it’s the same issue or not. They said sure, and I am very thankful that they were able to coordinate with corporate and get my coupling replaced under recall.
While my machine was there, I figured I would just have them do a tier 2 service since it’s right at the 350 hour mark and that way it’s just one less thing for me to have to worry about.
Now for the fun part.
They call me to come pick up my tractor on Monda the 3rd. Great! I go pick it up in the afternoon and right around 4:45 I’m at home and notice that the mower deck is covered in hydraulic fluid. That’s weird, surely they would have cleaned up after their repairs….I cleaned it up and did another 10 minutes of work with the tractor and sure enough it was still leaking. I dropped it off Tuesday morning for them to repair it again, and they call me later that afternoon to come back and get it again. Cool. It’s actually fixed this time and I remove the loader to get ready for mowing.
While preparing for the first mow of he season, I double check the mowing deck. As part of the service I requested, they grease all the zerks on the tractor and mowing deck as well as level the mowing deck. It turns out my mowing deck was 3/4 of an inch out of level from one side to another and there were globs of grease all over the top of the deck. I’m thinking someone just flat out didn’t check the deck for level and didn’t give a crap about cleaning up the grease mess. About this time I was starting to get frustrated because of the sloppiness of their work with the hydraulic leak at first and now the deck not being level and also covered in grease.
Fast forward to today and when I got home from work I went to the garage to level the deck myself and I noticed that there’s a puddle of fluid under the rear diff of the tractor. What now? Turns out that when the numbnuts replaced the HST filter he didn’t tighten it down all the way. I reached under there and could easily put another 1/8-1/4 turn on the filter! So far, it’s stopped leaking but I’ll be sure in the morning. I’m just glad I left it in the garage while I was gone for a couple days and didn’t leave it in the normal parking place because it usually isn’t parked on concrete that would call my attention to a leak.
After much frustration and doing half of their job for them I got my grass mowed and don’t seem to be leaking fluid from anywhere anymore.
WTF?
TL;DR -
I took my tractor in for service. They called me 2 weeks later to pick it up.
I had to take it back the day after I picked it up because the issue wasn’t fixed.
The next day I discovered that the mower deck was not leveled, and it was covered in globs of grease.
I had to clean the deck and level it myself.
The HST filter was not on tightly and was leaking fluid.
The whole reason I had them also do the tier 2 service was so they could fix it up and I could maximize the productivity of my time at home and instead I wasted almost 2 full days dealing with their shortcomings.
Just one picture showing the mess of grease the tech left behind
HST filter leaking like it had a hole in it
youtube.com
Oh and I burned a stump with some of it. 