I purchased a 66" SB200 Bobcat snowblower attachment in February 17'. First time using it this season the impellor hydraulic motor goes out. Snap ring on motor shaft came loose, fluid everywhere long story short. Local dealer says Bobcat is going to warranty this motor. This snowblower has been down for a month now. The local dealer keeps passing the buck on Bobcat for not having the motor it in stock and it has to ship direct from Eaton. How in the world can a company like this have thousands of these blowers out there and now at this time of year the only time they are used have no parts. I am so frustrated, I am about ready to sell my Bobcat skidsteer and all my attachments and look elsewhere. I'm I the only one having these problems?
Your dealer or BC should be pulling a motor off a unsold snowblower and giving it to you. Considering how much snow you guys have gotten this year, that is seriously some lost revenue.
BINGO KSSS has it right, a good dealer will know this, without asking!
Thinking outside the box a little here, it sounds unusual for something simple like (presumably) a simple gear motor to fail first time out. Are you sure all your case drain lines are plumbed up correctly?
Do as posted above [#2].. & TELL your dealer your intentions.. it might just lite a fire under him??
There are 9 of those snowblowers going up for auction on Iron Planet in Bismarck. Looks by the pictures to be from the BC dealer. I would get your dealer to pull a motor off of one (the auction is a couple weeks out) and next day it to you. Bismarck to Kalispell should be an easy day.
it's not unusual for a part to be on backorder. bobcat,along with every other OEM, sources parts from their vendors. it's not the bobcat dealers fault that a supplier doesnt have the part in stock. unfortunately the dealer is "stuck in the middle" between a customer with a broken attachment, and the bobcat parts system
The dealer does have at least a moral obligation to keep his customer up and running assuming he wants to keep the customer. Doesn't appear to be the case here. If you are the dealer and your busting you butt to find a motor, then the customer should be aware of that effort. Not a complicated process, especially in the middle of the Winter in Mt just not a lot going on. I spent 5 minutes on it and found 9 machines that could be used to pull a motor off of if the dealer would oblige.
One wonders WHY these 9 are for sale, at auction. Could it be a secret recall? selling at auction eliminates any warrantee liability, so maybe that's why... I'd call the dealer, and ask if that is the case, and is he prepared to speak to your attorney? it might be that these 9 are being sold at auction because the dealer knows that the motors are defective...
Thanks for the input. I think its pretty pathetic that Bobcat would not have these parts in stock. As far as the dealer goes they should be looking at an alternate course of action to correct this to keep me up and going. I'm going to have six weeks of down time by the end of all this. Of course being a warranty issue, I can't fix this myself which I would rather do. If I had to purchase this blower all over again I would go to the parts counter and ask for availability on probable components to fail. In this case I wouldn't of bought it. I have heard that Bobcat is one of the better companies for dealers to deal with. But it looks like my local dealer just isn't that motivated to keep people going. I'm not in the heavy equipment repair business, but in my line of work if the tables were turned I would do whatever I needed to get this going. I think overall in this day and age the service industry keeps going down hill. The seasoned techs are retiring, they are being replaced by the untrained to save a few bucks but we still have to pay the outrageous fee's. I'm all for paying top dollar for a job well done. But well done is becoming a hard thing to find. 2 more feet of snow coming today and tomorrow and no blower.
If you have a way to fix it your self than by all means do so. I have fixed, welded and jimmied lots of new machines under warranty. In the end the dealer has always made it right. we cannot wait days for dealer or parts during planting or harvesting.
If the motor isn't a brand new, just out model, perhaps you can get a replacement from http://www.surpluscenter.com/ . You will need to know shaft size, mounting pattern, GPM, pressure, and perhaps displacement, of the motor you are replacing. These guys carry a lot of popular motors, and have good tech support, and a hydraulic formula page, to help, if you get confused...
I'm going to ask this, are you blowing snow commercially or is this just homeowner? Not that it should matter, but if this was how I made my living, I'd just fix it, forget about the warranty. Beg, borrow, steal, fabricate, just do something -- do like farmerlund says, to get back to making $., If its just for you as a homeowner, I can see the dealer not getting in a terrible hurry. That doesn't make it right, but if he knows you don't really --really need it (you've lived without for a month now), I'm betting he's not on the phone for hours about it every day. If I've got a machine down, I'm a miserable SOB to everyone on the parts possible chain until I've figured out how we're getting the parts. But if I'm down, I don't make any $. If the Local bobcat man won't help, call the regional man. Call the factory. Figure out who made the motor. Get it from them. Find something else that fits. Reweld the mounts to fit something different. Buy a different blower. Call the dealer every day, twice a day. It's your machine, you're the one who is most interested in getting it running, get it running, don't wait on the dealer, fix it. If you don't want to do that, you really really don't need it.