The turbo diesels by Briggs /Daihatsu were the best engine ever dropped into a Ventrac. Look at 9 hours run time VS 4 hours on a full tank of fuel on the new ones. The down fall of the ventrac turbo's was two fold. One, the E.P.A proclaimed then "dirty" , therefore no more production of those engines. Second, doing and oil change, the turbo charger needed to be primed before starting. (simple as unplugging the white wire on the injection pump and cranking it over till the oil light went out). at $1800.00 for a turbo +labor, its an expensive screw up.
What I find pathetic is the solution should NOT be to unplug a wire, rather to engineer a simple relay which delays the injection pump until properly primed. All of this should have been discovered, as well as all the other mentioned flaws in the other engines during the initial R&D portion of the design.
Ventrac is my dream machine and I may never be able to afford one, although I will always have the dream, just in case my lot in life changes enough to allow me my one real passion, a great little articulating tractor with an abundance of options. Heck, I've followed Ventrac for years and am honored to see Jack Wiley as one of the forum members and posters on here. That retired engineer really sold me on the idea, but to see Aaron Graber (on the Monday morning minute video see Ventrac's channel on YouTube) say a new 4500 with every option (this does NOT include the available aftermarket boom sprayer made to fit a 4500 perfectly see prolawnsprayhields ) costs $136,585 puts a Ventrac 4500 way out of my price range since I would be using this as a homeowner rather that a contractor or someone who would use this as a commercial compact tractor. Also, this price does not include the much needed 46"-48" snow blower so an operator can clear snow off ordinary residential sidewalks. To Ventrac's credit, they are seriously looking into the demand and possibility of making one, but if one must be had now a buyer could go to Steiner and FrankenSteiner their Ventrac with a 48" snowblower.
In essence a Ventrac is a workhorse for a company offering professional landscaping services, a golf course, park and recreation department with football, soccer and baseball/softball fields to maintain, someone who maintains very hilly property (properties) or a very high priced toy for those who could afford to buy just about anything. It certainly is not and never will be the average person's go to choice for a compact tractor when there are John Deere, Kubota and Cub Cadet, Simplicity as well as others who make pretty darn good yet less capable (especially on slope conditions) compact tractors for much less.
While Ventrac IS doing a pretty good job of addressing many issues, I still think there is room for improvement in their R&D design department. My final thought is given the price of these tractors attachments and implements, I believe Ventrac should "Make it RIGHT" whenever there is a failure of any kind, and should have a reporting process to notify the company of failures, even if each sales company only reports one of a specific failure, after so many of the same failure prompting Ventrac to issue a recall to all owners of their affected products and offer free replacement of defective parts or improperly engineered problems and "Make it RIGHT". One could not begin to imagine how upset I would be with a company or a dealer if, as I read earlier in this thread, my expensive compact tractor failed to perform its job because it broke down every two to three times it was used or if I had purchased one of the 4221s with the Vanguard TD and it overheated then some dealer told me Briggs wasn't going to honor its warranty. "Make it RIGHT" should be a corporate requirement at Ventrac's prices.
But then again, that's just MY opinion.
