Yes, and the chains have to be lubricated and those that control the skid steering need to be tightened several times until they are done stretching. And Argos are a bitch to maintain because everything inside is hard to reach. But the Kubota does not float and move through deep water. Agree with what you say about the ride. Hard on your back. But that's the price to pay for a vehicle that is truly amphibious and can go through soft mud in which a Kubota would get stuck up to the floorboard. In the Kodiak swamp where I built my duck blind I once drove the Argo, loaded with 2x4's and plywood sheets close to the water where I wanted to build the blind. I never noticed how soft the mud was, but when I jumped out of the Argo I sank in the mud up to my calf muscles. Yet the wheels were only 4" deep in it. An Argo, with skid plate, winch, etc. hardly weighs more than a thousand pounds. Its flat, smooth bottom slides on the mud like a sled if it becomes high centered. Of course it can get stuck, but it really takes an effort on the driver's part to do so. Its Achilles' heel are underwater ruts. If the wheels on both sides end up in deep ruts left on the bottom of a puddle or a shallow pond by another vehicle, it will sit on the mud with its wheels churning water. Obviously they can't get enough traction to move it. It happened to me twice, but the friction between its bottom and the ridge of mud between the ruts was minimal, (no differentials, no struts) and both times I was able to get out by hooking up the winch cable to the base of willow bushes. With any other vehicle the bushes would have been ripped out of the soggy ground, but both times the Argo slid effortlessly on the mud and onto solid ground.
