On Sun, 19 Jun 2005 00:30:56 GMT, in alt.home.repair John Deere
Riding lawn mower wrote:


Has anyone owned a deere that wants to share some info?

I'm on my second JD mower and have been disappointed with it and the
first one.

I don't recall the model of the first one. It was the type with the
engine in the rear and about a 30" cut. I believe it had a Kohler
engine. It had several fuel system problems over the years that I had
it. After about six years the transmission died suddenly and I had to
replace it the mower. At the time, JD was the only game in the rural
area where I live, so I bought another one hoping that my experience
was not typical.

I bought an STX-38. The fuel system has never worked well. When I shut
the engine off, I have to shut the fuel line valve otherwise fuel will
slowly leak into the engine and flood it. When I've been mowing a
while and shut the blades down and put the mower into neutral the
engine speed cycles increasing and decreasing quickly about a dozen
times before the speed stabilizes.

There where two breakdowns that I didn't think should have happened.
One was the pully-shaft that drives one of the blades. The bearings in
that assembly broke after about three years for no apparent reason. A
couple of years latter I had an electrical component fail which
prevented the engine from starting. I don't recall what the component
was.

Now we have a Kubota dealer nearby. When the time comes to replace
the JD, I will take a serious look at the K.

I must admit however that I'm pretty rough on mowers. I have about two
acres to mow, the ground is rough and there are always a lot of small
branches in the grass from all the trees that we have. I've also heard
that the larger JD mowers and small tractors are more reliable, but I
don't have any experience with that. Other than the problems I
mentioned, both mowers were really solid.

Some of my dissapointment may be due to unrealistic expectations.
Based on the JD reputation, I expected *no* problems.

--
To reply to me directly, remove the CLUTTER from my email address.