Cub Cadet RZTS 54 Steering Alignment

[wrldtvlr]

I followed your link, which led to a fairly significant amount of very heavy reading that is pretty much over my head. During my Internet research I saw a smaller (maybe 46 inch cut?) Troybilt steering wheel zero turn. I wonder if MTD made that? My cub cadet dealer told me that Troybilt had a ton of trouble with the steering and that mower is no longer available. I googled them this morning and Troy built shows several models with steering wheels, and they look an awful lot like my cub cadet. I also saw a craftsman with a steering wheel this morning. Two months ago when I started this research, I did not see any of these other brands with a steering wheel in my Google searches. I am finding that the salespeople at most of these dealerships are either not very knowledgeable about the origin of their products, or are not being honest with me.

Sorry. If you aren't familiar with how patents are written, they can be very dense. Without the drawings that usually accompany the text, they are impossible to read. That one was just an example that MTD does protect the technology they develop, and mower steering systems are an area they are working on.

MTD owns the Troy-bilt brand, so that dealer is blowing serious smoke. Far more likely that MTD sees steerable ZTRs a feature that they can use to differentiate the Cub Cadet brand, so they don't offer it to Troy-Bilt customers.

The Craftsman brand was purchased by Stanley Black and Decker a few years ago. As far as I can recall, SB&D doesn't have a history of building mowers, so they get MTD or one of the others to build their Craftsman mowers. And they don't all have to come from the same manufacturer.

 

[mboessen]

Wowsers!! MTD owns Troybilt as well???? Holy cow! I have dealt with MTD quite a bit over the last 15 years getting parts for various brands of MTD built garden tractors. I had no idea the size and scope of that company. There are definitely Troy built zero turn mowers on the Internet this morning that have steering wheels. Not sure why I did not see them several months ago, but it is becoming obvious to me that MTD is the only company with a steering wheel zero turn.

Back in 1987 I had a 42 inch cut Firestone brand garden tractor. I bought it used and do not know when it was made, but it was already very old when I got it. There was no Internet in those days and it took me quite a while to discover that the darn thing was actually made by, you guessed it, MTD!! I called them and they actually had some parts available for it, although it took them a while to find them. They actually asked me to send pictures of the mower to them. No one working there at the time even remembered making that mower for Firestone.

 

[Hammermechanicman]

indeed. I was not aware that MTD owned the brand. John Deere, for instance sells MTD mowers for their low end offerings, as do many other companies, but I have been told they build their higher end mowers themselves. Our local cub Cadet dealer had a commercial steering wheel zero turn cub Cadet with a 72 inch deck that was over $10,000. At least in my past experience I had not seen MTD involved in building anything like that.

Actually, it is a myth that the low end JD mowers are made by MTD. They are made in a JD plant in Greenville Tennessee. Many of the components are the same as the ones MTD uses. Not sure why the dealer would tell you (lie) that the CC mower was not an MTD product. The Craftsman mower is the same as the CC. They are both made by MTD. Black and Decker owns the name Craftsman which is now just a zombie name like Bell&Howell. They just buy stuff and slap the Craftsman name on it to sell it with brand recognition, like Cub Cadet.

 

[mboessen]

Actually, it is a myth that the low end JD mowers are made by MTD. They are made in a JD plant in Greenville Tennessee. Many of the components are the same as the ones MTD uses. Not sure why the dealer would tell you (lie) that the CC mower was not an MTD product. The Craftsman mower is the same as the CC. They are both made by MTD. Black and Decker owns the name Craftsman which is now just a zombie name like Bell&Howell. They just buy stuff and slap the Craftsman name on it to sell it with brand recognition, like Cub Cadet.

I can't speak for all of them, but I have a John Deere L120 purchased in 2004 that I am quite certain was manufactured by MTD. My brother-in-law has a craftsman MTD of the same age, and all of my steering parts are completely interchangeable with his.

 

[Hammermechanicman]

I can't speak for all of them, but I have a John Deere L120 purchased in 2004 that I am quite certain was manufactured by MTD. My brother-in-law has a craftsman MTD of the same age, and all of my steering parts are completely interchangeable with his.

MTD makes mowers like everyone else with parts from vendors. The more standardized the parts are the cheaper they are. JD and MTD just happend to use the same steering components from asian companies. They are made to compete for the same market so they use some of the same components.

Z700 Series ZTrak(TM) Zero-Turn Mower

John Deere marked a manufacturing milestone with the 5-millionth unit of Riding Lawn Equipment built at the Power Products factory in Greeneville, TN.

www.deere.com

 

[mboessen]

MTD makes mowers like everyone else with parts from vendors. The more standardized the parts are the cheaper they are. JD and MTD just happend to use the same steering components from asian companies. They are made to compete for the same market so they use some of the same components.

Z700 Series ZTrak(TM) Zero-Turn Mower

John Deere marked a manufacturing milestone with the 5-millionth unit of Riding Lawn Equipment built at the Power Products factory in Greeneville, TN.

www.deere.com

Well rats. I have been telling people for years that I thought my L120 was actually an MTD.

 

[bertsmobile1]

Well rats. I have been telling people for years that I thought my L120 was actually an MTD.

Actually the frame is identical to the frame used by AYP right down to all of the holes that have nothing in them and lots of AYP parts will also interchange with JD .
It is previously stated, Most mower factories are just assembly plants putting a lot of bought in parts together to make a mower,
There are very few mower factories .
AFAIK Toro , Simplicity & JD make their own ride ons
All the rest come out of either the MTD or AYP factory.
Just because a mower comes out of a particular factory does not mean they own the brand.
Most brands are owned by a separate entity and they pay the factory to make the mower for them because it is too expensive to run their own factory.

The exception to this are the ZTR's which are very cheap to make & right now still have a premium attached to them, but that is erroding very quickly .
The market is quite bi-polar now days
there are really only the two extreames with nothing in between
You have the small, usually family owned companies like Walker , Ventrac & Grasshopper who make nearly all of the frame & fitting and charge a premium price for a premium product thus make a good profit level from small volume sales.
Then the rest who make large volumes of mowers at a very low profit margin so they continually downgrade them because if they don't reach X thousand sales per year they can not cover their fixed costs .
MTD & AYP fit into that catagory and one or both of them will go under in the next few years because Chinese mowers are so much cheaper and the buying public is cheap , greedy & selfish.
Agricultural equipment companies like Toro & JD are in a slightly different class again but for them domestic mowers are a small part of the company and can be subsidised by very expensive high profit farm equipment.

 

[mboessen]

I guess I will have to embarrass myself by asking who is AYP?

 

[wrldtvlr]

I guess I will have to embarrass myself by asking who is AYP?

American Yard Products.

 

[mboessen]

Wowsers. About 20 minutes of googling after getting your reply has filled my head with more disinformation than I can shake a stick at. Very confusing.