Raptor 42" popping wheelies

[Nick_USMC]

Nick,

First, let me apologize for not thanking you, Marine, for your service and to your wife for helping with the yard.
Good luck and once again, thank you for your service,

Hooah

Semper Fi

Thank you,

And thank you all for the replies. I think I really wanted the Scag and I talked myself out of it (the money thing I think). But for $3000 I don't think this thing should ride this bad.
It's not even just the starting or stopping but while I'm traveling 1 or both wheels will come up.
I didn't even mention it pulling to the left and 1 lap bar being stiffer than the other. There's allot that upsets me about the mower and allot I like about it. But for $3000 the dislikes outweigh the likes.

 

[kraky]

Fwiw... I sold my raptor SD this spring and bought a new Hustler FasTrak... the front wheels on The Fast Track actually come off the ground easier than the sd did. And The Fast Track weighs 200 plus pounds more. Both machines did a really clean job of cutting.... picking up what the front wheels lay down. I don't feel unsafe on either machine at all. This year has been extremely rainy and I have a pocket on my lawn that has standing water frequently. I actually get a nice job of mowing by driving forward into the standing water slightly and then backing away and I barely leave a tire track with those front tires.... I'm sure the ground pressure of those front tires is way less than my old 450 pound John Deere lawn tractor. And the raptor SD weighs around 630 pounds and the fast track around 850#. I've seen tons of reviews and videos with the regular Raptor and wheels lifting off the ground so easily doesn't seem to be a normal problem.......wierd.

 

[kraky]

Last minute thought..... one of the guys in the golf league I play with has a John Deere zero turn.... he said his front wheels chattered and danced a quite a bit.... he found his tire pressures were way over inflated.... once he dropped them all down and got just a little bit of squat to the tires it all went away...just what work for him!

 

[Nick_USMC]

Last minute thought..... one of the guys in the golf league I play with has a John Deere zero turn.... he said his front wheels chattered and danced a quite a bit.... he found his tire pressures were way over inflated.... once he dropped them all down and got just a little bit of squat to the tires it all went away...just what work for him!

That's the second suggestion I had for lowering the tire pressure so I'll have to see what hustler recommends and adjust them accordingly.

Also I finally got in touch with the Owner/Manager of the place I bought the mower from and they don't take returns. So basically you buy it and you're stuck with it, contrary to what is on their receipts.
I decided that with their smart *** employees and this not being able to return something I'm not happy with, that they pretty much lost my business.
I feel like it's a legitimate complaint and they should have told me there were no returns before I bought it. It's not like I put a ton of hours on it either, I used it 1 time and don't think I put an hour on it (I'm estimating since it doesn't even come with an hour meter).

 

[kraky]

Wow.... sometimes it's nice living in a boring little town of 4000! They won't even take it back and trade on a different machine? A business like that wouldn't last more than a year around here....geeez.

 

[Carscw]

That's the second suggestion I had for lowering the tire pressure so I'll have to see what hustler recommends and adjust them accordingly. Also I finally got in touch with the Owner/Manager of the place I bought the mower from and they don't take returns. So basically you buy it and you're stuck with it, contrary to what is on their receipts. I decided that with their smart *** employees and this not being able to return something I'm not happy with, that they pretty much lost my business. I feel like it's a legitimate complaint and they should have told me there were no returns before I bought it. It's not like I put a ton of hours on it either, I used it 1 time and don't think I put an hour on it (I'm estimating since it doesn't even come with an hour meter).

I guess we back to punching him in the mouth. LOL

 

[mhavanti]

Same for my little town. You buy it from the dealer here, you own it. Talks good service, but, when you call or go by, its like he has had a really bad day. While you're there, if a new customer comes in talking purchasing a new mower, his bad day sure seems to change exponentially. I must say, he does have a ton of service from his commercials and does treat them well. Residential owners don't need to call him.

He only services what he sells. Box store sells, he won't touch them at any price.

I left two for three months to serve my country. Talked him into changing the oil, clean the carburetor, lubricate the pull rope spring return, and change the air filter on a Honda Self Propelled walk behind.

Got back to town, went to pick it up, he claimed he didn't have it. I argued with him for a while, then a light bulb clicked and he said, oh yeah. I remember. He walked out to a lean to canopy structure, brought the little Honda out, filthy, covered with sand, leaves, cut grass, etc and black from mildew looking crap. Didn't hardly recognize the unit. He said it was 85 bucks for everything and it is ready to go and had to replace the carburetor because he couldn't get a rebuild kit for it. I have taken the carb apart three times, cleaned it and reused the gaskets each time with no problems.

I paid him, loaded it up, took it home and pulled the dip stick. Black as tar, original oil and it turns out the oil hadn't been changed. Checked the carburetor where I'd used an engraver to put my initials. Yep, you guessed it, initials still there. It wouldn't start, gasoline smelled years old. I couldn't hardly pull the rope. Original air filter still in place with my name written inside between two pleats.

I called him and he said I was wrong and not to bring him any more off brand mowers if I'm going to accuse him of .................. Since I was home for a few days, I took care of it in a few hours (soaking the carb took the longest time) and it runs perfectly. Removed the recoil / fan housing, cleaned the recoil, lubed it and now it is easy to pull the rope and it recoils correctly. I lubricated the cables inside their housings and they both operate smoothly once again. As you can tell, the little Honda is hardly ever used and sits inside a garage taking up space. Just like it to run when I'm ready to loan it out.

I purchased my RSD60 from this dealer earlier by a couple of months and he agreed to service anything I brought him before I purchased the RSD. Well, I learned a lot with this dealer. Lowes now handles the mowers and will actually have mine serviced if I were to need warranty work on the dealer sold product. How's that for customer service?

Now, as far as ride, Tom removed the middle spring from under his chair to smooth out his ride. Runs his tires at 8 pounds and I know that will smooth it out tremendously. Good luck on improving your ride.

 

[bertsmobile1]

If you have a cool enough head and can afford the time there is a dead easy way to resolve this.
Get a sign made clearly stating the FACTS include a copy of the receipt blown up so the refunds policy can be easily seen.
Put the sign on the mower and park it across his driveway or directly in front of his showrooms if driveway blocking is illegal in your area.
Ring the local TV news room and advise them of what you intend to do.
Saturday morning early take your position.
Do the same Sunday
Tell them you are going to do this every day till you get a refund.

This always works , I have done this dozens of times for myself and for others.
The really hard bit is not to get provoked into a heated arguement and definately no fighting.
A friend who I was helping to do this ended up being punched which in a way worked out well.
The franchisors pulled the dealers contract and took back all their unpaid stock.
The dealer was charged with assult found guilty and finned around $ 10,000. My friend got his refund + $ 3,000 in civil compensation.
The dealer appealed and got it bumped up to a higher court, lost that case had to fork out a few thousand more in costs.
By this time Fair Trading ( our government regulator ) was forced to do something so they deregistered his business.
So he then had to continue as an unregistered sole trader which costs a small fortune in excessivly high insurance costs .
The shop is now a block of home units .

OTOH another one went horribly wrong as the protester lost his cool got into a heated arguement and was carted off by the local plod charged with causing afront & afray, refuseing the directions of a police officer and swearing in public.

 

[mhavanti]

bert,

You're in business and I was for over 40 years. I retired for fifteen minutes and couldn't handle the pressure, so, I went to work for our Homeland Security agency. In all those 40 years, I always knew my customers didn't have to spend their dime with any of my businesses and therefore, I made sure my employees weren't rude to folks, went above and beyond to supply not only the best of parts available, also the best customer service.

If something had a warranty or not, such as electrical parts, I replaced with a smile although it was coming out of my pocket. How did this work out? Considering a huge parts company came into town, took almost all of the local part store's business for about a year and a half. It finally got around that my store solely replaced regulators and other electrical parts that the huge stores would not. Ended up with more business than before the big company came to town. I picked up almost all of the other local parts store owner's electrical business.

My engine company placed four overheat tabs on each engine or two tabs on each head out the door. I personally stamped my triple initials into each head, block, crank that left that shop. If a person would install their engines, heads, etc. and bring the vehicle to our shop, we would, at no cost to the consumer, check the heads for torque specs, make sure their engines were in time, the distributors were doing the right thing, carbs were doing the right thing such as not running lean and checked their exhaust temps to make sure the engines were ready to run the H out of them. This made my machine shop one of the very largest in several states. It cost me big time early on, however, made me long term. You have to spend money to make money.

Bad dealers hurt themselves much more than the customers they disrespect.

Thanks, Bert, for helping all the folks that ask for help in the forum. You're a good man. All of you ladies and gents that earnestly put good information and advice in the forum are good folks. Keep it up.

Max

 

[bertsmobile1]

Aww Gees I am going to get all mushy if you keep that up.
I am here to learn, like most every one else.
However good customer service is parramount.
Don't complain or fob off, just fix it.
Works well.
It is the off season here & I have 2 weeks work sitting in the shop and 2 weeks waiting to be collected.
A happy customer is the best advertisement you can get .
In the very crowded Sydney transport market we went from nothing to a $ 3,000,000 / pa company in 5 years.
This was despite the big players offering our customers rates as low as 1/3 of what we charged.
Some did leave, but most came back when they realised that the price was not as important as the service.

If I have too much stock of used mowers they go off to auction where the buyers know they could be lemons and carry no warranty
If I sell a mower it comes with a new mower equivalent warranty which I stand by.
This gets some customers undies in a knot when they ask for a $ 10 trade in mower & I tell them I don't sell $ 10 as traded only $ 100 fully serviced & guaranteed mowers.