TroyBilt Garden tractor with defective Kohler engine

[Scrubcadet10]

Kohler Courage maybe? You need Courage to own one.

Courage is no longer made, replaced by the 5400, all issues were fixed.

 

[Seattle Troy-Built with K]

Kohler is honoring my warranty, at their time schedule. I will be without a mower for at least 2 1/2 months. Bottom line is that Kohler will get away with a bad warranty policy at my expense. Having to wait 6 weeks to obtain a WARRANTY replacement motor, after waiting a month for a "repair" that failed, is not great customer service no matter what they say. The easiest way to lose customers is to fail at customer service.

 

[ILENGINE]

Bud, everybody is having parts availability issues. I waited 11 months for a $6 part on a new out of the box pressure last year. Took 10 months to get a carb for a 3 year old leaf vacuum that the customer lost the use of from May of last year to this March. Kohler will get the engine to their dealer when it is available. And it will be installed per the warranty procedures by the dealer.

And the problem isn't limited to just lawnmowers. I have customers that I talk to that have waited 6 months or longer for warranty parts on their new vehicles. Everybody wants it right now mentality, and in todays reality "It isn't going to happen."

 

[Seattle Troy-Built with K]

You are not the customer .
You did not pay Kohler directly for the engine
The factory is Kohlers customer they wrote the cheque to Kohler not you.
You wrote a cheque to pay the mower factory for the mower so you are the mower factorys customer and it is them who have the warranty obligations with you .
That is the way the system works
As for paying $ 1900 , that is peanuts when you convert it to real currency which is hours of your labour.
So you actually paid around 120 hours ( ≈ 3 weeks ) for it .
At that price there is only a couple of hundred mark up for the dealer , a bit less for the factory and less still for the major component suppliers so the quality of the mower will be low and the quality of the after sales service will be even poorer.

To put things into perspective
My sister is still using the walk behind that dad bought in 1962 .
That mower cost him 2 months wages .
I have ride ons here that I use regularly from around the same period
The 24" Rover was over $ 1000 back then the average annual salary was $ 4000 .
Now days a garbage walk behind will cost 1 days wages and last for about the same time
A quality walk behind will cost 1 to 2 weeks wages
A junk ride on will cost about 3 weeks wages and good one 3 months wages .

In order to bring the price down low enough to meet the totally unrealistic expectations of the market the quality of everything is as low as it can possibly be made .
When Honda was making ride ons they cost the same as the bottom end 2 seater all plastic cars .
And most of these mowers have outlived the cheap & nasty Suzuki & Diahatsu cars.
Honda abandoned the ride on market and eventually the ride on mower market because people would no pay for quality and they would not put their name on trash.
People have been brainwashed that every thing they want will be cheap and get cheaper every year .
Well that does not happen without consequences and the direct consequence is the products are garbage with short service life requiring regular replacement which is destroying the planet .

I am sympathetic to your plight & I feel your frustrations but ultimately the cause is you & your reluctance to buy quality products .

I paid Tractor Supply in Monroe for the Troy-Bilt mower, but Kohler actually warrants the motor. Kohler agreed to pay for the warranty repair, but they sub warranty work to dealers. My machine will be in the shop for at least 2 1/2 months getting the warranty repair done, and I have to sit and wait for Kohler to take whatever time they want. In the meantime, I'm without a mower during the time of year I need it most. Kohler has a horrible warranty system.

 

[sgkent]

well, I have been waiting a year for an Acura part. Brave new world we live in. And we thought it was stupid the old Soviets were willing to wait in lines for things.

 

[ILENGINE]

I paid Tractor Supply in Monroe for the Troy-Bilt mower, but Kohler actually warrants the motor. Kohler agreed to pay for the warranty repair, but they sub warranty work to dealers. My machine will be in the shop for at least 2 1/2 months getting the warranty repair done, and I have to sit and wait for Kohler to take whatever time they want. In the meantime, I'm without a mower during the time of year I need it most. Kohler has a horrible warranty system.

Every lawnmower, lawnmower engine , car manufacturer, tractor, and implement manufacturer subs their warranty work to their authorized dealers. That is just how it works. Maybe the alternative will materialize in the future where the customer has to ship the product back to the manufacturer at their expense both ways for warranty work. For a Kohler engine that cost would be something in the neighborhood of $200.

And do you think the dealer enjoys having your mower taking up space in his work shop while Kohler supplies an engine to the dealer. I have waited for up to 6 months for warranty parts to fix mowers and the mower is unusable for the customer and I have to roll it in and out of the shop and work around it. And that was in 2000 not something that happened recently.

 

[StarTech]

But everything has gotten crazy parts wise. I recently order a tool from the Husqvarna distributor it took 6 months to get it so the chainsaw had to sit in the box until I got the tool, now it awaiting me to get back to it. I cancelled an inner tube order that has been on back order for 3 months, no longer need them as I found an alternate source with TR13 instead the TR87 stems.

And the whole world of business has gone bonkers with price increases. Some of it I can control by using alternate sources, some I can't. I just have pass things along when they cost more.

I am about to go bonkers myself. I kick out a customer this week (not physically, but verbally) that tried to tell me how long it takes to do the repairs. I wrote five of labor just to get rid of him. I had put with his penny pinching nitpicking ways for over an year. That makes the third customer to get barred this year. Customers just don't think about the pressure we are under currently with trying to get parts and dealing with pushy customers.

 

[Hammermechanicman]

I have had customers question some bills lately. I tell them the truth about the parts and it is what it is. Some of the older folks have a hard time paying over $100 to fix a push mower. I get miffed when i place an order with etrailer and everthing says in stock and 10 days later i get an email some stuff out of stock so i change some items to some that are supposedly in stock and an hour later get an email one of those items is backordered at least 30 days. Finally got a very nice and helpful person on the phone and she helped me find out what was really in stock and get my order. Meanwhile customer waiting over a month for me to fix his trailer.

 

[Seattle Troy-Built with K]

You are not the customer .
You did not pay Kohler directly for the engine
The factory is Kohlers customer they wrote the cheque to Kohler not you.
You wrote a cheque to pay the mower factory for the mower so you are the mower factorys customer and it is them who have the warranty obligations with you .
That is the way the system works
As for paying $ 1900 , that is peanuts when you convert it to real currency which is hours of your labour.
So you actually paid around 120 hours ( ≈ 3 weeks ) for it .
At that price there is only a couple of hundred mark up for the dealer , a bit less for the factory and less still for the major component suppliers so the quality of the mower will be low and the quality of the after sales service will be even poorer.

To put things into perspective
My sister is still using the walk behind that dad bought in 1962 .
That mower cost him 2 months wages .
I have ride ons here that I use regularly from around the same period
The 24" Rover was over $ 1000 back then the average annual salary was $ 4000 .
Now days a garbage walk behind will cost 1 days wages and last for about the same time
A quality walk behind will cost 1 to 2 weeks wages
A junk ride on will cost about 3 weeks wages and good one 3 months wages .

In order to bring the price down low enough to meet the totally unrealistic expectations of the market the quality of everything is as low as it can possibly be made .
When Honda was making ride ons they cost the same as the bottom end 2 seater all plastic cars .
And most of these mowers have outlived the cheap & nasty Suzuki & Diahatsu cars.
Honda abandoned the ride on market and eventually the ride on mower market because people would no pay for quality and they would not put their name on trash.
People have been brainwashed that every thing they want will be cheap and get cheaper every year .
Well that does not happen without consequences and the direct consequence is the products are garbage with short service life requiring regular replacement which is destroying the planet .

I am sympathetic to your plight & I feel your frustrations but ultimately the cause is you & your reluctance to buy quality products .