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JD found yet another way to screw over their customers. As if the seats and hoods weren't bad enough....

I've only recently started working on X series mowers, until recently there haven't been many on the market to fix up for resale. Working on an X300 today and had the pleasure of finding out that you can't simply loosen a nut on the steering shaft to replace a pinion gear, the pinion gear is formed into the steering shaft. So, instead of a $10 pinion gear and a 30 minute fix, it's a $180 steering shaft and a 2 hour job.

Makes me love my LX model even more.

It's a shame that a company as successful as JD employs engineers whose job it is to find ways to ensure customers have to take their mowers to a dealership for service and pay a fortune for parts. Thanks John Deere.

Some of the Husqvarna and MTD are that way also Have to replace the entire steering shaft and is removed from underneath, so the mower has to be stood on its tail to get the shaft out.

I personally own an LX279 and a 3 year old X300. The new X300 is absolute junk compared to the LX models.

It's a shame that a company as successful as JD employs engineers whose job it is to find ways to ensure customers have to take their mowers to a dealership for service and pay a fortune for parts

So...................are you suprised? JD sales are stronger than ever and dealers charge $100/hr for service and they are not hurting for service business.

The only conspiracy happening is from YOU the BUYERS refusing to pay a reasonable price for quality mowers.
So every season the manufacturers HAVE to find a way to make the mower CHEAPER because customers will not buy it if in their tiny cheapskate minds they believe that the mower company is making 1 red cent more profit than they think is reasonable .
The end result is a shaft with a forged gear ( which will be very strong ) because it takes 4 minutes off the assembly time & saves $10,000 / pa in warehousing & inventory .
I have never understood the mentality where everyone expects to get paid more each year for doing exactly the same work as last year but demands that prices for what they want reduce each year or at least remain the same .
Iron ore prices have doubled in the past year and copper prices have quadrupled

No doubt we just ran out of iron ore and copper LOL. Used it all up. It's all price gouging.

slomo

That is the point Slomo, it is not price gouging.
A manufacturer has to be making at least a 50% gross margin on the factory gate price or they will not stay in business for very long.
With highly seasons things like mowers it needs to be 80% or higher to cover the cost of running the factory for 6 months with almost no sales income .
Price gouging is what HF, Wallies , Lowes etc do by purchasing cheap mowers directly from third world countries and selling them to you for 3 times the landed price while being 10% lower than the "ripoff" JD price and pretending to do you a big favour .
General retail mark ups are usually in the range of 30% to 50% of the cost price.

And yes we are running out of copper to the extent that it is now profitable to rework old copper mine tailings in Brazil & Chile just so long as you allow the highly toxic copper waste to flow down into the river, killing off most of the aquatic life .
We are currently consuming nearly 2 times the tonnage of copper that we produce annually and there is a finite amount of scrap that can be reprocessed.
In Indonesia they blow brass to burn off the zinc and return it to low grade electrical copper and in doing so make thousands of tons of toxic zinc oxide ( because it is contaminated with copper & lead ) which gets dumped or added to fertilizers .
Thus every "non-polluting" electric car produced probably kills a couple of people in a 3rd world country right now and dozens more into the future.
Similar story for all of the "no-pollution" battery tools, just to a lesser degree.
We don't need to worry about being invaded by the Chinese or the Russians because our own greed & stupidity will posion everyone in the end.
Good thing is it won't happen within my lifetime but I doubt that my grandchildren will live long enough to produce great grandchildren.

Actually if you was will to wait a few days you could have gotten the shaft for $165.

If the equipment owner or operator had paid more attention to maintenance they would had only to replace the bushings prior to steering shaft being destroyed. I got customers that refuses to get their mower repaired until it completely breaks.

Parts cost what they cost. Complaining isn't going make the supplier mark down price any more. On top that equipment isn't made to easily serviced any more either but how easy it is to assemble in the factory at the low cost.

I have seen where OEM have gone from using carriage bolts to plain hex head screws but still have the square holes stamped in the frames. Thus the repairs of simple idler pulley replacements have gone from simple nut removal to having take fender pans loose just you get a wrench on the hex head. Or like putting plastic cap over nuts as bushings so the old way of taking 15 minutes to replace drag link becomes and 1-1/2 hr job.

And customers like to complain about the shop rates too. So much did one here I put him to work fixing his own mower as I provided the tools. After about an hour he threw his hands as he couldn't figure how to fix the problem. Or like that stood there watching me take a hand held trimmer apart for a clutch replacement. Afterwards he said did know it was that involved and glad paid for my time.

Many times it is just they don't want spend their money on anything other than the booze, tobacco, and other bad habit items.

Yes I would to pay lower prices too but as repairman I don't complain when things wear out either. What I do is to check multiple sources for the best price before just handing over my money. That is just like the hub puller I got coming in Thursday. I am paying $120 for a tool that locally was over $200. That is not because I am cheap but smart enough as a business person as to buy from the distributor that was willing to sell direct.The tool in the config that I need still cost $162 overall as I need an addition pulling arm so I could apply maximum pressure points yet the customer thinks the $55 he paying for me to remove the hub is extremely high. Well I will not be using the tool but once every 5 yrs or so actually losing money doing the job; just hoping for repeat business otherwise.Yet even at the $162 it will save a lot time provider it works. I rather spend a hour doing the job than taking most of the day pulling that hydro out from under the JD Z920M which is easier than the Z925A where the whole rear assembly has to come out due bolt locations and no access otherwise.

If OP thinks working on a mower is expensive and difficult he ought of try the newer vehicles. Back when I youngster cars were easy to repair. Now you got to be a contortionist just to get what needs repairing or have professional level computer skills. Man are things compact now. And ATVs are just as bad.

And about the copper there is enough copper wires buried around here they could recycle the cables if the costs of digging them back up wasn't expensive. The telcons just leaves them in place and bury more cables but at least they optic fibers now..

And yes pollution is a major problem. Even locally people are so lazy that they rather throw their trash out the vehicle windows instead waiting to when they pass a trash can so they cold put the trash in them. I seen and recuse wildlife from many of those T shirt plastic bags. Some were already dead or severely injured but people don't care most times as it is not their problem.

On to one of my peeves is owners dumping their used motor oils in the ditches when it can be taken to the many recycle locations. I just took in nearly 10 gallons in the last month myself. And I did it as I went grocery shopping as it only took a extra 5-10 minutes to do it.

My bitching so over for now. Back to slept I go dreaming of better days.

In 2000 a new LX279 listed for $4750.00. A new X300 listed for $2999.00 in 2018. Adjusted for inflation the X300 would sell for $2000.00 in the year 2000. So adjusted for inflation the LX279 is almost 240% more expensive.

Whenever people complain about shop rates i always remember the Pawn Stars episode where a guy says "that is half what you can sell it for" and the reply is " tell you what. You buy some land, build a store, hire employees, and you sell it.

Hammermechanicman said:

Whenever people complain about shop rates i always remember the Pawn Stars episode where a guy says "that is half what you can sell it for" and the reply is " tell you what. You buy some land, build a store, hire employees, and you sell it.

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Yelp. Most customer have not clue or want to know what is involved in running a business. Overhead can be a killer if not controlled to a reasonable level. I stride for about 25% net profit so I can buffer to buy unexpected things like new tools or repairs for broken down shop equipment. Heck I just spent $200 having a metal fragment removed from my right eye that some how make it past my safety glasses. That definitely qualifies as an unexpected expense.

Now out that 25% comes my wages and income taxes too.

When folk gripes about service rates i get on the web and show them the T&M rates of the company i used to work for. $360 to walk in the door and say "hi" and that covered the first 15 minutes. Some of the leases with service contracts with 24/7 coverage could be up to $1000 A DAY. My $40 an hour is dirt cheap.

And about the copper there is enough copper wires buried around here they could recycle the cables if the costs of digging them back up wasn't expensive. The telcons just leaves them in place and bury more cables but at least they optic fibers now..

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Well we will get to the point where telephone wires are economic to strip to recover the wire.
However I rather fear they will be burned in an ammonia atmosphere to remove the plastic insulation as it is nearly impossible to strip manually.
Thus creating even more pollution from burning the PVC coating.

In 2000 a new LX279 listed for $4750.00. A new X300 listed for $2999.00 in 2018. Adjusted for inflation the X300 would sell for $2000.00 in the year 2000. So adjusted for inflation the LX279 is almost 240% more expensive.

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Exactly the point I was making although just doing adjustments on inflation alone is not strictly accurate, but good enough to show we should not expect an X 300 of today to be the same quality as the LX 275 of 20 years ago .

I try to get people to use the "real" price of what they are buying rather than the dollar numbers.
We purchase things with hours of labour . Dollars are nothing more than an exchange medium that is acceptable to both parties .

bertsmobile1 said:

The only conspiracy happening is from YOU the BUYERS refusing to pay a reasonable price for quality mowers.
So every season the manufacturers HAVE to find a way to make the mower CHEAPER because customers will not buy it if in their tiny cheapskate minds they believe that the mower company is making 1 red cent more profit than they think is reasonable .
The end result is a shaft with a forged gear ( which will be very strong ) because it takes 4 minutes off the assembly time & saves $10,000 / pa in warehousing & inventory .
I have never understood the mentality where everyone expects to get paid more each year for doing exactly the same work as last year but demands that prices for what they want reduce each year or at least remain the same .
Iron ore prices have doubled in the past year and copper prices have quadrupled

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well stated my friend........I too like a bargain........but all too often a bargain becomes a disappointment. The way we built this country was to continue to make things better. Quality has been sacrificed to meet a lower cost from a public that has bought into a false economy. Build it here with quality engineering, reliability and technology. You will say more in the long run.

Another with equipment is that manufactures are designing equipment to only to last a few years Some equipment was design with higher lifetimes are now built to have lower times; hence, quicker failures and needed replacements. It is a way to keep factories humming producing new that is being constantly being replaced.

I once worked for a Fortune 500 company that switch to a maximum lifetime standard of 5 yrs for all their durable goods. I was instructed as a tech to kill off anything over 5 yrs old even if the equipment was well maintained. Now some countries have mandated the minimum lifetime standard of durable goods much higher.

Hammermechanicman said:

It's a shame that a company as successful as JD employs engineers whose job it is to find ways to ensure customers have to take their mowers to a dealership for service and pay a fortune for parts

So...................are you suprised? JD sales are stronger than ever and dealers charge $100/hr for service and they are not hurting for service business.

Click to expand...

Maybe they want to be like Mercedes - make it expensive to repair.(That explains why there are so many at junkyards for parts)
So long as people whose item breaks say "May I please have another", the makers don't care if not laugh.

Suicide by design is not the intent of any manufacturer. Who would ever intend to build a product that is inferior or designed to fail, just so the consumer has to repurchase more quickly? How likely are you to purchase again, a expensive piece of equipment that had a shorter life than you thought reasonable? Manufacturers build their reputations on producing quality equipment at a affordable price. The design is not intended to fail but to meet price demands. Far too often the price points are not that of the consumer but by the big box stores that want to make the most profit they can. It's just like a cheap pizza.....you won't go back.

Well sorry but equipment is just designed to make it the end of the warranty period. After that they don't care if it last a long time afterward or not. They employ engineers and researchers that can figure out just how long a particular part will last and then design it just make it through warranty period most times.After they will sell you the repair parts until they decide to kill the equipment off.

I have several items over the years that just the warranty expired so did the items. Most were not replaced by the same product either here.

As for the OEMs and large distributors reputations they simply don't care anymore as it is all about the profit that they can make. However sooner or later it will catch up to them.

It is like the JD dealer that took back the discounts they gave me for buying parts and now charges $20 shipping on anything that I order through them. Well I have basically left them in favor of an online dealer that still gives me the discount for JD parts and I have gone to another Stihl that don't charge me an arm and leg for the Stihl parts.

Also A&I here just got suspended in house for failing to provide timely updates and shipping of parts among other things until Spring 2022. Then I think about buying from them again but by then I probably done found alternate sources for the part at reasonable prices. It just don't cut it taking a week just to post online that my most needed parts were back ordered a week before. Anyway they have already lost over $2000 in orders lately because of their attitude. The last PO was initially $660 but was cut down to $221 as I rerouted the rest of the order to another vendor. At least three 793880 camshafts and two 799863 fuel tanks were among the re-routed items along with a roll of chainsaw chain.

At this point I refer you to the to automotive pioneers with the name of Henry
One decided to make the best vehicles in the world , so he tested them till something failed then made that part stronger & tested again.
The cars bearing his name are the halmark for quality engineering , come with a guarantee that passes down through generations of the original purchaser.
I the long term those who bought his cars paid far less on a per year basis ( or per mile if you like ) than those who bought the other Henry's cars.
Over 95% of the cars his company made are still in existance and of them better than 80% are still in running condition.
However his company has been bankrupt 3 times and he died in poverty.

The other Henry made cars as cheap as he could .
He also tested his cars till some thing failed only with him, he then downgraded all the other bits so they failed at around the same time.
Originally he sold cars with no warranty till the government forced him to do it and the company still only provides the minimum legally required warranty.
Less than 5% of the total production output of his company are still in existance and the bulk of them are less than 10 years old .
His company became one of the biggest makers of cars in the world, his family became one of the wealthiest families in the world for the next 50 years.

The first Henry was of course Henry Rolls of Rolls Royce fame.
The second one was Henry Ford of Ford Motors.

If the buying public will not pay for quality that will last a lifetime then they can not complain when everything else is trash of varying levels .

I will agree that the LX series was a better engineered machine and were much easier to work on. They can be picked up cheap now and will outlast the X300 series. But I'm still mowing grass every week with the 1964 110 that my great grandfather bought new. So I have the mower that will last my lifetime.