z-beast

[lawn mower fanatic]

WOW that sounds really bad! Are you able to return it?

 

[djdicetn]

Re: z-beast is GARBAGE

I bought one of these through Home Depot. VERY VERY bad mistake.

It is badly misrepresented. Says it's Heavy Duty and Commercial. Gives a shipping weight of about 800 pounds, so that sounded OK. In fact, the weight is just barely over 500 pounds. Everything but the engine is made in China and assembled (by chimps or poorly trained people) here in the US. Design is awful . Too cheap to run brake cable thru pulleys, they use short lengths of bent tubing. No height/leveling adjustment, you just loosen cable clamp and hold in place while trying to level. The three blades are each 15 and 3/4 inches on my 48" model. Of course, since the blades would not provide full coverage to full width even if they were in a straight line, the mower leaves two rows of uncut grass (one between left and center blade and the other between right and center blade). Makes for a messy cut. Rather than pay for guide bearings, they use "J" bolts to try to keep the v - e - r - y long belt on the pulleys. Works about as well as you would expect. Since the single idler pulley has only moderate tension and little travel, you have to adjust, and re-adjust, and re-re-adjust, and re-re-re-adjust the belt tension as belt stretches otherwise the belt flies off every time grass density changes.

The printed owners manual they sent with my brand new mower was an older version than the PDF version that was on their web site and the printed version contained many errors or there had been many updates. Either way, it was very confusing.

The battery failed within the first week. They said I abused it. I bought new one from Sam's Club.

The only "local" repair place said they had never heard of Z-Beast, Stanley mowers, or GXi. They laughed at the quality and said they were sorry but that they wouldn't care to try to work on it since they deemed it "an unsafe and unworkable design." Oh, well, it would be impractical yo use this thing if you can't fix it yourself, because it's always broken or needing adjustment.

The belts are an outrageous price at GXi's parts department. Virtually no parts are on line. So you have to call them. Auto-attendant answers, assures you that you are important, tells you that "all our agents are servicing other customers" but that they will be right with you, then offers to take message for call-back (they NEVER call back) or put you back on hold. After a half dozen cycles, the auto-attendant will not let you hold any longer, so you leave message. They DO call one time out of maybe six.

When you do have the honor of talking to them, you have to be "respectful" or they hang up. (I must admit I have trouble respecting anyone who works for these bozos.)

Their prices are unbelievably high. $25.00 for a common $3 fuel filter and megabucks for belts and blades.

The equipment is junk and the customer service stinks.

AVOID this brand at all costs.

/s/ John

It's a given that most users that frequent these forums will be quick to discourage anyone who says they are looking at a Z-Beast with an intention to purchase!!! I've said it before and I'll say it again, the Z-Beast owners that are posting in this thread should corporately contact Home Depot(or wherever else this Chinese piece of junk is being sold) and make sure H.D. is aware that they are putting their reputation on the line by continuing to carry this product!!!! One would think they know that by now:0(

 

[lawn mower fanatic]

I can't even find it on the HD website...maybe they got smart and stopped selling it? Here are some reviews, though. :thumbdown:

Home Depot - 62 in. 31 HP Kawasaki Fx850V Commercial Duty Zero-Turn Riding Mower with Roll Bar customer reviews - product reviews - read top consumer ratings

 

[Ric]

They (Home Depot) don't keep the Z beast or any of them in stock, they do have three models on the HD site the Turf Beast 36" and 54" along with the Brush mower my guess is they would order the Z if someone wanted to waste their money.

 

[lawn mower fanatic]

Doubt those are much better!

 

[lawn mower fanatic]

I can't find the Z-Beast on their website anymore! :confused2: Did they give up selling it? I was at HD today and saw one in the outdoor Lawn and Garden section (while it was flurrying out). It was faded, rusty in places, and looked like it hadn't been moved in a year! Not so good for sales!

 

[michaelarnett1]

Has anyone ever tried this mower? Zero turn that sells at home depo. It has a subaru engine on it. Just never heard of them. But the price is fair and the mower looks pretty tuff.

I purchased a Z-Beast 48 inch Zero Turn mower from Home Depot in on September 30th, 2017. It was delivered to my home on October 23, 2017. I purchased the machine to cut the grass of you home which has a 1/2 acre lot. The lot has a 2000 sq ft. house and a 2500 sq ft. enclosed patio area and a drive way. So the yard is not a very large yard to cut. I used the mower the following summer beginning in January (Florida does start cutting grass early.) and made my last cut of the yard in early November.

The mower has since day 1 been hard to start, continuously smelled of gas odors (I had to build a shed to store it in to get it out of my garage) and not been very responsive in operations. When I took the mower out to to cut the grass in January i noticed it was making a strange noise. I opened the cover to the the drive units in the back of the mower and saw that the belt was shredding. I then tried to move the mower to the garage and the belt driving the hydro units came apart.

The mower only has 22 hours of use on it.

I contacted GXI at (919) 550-3221 and spoke with John (tech support) told them of the problem. Johns response was that if the belt broke it was my responsibility to have the belt replaced. He made arrangements to have Crump's Lawn Equipment Ctr. Inc. in Stuart Fl, come an pick up the mower to replace the belt.

I can't afford to pay somebody to replace a belt on a lawn mower every 22 hours of use, so I replaced the belt myself.

The mower continued to not perform properly. I then contacted Crump's Lawn Equipment Ctr. Inc. to service the mower and they came and picked up the mower. After looking at the mower, they called me and told me that they could not fix the mower and it needed to go to a factory repair facility.

In addition, GXI said that all of the failures were my fault and they refused to pay for any repairs. The mower has a 1 year warranty on Parts and Labor, and a second year warranty on parts.

I am a Master ASE Certified Automotive Technician, Master Certified on Volkswagen and Subaru. I am also certified by Mazda, Audi, Mitsubishi, Chrysler and Ford for conducting factory warranty repairs. I have been an automotive instructor and also an ASE Evaluation Test Leader for certifying Automotive Instructional Programs. I am not a shade tree mechanic.

Now I have a $3000 piece of garbage that I would be foolish to spend any more money on. My recommendation is to stay away from GXI that sells Z-Beast Mowers and Stanley products. They do not support their own products and your money would be better spent if you just threw it in a fire pit. At least you would not be stuck with a pile of junk that you can't get rid of.

 

[ArtsyBandit]

I purchased a Z-Beast 48 inch Zero Turn mower from Home Depot in on September 30th, 2017. It was delivered to my home on October 23, 2017. I purchased the machine to cut the grass of you home which has a 1/2 acre lot. The lot has a 2000 sq ft. house and a 2500 sq ft. enclosed patio area and a drive way. So the yard is not a very large yard to cut. I used the mower the following summer beginning in January (Florida does start cutting grass early.) and made my last cut of the yard in early November.

The mower has since day 1 been hard to start, continuously smelled of gas odors (I had to build a shed to store it in to get it out of my garage) and not been very responsive in operations. When I took the mower out to to cut the grass in January i noticed it was making a strange noise. I opened the cover to the the drive units in the back of the mower and saw that the belt was shredding. I then tried to move the mower to the garage and the belt driving the hydro units came apart.

The mower only has 22 hours of use on it.

I contacted GXI at (919) 550-3221 and spoke with John (tech support) told them of the problem. Johns response was that if the belt broke it was my responsibility to have the belt replaced. He made arrangements to have Crump's Lawn Equipment Ctr. Inc. in Stuart Fl, come an pick up the mower to replace the belt.

I can't afford to pay somebody to replace a belt on a lawn mower every 22 hours of use, so I replaced the belt myself.

The mower continued to not perform properly. I then contacted Crump's Lawn Equipment Ctr. Inc. to service the mower and they came and picked up the mower. After looking at the mower, they called me and told me that they could not fix the mower and it needed to go to a factory repair facility.

In addition, GXI said that all of the failures were my fault and they refused to pay for any repairs. The mower has a 1 year warranty on Parts and Labor, and a second year warranty on parts.

I am a Master ASE Certified Automotive Technician, Master Certified on Volkswagen and Subaru. I am also certified by Mazda, Audi, Mitsubishi, Chrysler and Ford for conducting factory warranty repairs. I have been an automotive instructor and also an ASE Evaluation Test Leader for certifying Automotive Instructional Programs. I am not a shade tree mechanic.

Now I have a $3000 piece of garbage that I would be foolish to spend any more money on. My recommendation is to stay away from GXI that sells Z-Beast Mowers and Stanley products. They do not support their own products and your money would be better spent if you just threw it in a fire pit. At least you would not be stuck with a pile of junk that you can't get rid of.

I wished I would've read your post before I purchased my pile of crap, 62Z Beast. Ordering process and owning this pile has been the worst experience ever. I've put less than 13 hours on mine and the damn solenoid went out, hyrdos shot, literally two days a ago a bolt snapped off the idle pulley. Before you ask if I am reckless or beat this mower, the answer is abolutely not. This is literally being mindful of when and where to mow.

To anyone considering buying this product, STAY AWAY from it. You've been warned.

 

[bertsmobile1]

Take it back and ask for a refund / replacement .
If the hydros have gone in 13 hours then they are defective.
As for buying from Home Depot, it is a case of penny wise & pound foolish.
Bought from a dealer and problems like that SHOULD have been found out during pre delivery set up & testing.
Also the dealer SHOULD swiftly do any repairs as he needs your business where as Home Depot don't give a wrinkled rats rectum about you because there is a line of people around the block trying to get some thing for nothing.

 

[HENARD]

I know this is an old thread, but I was wondering if anyone has ever found parts for the ZBeast 62 inch at other places besides Home Depot and the GXI site. I'm looking for some belts and Spindles.