Most JD dealers will gladly work on Home Depot sold mowers. They understand that HD has inventory. The dealer makes $ on warranty and service work.
I wouldn’t buy at item from HD that the dealer wouldn’t normally carry if they could get them.
You need to have a long talk to the dealers if you think they make a profit on doing warranty work.
Labour times are paid according the schedules service times and these would only be accurate if the mower was brand spanking new, you had a factory service stand for the mower and every factory service toll was there within arms reach .
The mechanics would have to be working so fast they were sweatting & gasping for breath .
Unless the manufacturers are a lot more generous over there than the franchise agents are down here no workshop paying technicians proper rate wages could make a living out of doing warranty work.
Customers who come in with with big box store / online purchases will not buy anything from the dealers if it is possible to get it cheaper elsewhere and are billigerant at best but usually aggressive and never thankful that the dealer has fixed the problem that would have been sorted during a predelivery check at a dealership .
So down here just about all brand name dealers use warranty work as loss reducers so warranty jobs will sit there & only get done when the techs have nothing else to do .
I get theses people storming through my front gat breathing fire because their tool has been at the dealers for over a week & not been fixed yet .
They I cop an ear bashing about the thieving dealers overcharging & price gouging then refusing to do the warranty work trying to make them pay .
Not if they seem to have 2 functioning brain cells I fire up the computer, show them my wholesale cost price then the Big Box retail price which in many cases is lower
Then I pull out one of the scheduled service fee books and show them how little the labour rate would be
After that is a warranty claim form that takes 1/2 a day to fill in because each & every steps has to be accounted form ( apart from scratching your bum ) .
And of course finally they see that most franchise agents do not actually pay the dealer cash money, what they get is purchase credits which are of little use if they don't sell that brand of wholegoods because even when the credits are applied to parts, the big box stores still get them cheaper so they can sell them cheaper .
If they are still here & not stormed out of the gate they get a quote which is usually about twice the purchase credits that a dealer would get for the job .
About 1/2 abuse me & storm off to the other independent shop up the road where they get slugged $ 75 before he will even fill in a job card .
The remaining group split fairly evenly in thirds for small tools , give it to me, take it back to the dealer , take it back to the shop for refund .
www.georgialawnequipment.com
from me. The John Deere 365r is probably in the mid range for JD with some short cuts taken to keep the price down, but it will likely last you longer. I would have more confidence in JD. But if you can't wait for a 375r and like the build and those features, you might have time to take a look at other options. Ferris, Scag, ExMark,Toro Simplicity, Kubota and others all have some pretty competitive models for the homeowner. This purchase will probably be a 5-10 year purchase. You will be driving it weekly and there is nothing worse than owning and driving a mower you hate. Regrets last a long time. I went thru this process last year for my 1-acre property and settled on a Simplicity Courier XT . It is a mid range unit built off a Ferris/Simplicity design. Take another look at your local options and if possible ask for a test ride. Compare them again. Most important to me is the deck and the finished look of the lawn. If that Cub meets all of your requirements then grab it and enjoy the mow.
