I hate to open a can of worms here, but this aggravates me a little. As we all know a few years ago JD wanted a larger market share it the L&G division. They came out with the cheap Sabre lawn mower to save face on the JD quality control. That didn't fly too well, so they made the LT series and put them at every Home Depot. My Fater-in-law sells JD equipment. He got a news letter the other day stating that Lowes will now join Home Depot in the JD lawn mower sales. Talk about stabbing the dealers in the foot in the lawn division. JD wants everyone to have a JD lawn mower a a cheap price. What people don't realize is they are getting a piece of junk. You get what you pay for. It is sad that deal will somewhat tarnish there reputation in the lawn and garden dept. You and I know the difference, but Mr. Smith on 57th Street is only going to know it is a "John Deere" and buy the thing and expect it to last as long as a 318. Only to find out it ain't gonna last any longer that the Murray he bought 6 years ago. That is my opinion, right or wrong it is something to think about.

A recent visit to a local John Deere Dealership's Lawn and garden Store (Sumner Tractor) tells me that the Dealer has a lot more on their plate than just economy lawn tractors even though they were well represented in that area.

Commercial and residential machines of every configuration and price were well represented. I don't begrudge JD's extension of their marketing plan to home supply superstores. However, I don't think that those stores have the knowledge and service back up for the more sophisticated products. As long as marketing management continues to keep their eye on the ball, they will do ok in my opinion.

D.

I don't know how it is everywhere else, but in my neck of the woods the local dealer will actually beat the Home Depo's prices on these machines. Personaly, i think they are a good little machine for the price range they are in. The LT's are are still a Deere - not junk! Sure they aren't as good as the larger machines, but not everyone can spend several grand on a lawnmower. Same thing goes for the tractors at the dealership. Some are a whole lot better built than others. If you are an ocasional user most any will do, but if you plan on working them hard you'd better tell the dealer what you want it to do or you'll regret it! (just my opinion)
M-MAN

M-Man one thing about the LT series is the quality. Looks green and yellow and pretty no doubt about it. The B&S engines that are in the mower don't meet JD standards for quality. Deere did this to cut costs to put everyone on a JD. Deere put the cheaper decks on them as well as a lot of other things to cut costs. Lower qulity=Lower cost. Now a days it is all about the almighty dollar.

The L series are the only ones being sold at Home Depot. The LT series are only available at a JD dealer. The LT series are a good machine.

I have a L111 and last weekend added a rear bagger for about $300.

So far after 12 or so hours of operation I find the tractor entirely satisfactory.

Two cylinder B&S engine seems to be doing very well.

So, it gives you another option when doing light mowing.

I'm personally happy.

D.

M-man, you hit the nail on the head about the actual sale price at the dealerships. I wish they would do a better job of letting people know there is room to negotiate at the dealership. I purchased a new GX335 and a push mower last year and even I was surprised at the discount I was able to get. People get too used to paying sticker price when they go to the big box stores.

I'm not trying to offend anyone here, but has anyone looked at a john deere and a cub cadet light duty side by side. The only real difference is the paint scheme and a few odds and ends. Next time anyone is in a home depot or lowe's and you can look at them please do so. I'm thinking MTD makes all the light lawn tractors.

I understand JD would love to have their tractors on every piece of property, and the big box stores can sure market them. The only problem I see, is that most big box employees don't have really have a good handle on many of their products, especially when it comes to JD tractors and accessories. I may purchase items for my lawn tractor from them, but overall, I'll always go back to my local dealers. I live in the Seattle metro area, and find that all the JD dealerships really have their act together. They are helpful, and can sure answer questions about their products.

Those JD LTs are just toys. I bought the JD L-100 just for mowing the grass. It is far too light with a 'Murray type' weak frame to get serious about performing anything else. I do not believe the local JD dealer has any real interest in selling those toys either in our farm based community.

Opps- I meant 'L' series, not 'LT' are toys.

Well I am in the dark on what is wrong with the B&S motor except that you don't have to pay the big bucks for it. I have a twin on about a 10 year old MTD - been a real good machine, and it did mow 2-3 acres at a couple of houses.

Now I do have a more up to date Z turn with the reliable twin Kaw on it (hmmm seems that I saw a couple of Kaw's on the green machines). It did swallow a valve last summer to the tune of 496 bucks for parts as i had to buy them.

The ole brigs without all the bells and whistles is still backing up the Z Turner.

Basically, I am getting at having owned a few brigs in my days, worked them like dogs, and got good service out of them. Also none of them ate themselves up period.

So It don't bother me to run something economical. By the way my MTD happens to be dark green

I'm such a thoughtful husband that I bought my wife an L120 to ride around on, just for fun. Bought it at a regular Deere dealer at the same price Home Depot was charging. So far (55 hours) it's been a good machine for the purpose it was designed, just mowing the yard.

John Deere is trying to cut the independent dealer out of the loop to make more money.A lot of the
dealerships now are run like company stores with the dealer just getting enough to survive.The big farmers lease equipment,so the money goes to deere instead of a dealer sale.Deere dealers are becomming more
like car dealers,anyone off the steet can sell equipment,all they need to do is follow the deere manual and have one person there to OK deals.They even have phone numbers to call to find out what to allow
on a trade in.

I asked my local JD Dealer what he thought about the big box stores selling JDs. He said that his shop actually sets them up and does the service on them. He didn't seem to mind. I was surprised.

What does erk me about the big box stores, is that their personnel just don't have a clue on the product they are selling! As much as I like to see the new tractors, I'd still go back to the dealer.

Sure would be neat to have one of those X-595 four wheel drive lawn tractors with all the doodads and a 62" mower. NOW, here's the thing that gets me- you can buy a brand new utility 4120 tractor which is actually a little smaller than the x-595 for a few thousand less. NO freakin' sense!! Seems like the utility tractors are getting smaller and the "lawn" tractors are getting larger!!

Well folks I have a L120, At 68 hours the deck belts went. at 110 hrs the deck started to wear through in certain areas. At 136 hours the bearings for the blades along with the deck idler bearings. (I switched the blade towers from a sealed bearing to a bearing that takes grease, much better now) At 185 hours the drive belt went. at 230 hours the frame is starting to twist and the speed of the tractor is slowing down. Possible sign the transmission is about to go. The tranny is a sealed unit so I can not service it. I am looking at a used (Only 30 hours) John Deere zero turn 717A / 48" deck and 19 HP kowasoki motorfor $5,500. I wish I would of spent the extra in the beginning. We use the mower hard but like I thought, it is A john Deere and will hold up, I was wrong, it is light duty. I think JD needs to be upfront with this so the exspectations of the L series is not so high. I though it would of loasted longer myself.

As the old saying goes " Ya Get What Ya Pay For"


buckhunter31

So far, so good. We've put about 100 hours on the L120, with nothing needing work execpt a dull blade. It gets a pretty good test, too, as the yard it cuts is little better than a pasture, with holes/roots/molehills/fallen sticks etc. to run over.

Crossing our fingers.

Btw, just to repeat, we bought it from a regular JD dealer at the same price Home Depot was charging, and got the dealer's expertise on top of it. It's nice to be able to talk to a salesman who knows more than the kid at Home Depot, who could only say: "It cuts grass. You want one?"

Well I can say my L120 is a piece of junk / I have 268hours on it and when I was putting it away I decided to change the blades. i normally use car ramps but had my hyd jack near by so I jacked it up under the motor. I noticed that one wheel was slightly turned in so I wanted to check out the wheels while I change the blades. Was i surprised, The bushing were totally gone and the wheels wobbled like crazy. I had to machine new busings and put new collors on to hold the front wheels on. I also had to straighten a bent shaft in order to get the front wheels to line up. The whole front end was just plain worn out. They cheepened it up by not using bearings and now it fell apart with just 265 hours. One dam front wheel fell off this summer because the clip ring that holds it on fell off. I already had to replace the towers because the fell apart. Another deal where they used sealed bearings instead of bearings with grease fittings. The new ones I bought have bearing I can grease. The B& S motor seems the best thing about the tractor. It runs strong and has given me no trouble. I also think the transmission is week. I have also had to replace the idler sprockets on the deck along with two sets of belts. The deck is very light duty and realy junk. If I get another year out of it I will be lucky.

I would like to know if you get the to year warranty from home depo My local JD man told me that what he carries and sells has a 2 year warenty parts and labor. This was about 3 weeks a go as we played pool against each other in our pool league, I gave him a hard time becouse they charged me $98 for points condensor and to wires for my JD A , He chuckeled at me and bought me a lot of drinks after that. Well as far as quality and durability, if we dont do our home work on things we will always pay the price. I try to keep from making the same mistake twice, when it comes to a motor they have a manual that tells you how to take care of it, dont let it over heat, keep the service up on it, bearings wear out, power washing will make them go out faster if you force water in them then park it in the garage to rust. I will grease my mower but if I dont catch the bearing befor it gets to making noise it will cost me double.
Randy

Randy-

I guess that tells me my next lawn sized tractor will deffinately come from the dealer. I was working on one of ours just yesterday with 776 hrs on it , a 325, that's used arround our property. Just now is the idler on the deck that runs the blade belt tensioner wearing out. Those have been hard hours too.. you can't get grandma off that thing if she decided a pasture needs to be mowed. I know that the one from Depot and Lowes don't have the same anti scalp wheel adjustments but I had no idea they'd lightened up on other areas such as spindles and wheels. Times are a changin'...


Jimmy in NC

I've got a Sabre gear drive that I bought from my Deere dealer in Arizona about 8 years ago and it's been a decent lawn tractor. I've got abolutely no gripes with the Brigg & Stratton engine and overall the quality of the mower and the product support has been fine.

That's not to say that the larger Deere mowers aren't better. Now that I've got an acreage and horses, I moved up to a 790 with most of the toys that go with a compact tractor (rotary cutter, 272 mower, post hole auger, rear blade, spreader, etc.). The 790 is a darn nice small tractor but is, afterall, 15 times the price of the Sabre.

Deere has made some really stupid marketing and product mistakes over the years (remember the Homelite mess) and in the end it comes down to what the customer is looking for in terms of value and how well you can position that value in the market. There is no doubt that the Deere dealers can do a better job supporting a product than Home Depot but that doesn't mean there no room in the market for a Deere mower at Home Depot. In the end, the jdparts site still has all the parts and my dealer still works on them if I need him.

As to the Deere dealer support, if you pop over to the jdcrawlers board you'll read post after post about how little interest the Deere dealers take in supporting the vintage equipment. Although I sure understand the economics, it's been my experience with the dealers here in the Milwaukee area that they're at best a parts ordering desk and at worst no help to outright misleading. If dealer support was great, there be almost no reason for Deere tractor message boards. You'd be able to get all your product support answers at the Deere dealer.

Well guys I can sell you my used MTD with a bazillion hours on it real reasonable.

As far as stealers go, I think it depends on the local management. Here, the parts guys will go out of theri way to try to find me a widget for my old piece of junk/treasure. sometimes they actually loose money on me since I convinced them to get bigger pop corn bags.

Bunch of swell guys. We were having a real puzzling electrical problem on the neighbor's 4240. The service manager talked to me on the phone and pointed me to the problem.

I donno.

I traded my STX 38 gear drive for an L110 hydro, fortunatly mine has the kohler engine. About the only thing I like about the L series over the STX is it has a hydro trans. Got to looking at mowers in sears flyer and the L series is identical to a craftsman except for the color. Very cheap built. When you go over humps and valleys you can feel the chassis flex. Won't down Deere for trying to get market share. This one will be soon getting a new home.