Re: GT245 lemon?

The dealer, P & K equipment in Norman, OK, said that Deere will not buy back any tractor past the 30 day period, and that the owner will not give us our money back except for what they would pay for a tractor with 55 hours on it. The owner claimed too much time had passed (4 months). Note that it has been in 5 times and twice during that period my husband had to travel for work and be gone for a month, so we didn't get to run the thing intensively between repairs.

They "offered" to get us into a different tractor with different motor at their cost (less commission and markup), but unless we took a downgrade, they would NOT let us trade for zero cash. In other words, if we went to a gx series (they don't change engines until the 345), they would give it to us at their cost, but NOT credit the full amount that we paid on the GT245 but a depreciated amount. In other words, our 245 was only good for $4300 although we paid close to 5500 for everything. I was livid because I was not going to write out another check. I told him our patience and giving them an opportunity to make things right was the ONLY reason why there were 55 hours on it and 4 months after we bought it. Had I known this was not going to get resoved, they'd have had the tractor back after 17.5 hours and 32 days. I told him we were ripped off. He finally agreed to give us another brand new GT245 with zero hours on it, but only if we keep the same mower deck. This is the minimum we would accept because we were not willing to get a new engine in our other one, run it for 55 more hours only to be told there were too many hours on it and it would be depreciated again. We insisted on zero hours so as to set the depreciation clock back. We don't have faith in these engines, not knowing if the problems were to do a design flaw or a TGIF product. They claim we're the only ones having the problem at that dealer, and yet can't explain why Deere has technical bulletins out. The deal is that deere admits the tube to the right cylinder is farther than the left, so that might explain the rich mixture going to the right cylinder (it's the right side that keeps fouling).

Anyhow, according to the general manager, he wants us to run the heck out of the mower this month and put the hours on it (if it's a design flaw, it will fail after 15-20) and if it messes up supposedly, we will be within a new 30 day john deere money-back period and we should get all our money back (how much you want to bet they'll depreciate the mower deck?). They're more interested in not losing money than not losing customers.

We're not completely happy at all, but at least it's working toward the end of this nightmare. If it works, fine, chalk it up to TGIF manufacturing. If not, hopefully there won't be new obstacles to getting our money back. I just was not willing to accept them throwing in an engine and putting more hours on the old one, since I know they were going to burn us for every hour put on it if the new engine had the same problems.

The other disturbing thing is that their mechanic finds an extraordinary number of cases of "debris in the gas." The manager would have me believe that his typical customer uses rusty gas cans. I told him we were questioned ourselves and told them we used plastic gas cans, and that they accused us having particles in the gas in the past. How many of these GT245s are having the same problems and the customers are being led into believing it's their fault (dirty gas?).

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