2005 John Deere L100: HELP NEEDED!!!!!!

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2005 John Deere L100: HELP NEEDED!!!!!!

Michelle Forsythe	Hi. I purchased a John Deere L100 in 2005 to cut about 2 - 2.5 acres. Each year, I have had John Deere technicians change the oil, put new blades and belts on, and do an overall check at the beginning of my mowing season. I did have engine problems during my one-year warranty. But other than that, I've just had to replace a flat tire twice...until now. Last week, the mower sputtered and chugged like it was on its last leg. Then it quit running all together on Monday. On Tuesday,the JD tech said he couldn't replicate the problem, that it ran fine for him. (I wasn't here when he arrived.) He replaced the belt, blades and spark plug for $190. I mowed for two hours on Wednesday without any problems. Thursday night, the mower sputtered, chugged and died again. On Friday, the JD tech said that a pull rod was out of place and that there was something wrong with the choke. (I hope these are the right terms...I'm not mechanically enlightened!) He charged me $70. I mowed for 30 minutes and it died again. When the JD tech arrived again on Monday, he took it back to his store for inspection. During his second visit last week, he said that I'd be lucky to get 6-8 more cuttings out of this mower before I'd need to bury it and buy a new mower. In fact, he said that I'd pushed this mower beyond it's life expectancy. He tried selling me a LA155/LA165. Do you believe this - I mean, is it true that I can only expect four years or five cutting seasons from the L100? I thought these mowers were supposed to last for years with proper maintenance (which I've paid $200 annually for). Please advise. I need to know if it's time to buy another lawn tractor or if I'm getting scammed as the uneducated woman.
John Heine	I think you need to find another place to buy and have your mower serviced.No one can tell how many times you can mow before mower gives up.I have a LT133 I have owned for 11 years.
Tony Bachler	I have 10 achers that i mow part I have had meny mowers most ofthem john deere. my wife does most of the mowing her machine is a 319 with well over 2000 hours on it, I keep the oil and air filters clean.and mare sure she runs it full throttle. These machines are made to run, and will last with the propper maintenance,
bontai Joe	The L 100 as all the other "L" series tractors were designed to meet a price that would sell at "box stores". To meet that price and be competitive with other machines in the same price range, Components are chosen based on price. In effect the old saying "you get what you pay for" comes into play with the less expensive lawn tractors. Now I'm not saying that $1500-2000 isn't a lot of money, because it sure is to me, but to get real long lasting strongly built machines that you can be confident will last a decade or more, will cost a lot more than that. Also no one can tell you that a machine has "X" number of cuttings left in it before it dies, but these were designed with an approx life of 500 hours plus or minus. Not knowing where you are, but guessing that it takes you about 2 1/2 hours to cut the lawn, times 30 times a year for 5 years, tells me you have about 375 hours on yours? So that's the history lesson on tractor life. Now to the symptoms your particular machine is showing. Could be you have some water in your fuel, or old gas, or crud in the bottom of your fuel tank that's sloshing around and ocassionally plugging the hole the fuel goes out of, or the carb needs to be disassembled and cleaned/possibly rebuilt, or a loose wire connection on a safety switch, or less likely, but if you have lost weight recently there were some of the seat safety switches that had difficulty registering a smaller operator. If the tractor gets slightly tilted and you shift your weight a little, the seat suddenly thinks you fell off and stops the motor. But I'm inclined to think it's either carborator or electrical related in that order. None of the things I described above is catastrophic to fix, and at this point, you are out of waarrantee, so I'd probably take it to a local independant lawn mower/small engine repair shop. Check your yellow pages to see if you have one near by. Or if you have some tools and want to learn AND save money, we can talk you thru most of the stuff here.
Michelle	Thanks everyone for your feedback!
Dale G. Basgall	Michelle : I just went through this exact conversation with a JD dealer in Washington. We used to buy the expensive JD mowers like for instance 724 front mower, 925 front mower, 1445 front mower which cost us 24k by the time all was said and done. Well we have around 25 acres of grass we mow each day, the grass grows an inch a day and we have a crew that mowes daily. We dicided to buy the Lowes 120 to try out and we lost the transaxle at 300 hours and got a new one on warranty and lost it in another 300 hours so we bought a new one again from Lowes just testing out to see what we could do with a 2k mower versust the 24k models. What I didn't realise is that the Lowes models are only rated for 500 hours and whats weird is we are looking to purchase a new front ind mower and they are 20k plus. As bontai Joe has indicated there is really a difference in quality and the JD rep told us that 300 hours on a L120 is really pushing it. We put on 300hours in three months so anyway we have two scrapped out Lowes mower now in 2 years and the F935 lasted us 20 years almost with no problems other than those which we could actually repair where the Lowes models it is more of replacing the units. Anyway we were laughing at how coincidental the brochures were yesterday when the X300's were rated for 300 hours the 500's fo 500 hours and the 700 series for 700 hours and we were laughing looking at the L120 does that mean their only good for 120 hours. Anyway if you hang on the forum with the mechanics we can really put some insight to the repairs so keep us posted. Tony brought up a really important point in his wifes mowing he stated she mowes wide open throttle and that is precisely what is important, anything less and your putting a whole lot of extra torque on all the moving parts. Dale G. Basgall
Tony Bachler	Sorry the John Deere mower My wife won't let me on is a 318 with an owen, Not a 319 sorry
bontai Joe	Just to give you an idea of what a good tractor used to cost, I bought a new Kohler powered Deere 316 in 1979 (it was a '78 leftover) for around $2850. It was the top of the 300 series at the time, an awesome machine and I still own it. To give you an idea what $2850 was in 1979, I had bought a new Ford F-150 2WD truck the previous year for around $4500. So if today's equal truck costs $17500, then the equal tractor should cost around $11,000. The reality is I can buy a better tractor for under $10,000 so most of the major manufacturers have in creased value for the dollar spent, but a lot of folks think of their $2500 tractor of 30 years ago, and expect to get close to that kind of machine today for the same money. But if one thinks about the typical $1500 box store tractor, about half that price represents the motor, leaving $750 for the transmission, tires, wheels, frame, hood, seat, etc. not to mention profit for the store and profit for the manufacturer and transportation cost to get it from the factory to the store. Sad fact of life is that stuff is expensive, really good stuff is REALLY expensive. Oh, and in case you were wondering if I still had the truck? Nope, wore it out and the 2 that came after it too.

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