May or May Not Be A Hustler Owner

bertsmobile1 said:

Except that bought from a dealer i the predelivery they fire up the deck.
The loose pulley should have been obvious and been corrected before it left the dock.
Lowes predelivery consists of checking that the item is the one listed on the invoice any your payment cleared.

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No, not necessarily true.

When I first made my decision to purchase my Hustler Raptor Flip Up, I called "several Hustler Authorized Sales & Service Dealerships" and none, that's right none came close to the offers that Lowe's gave me.

First off, when I asked each dealership if they offered any type of Military Discount they just flatly refused, and just said "NO"! I was told that it was a Hustler ZT mower and that it was a "high demand & sought after ZT mower" (I said to myself yea sure ok whatever).

I recall one salesman was even kinda asking (insulting) me if I knew exactly what I was asking and looking for in a ZT mower?!....my response to him was...."well of course I do. Tell you what sir, I'm not deciding on whether I want a ZT mower or if I'm going to buy a Hustler ZT. I'm going to buy a Hustler Raptor Flip Up just not from this place!"..and left.

That fool of a salesman, for being such a dick of an idiot, with an attitude like that, he lost a customer (and maybe others as well).

Second, when I asked each dealership if they could deliver, 4 out of 7 said "NO"!...each told me that if I wanted to purchase it that I would have to pick it up there at their store. The other 3 dealerships said sure, no problem but for a whopping cost $$$$! Heck for what they were charging me to deliver it I could have purchased a small push mower! Now I wasn't looking for a free delivery mind you but still wasn't looking to get f*#ked over either on just delivery!

My final option was Lowe's. Which at first I must admit that I didn't even consider until I happen upon their advertisement of Hustler mowers online. Now, back then at the time, Hustler had just come out with the Raptor Flip Up. The Flip Up feature is what sold me on my decision to purchase a Hustler.

Again, back then at that time at Lowe's, to purchase a Hustler Raptor Flip Up was to either go to the store, first pay for it and they would have to order it for you and then it could be delivered to store for pickup or delivered to your house. The other method was to call and purchase it online. Lowe's had some Hustler ZT mowers on display, etc. and in stock but not the Raptor Flip Up. Again, both ways offered the customer to either pick it up at the store or have it delivered "FREE" to your home.

So I chose to purchase it online, plus another big factor was that they gave me a generous "Military Discount" off the price of the mower no questions asked and also they would have it delivered to my house for FREE!

Now when the time came for delivery (I was notified of delivery first my email then again by a phone call) they called a couple of hours before and explained to me what they at first needed to do to the mower, checks, etc. then they would call me again, 30 min's before actual delivery to my home.

They pulled up, rolled it out on to the delivery trucks ramp, lowered it then rolled it out to me in my garage. Handed me all the paper work,keys, manuals, etc. associated with my mower, explained to me exactly what was previously done to my mower once they first had it delivered to their stores depot receiving dock, checked and inspected the mower, etc. back at their receiving depot at the store, asked if I had any questions (which I did) they answered them, asked it "we were all good" after I acknowledged that everything was fine and that I could take it from here, shook hands then they left.

I've had my mower every since.

I'll go with Bert on this.

#1, your experience is not typical.

#2, Some manufacturers have items that are built to the Big Box Store specs and they also have items that are built to their own specifications. Some. Not all. Hustler may not be a big enough company to do this; others are.

#3, Usually when a manufacturer decides to let a Big Box Store market their product, that is the kiss of death, quality-wise.

#4, Where are you going to get it worked on, at that dealer you insulted?

I only buy from servicing dealers for good reason. I needed a new drive belt for my vac unit on my Bob-Cat this week. I'm extremely busy trying to get my spring cleanups and mowing done and not having done it before on this machine I opted to have the dealer change it for me. They immediately had a mechanic go out to my trailer, pull the unit, replace the belt and reinstall the unit on my machine while I browsed their inventory. Yeah, they charged me $31.50 labor but I was back up and running in under a half hour. Priceless to me.

Try getting that level of service from a big box store.

Mr. Mower said:

I recall one salesman was even kinda asking (insulting) me if I knew exactly what I was asking and looking for in a ZT mower?!....my response to him was...."well of course I do. Tell you what sir, I'm not deciding on whether I want a ZT mower or if I'm going to buy a Hustler ZT. I'm going to buy a Hustler Raptor Flip Up just not from this place!"..and left.

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Seems to me like a pretty reasonable thing for the salesman to ask. I don't see how that's insulting. Seems like a salesman trying to determine the needs and wants of a potential customer to try to match them with the best equipment for them.

They pulled up, rolled it out on to the delivery trucks ramp, lowered it then rolled it out to me in my garage. Handed me all the paper work,keys, manuals, etc. associated with my mower, explained to me exactly what was previously done to my mower once they first had it delivered to their stores depot receiving dock, checked and inspected the mower, etc. back at their receiving depot at the store, asked if I had any questions (which I did) they answered them, asked it "we were all good" after I acknowledged that everything was fine and that I could take it from here, shook hands then they left.

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No 1 sales technique of shonks,
Exagerate to the point of lieing how much you have gone out of your way on behalf of the customer.
If the mower had been checked then the loose / bad pulley would have been found out. Pulleys and blades get tighter when they are used, not go loose.

In most cases the delivery driver is a contractor because that protects the store from any liability for the actions of the driver and of course they don't have to pay wages for a driver when they have nothing to deliver.
I had been in transport for decades and know how these things work.

Better than average chance the driver was playing you like a violin in order to extract a tip.

If you take the effort to go to the despatch area of the shop you would have seen that there is no space to do anything other than shuffle boxes.

Down here property rentals are massive so most big boxes have the smallest showroom they can and there is no stock held there other than carry out items like kettles & fan heaters and then they only hod a couple of days supply.
The big stuff is at a distribution center ( run a few of them as well ) where your order is processed, the product picked and then made into a run for the contract carrier.
in many cases, a big box that uses an outside warehouse will pay the contract drivers to put company advertising on their trucks to make it look like it was a Lowes ( etc ) driver that delivered your mower.
Some times the big box runs the warehouse, some times they just contract space in the warehouse. In all cases it works out about 1/3 the cost of having a truck & delivery team at a showroom.

Big box stores push factories for massive discounts then pass a small proportion of the factory discount to you while making 2 to 3 times the profit of the dealers.
In most cases they also get a substantially better finance deal so they don't pay the factory till 30 to 90 days after the mower is sold.
Thus they can afford to give to a pretend military discount and pensioners a pretend pensioner discount and charaties a pretend charity discount and police a pretend discount and school teachers a pretend discount and firemen a pretend discount, in fact almost any profession a discount, cause it makes you feel special and there fore more likely to go back & buy more from them.
So it is a chintzy marketing technique, not a mark of respect for your services to the nation. And it looks like the played you like a nice big fish.

There are may cases where a big box is selling products to the public for a price that is less than the factories "wholesale" to dealers. Down here they factory cops massive fines for doing this.
Customers then get cranky with the dealer assuming they are making $ 1500 profit and being stingy when in fact the dealer is only making $ 200 because they are paying $ 2000 more for the mower than the big box store. The customer then becomes agressive and usually storms out thinking they are being ripped off.

Now I have no idea why you got such a bad response from all of the dealers.

However the NICE people at Lowes have your money and you have a mower that does not cut grass and will have to pay money to get it back to some one to have it repaired.
Lowes are not going to fix it for you and at this time of year most dealers will leave the mower sitting in their yard for a month before they even look at it, then it willtake another 2 to 3 weeks for processing through the warranty system then another week to be fixed then you will have to pay to get it back.

Now how much was that discount ?

Well, it has been a few days and I think I will just order the parts. Spindle is stripped at the top and of course the pulley. I almost never benefit from a warranty, by the time you jump through all the hoops it would be as easy to DIY. Engines and transmissions are the exceptions of course. Anyway, the mower is here, wife and I are calmed down and life is too short to worry about little problems.

Thanks for everyone's thoughts and ideas- you all make a great team!

cpurvis said:

I'll go with Bert on this.

#4, Where are you going to get it worked on, at that dealer you insulted?

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A dealership with a salesman with an attitude toward like what I described, at that dealership, no way would I even consider taking my mower to that specific dealership for anything, not even for parts.

They can do without my business and I definitely don't need them for mine.

But you are forgetting that, that specific dealership is not the only one around, there are several others that I can take it to, which I already have, to have my Hustler serviced under "warranty".

As for me insulting the dealership...well that salesman quickly changed his attitude only when I inquired about a Military Discount. Then he at first insulted me with his condescending remarks and I did not appreciate it. That's why I responded the way I did. So if you consider that "insulting the dealership" hey that's up you.

Hey look I completely understand that not every customer, whether big box store or dealership, is going to get the same exact type of service but still I just laid out my experience with a big box store and it was fine.

So agree, disagree, to me doesn't really matter.

bertsmobile1 said:

Now I have no idea why you got such a bad response from all of the dealers.

However the NICE people at Lowes have your money and you have a mower that does not cut grass and will have to pay money to get it back to some one to have it repaired.

Lowes are not going to fix it for you and at this time of year most dealers will leave the mower sitting in their yard for a month before they even look at it, then it willtake another 2 to 3 weeks for processing through the warranty system then another week to be fixed then you will have to pay to get it back.

Now how much was that discount ?

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As for why the bad response from all the dealers....I never said I received a bad response from all the dealers. I said that they told just flat out told me No for a discount or delivery.

Only one dealer was a bad experience, again only one.

And yes your are right about the "nice people at Lowe's having my money" because of course, that's where I purchased my mower at and they, Lowe's, offered me a Military Discount as well as the best price along with free delivery, so of course I gave those nice people my money and business.

I'm not stupid. Of course I know that Lowe's is not going to fix or repair my Hustler mower. I wouldn't even think of calling Lowe's for that.

That is what an authorized sales & service dealership is for, to repair Hustler mowers, especially Hustler mowers under warranty. Read your owners manual it states that in print.

If ever I do need my mower serviced, repaired, etc. by a Hustler authorized sales and service dealer, all I have to do is call one to set it up. No problem.

As for discount, well as I said before, those nice people at Lowe's were very generous and gave me a 20% Military Discount off the listed price, which I was very surprised and pleased with. But really what was important is that they offered me one and that's all.

But over all from reading your response, I think you need to go back, read and comprehend exactly what I posted. You seem to either be confused or mislead by the original post.

You see, I never claimed that my mower was broken, or needed fixing, or needed repairs, etc. All I stated was the facts on my experience when dealing and purchasing from a big box store and that's it. Nothing else.

From your post it seems that you are just "assuming".

Look folks, some of you tend to believe or think that it is a "sin" to purchase a ZT mower (of any brand) from a big box store and it's not.

Not everything is bad when purchasing from a big box store just like not everything is bad from purchasing from an authorized dealership either.

Whether you agree or don't agree, everyone basically has a different experience that's all.

If ever I do need my mower serviced, repaired, etc. by a Hustler authorized sales and service dealer, all I have to do is call one up. No problem.

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'If ever?' Unless you can work on it yourself, it's not a matter of 'if', it's a matter of 'when.'

What would you do if you were the dealer? Take care of your own customers who bought a mower from you or some guy who saved a nickel elsewhere and now needs his broken mower fixed? You've only got X-number of people you can assign to do repairs. Just how would you prioritize their work?