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15mins on new ariens IKON 52 from lowes and the deck belt broke. Saw in reviews it was happening often. Asked about the issue and my local lowes mgr and he said selling Ikon52 are on hold because of the problem. Here is a service bulletin I found which shows its a known problem. Does anyone have access to the actual complete bulletin?

SB B-2153 does not cover a deck belt problem but covers a motion drive belt problem. Besides that should have been solved for some time by now.

jeffutke said:

15mins on new ariens IKON 52 from lowes and the deck belt broke. Saw in reviews it was happening often. Asked about the issue and my local lowes mgr and he said selling Ikon52 are on hold because of the problem. Here is a service bulletin I found which shows its a known problem. Does anyone have access to the actual complete bulletin?

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Thank you, but why are so many Lowes bought IKON52 mower having a broken belt after the first few mins and lowes has them all on hold do not sell until ariens reps come out and examine them? But no one seems to know it's happening? No answers from lowes or ariens?!?!?

Corner shops buy mowers in batches of 1 to 4 then when sold buy another batch
Lowes buy them in batches of 100 to 1000 and have them drop shipped to their stores
So if Arens got a bad batch of belts then Lowes could have got the whole lot.
Same thing if there was a production line problem .
And remember that the corner shop might sell 1 every month where as Lowes will see 1 or more every week .
IT could also be a freight problem.
I had a run of Timecutters with the deck hangers out of their bushes.
Reason, transport company lifting them by the deck .

I definitely don’t recommend buying a ride on mower from Lowe’s, Home Depot, and etc.

MParr said:

I definitely don’t recommend buying a ride on mower from Lowe’s, Home Depot, and etc.

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On the low end residential mowers, these store sell a large percentage. It would be more difficult to find the mower you want without buying from them.

This why just be what Bert is referring to as manufactures of equipment do by from the their sub contractors. Most mowers are assembled from numerous suppliers. And there can be a defective batch of parts or design problem.

Belts and other items can be defective. I sold Sunbelts v-belts for several years until they switch suppliers and every belt was coming shorter than specs. Currently it is nearly impossible for me to vacuum fuel pumps that are not defective. Matter of fact One of my distributors had them on order since April and when they finally got some this month they were defective so they are again on back order.

And just this week I ordered from Stens some All Balls bushing kits. They all were mislabeled. Yesterday my Stens rep informed that their whole supply of the particular kit I order are all wrongly labeled. Needless to say the kits are now on backorder from All Balls.

So much for QC.....guess no one used them in field trials before putting them on sale.

This problem is the belt itself. Ariens got a batch of belts that were not cured properly which caused them to break right away. When I talked to them in August they had not been able to narrow down the serial numbers of the affected units - but it seems to be ONLY IKON mowers that were shipped early to Lowes.
I mention this in my walk-around video at 01:03.
Lowes won't give you a free replacement and the dealers probably won't either unless you bought the mower from them. I suggest contacting Ariens parts division.

StarTech said:

SB B-2153 does not cover a deck belt problem but covers a motion drive belt problem. Besides that should have been solved for some time by now.

View attachment 67352

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This is one of the reasons Ariens turned the hydros around on the new 2023 IKON and Gravely ZTs.

Guess I got lucky on getting a 48" so it fits through a gate I have. It's held solid even through somewhat abusive leaf pickup this fall.

jeffutke said:

15mins on new ariens IKON 52 from lowes and the deck belt broke. Saw in reviews it was happening often. Asked about the issue and my local lowes mgr and he said selling Ikon52 are on hold because of the problem. Here is a service bulletin I found which shows its a known problem. Does anyone have access to the actual complete bulletin?

Click to expand...

Get your money back. If you keep it you are only asking for trouble.

jeffutke said:

Thank you, but why are so many Lowes bought IKON52 mower having a broken belt after the first few mins and lowes has them all on hold do not sell until ariens reps come out and examine them? But no one seems to know it's happening? No answers from lowes or ariens?!?!?

Click to expand...

One other thing to check is the pulleys. On my Ferris (don't get me wrong, I love my 2200), I found that the pulley heights on the deck weren't the same. A couple of pulleys were higher than others, which wore the belts out quicker, and also caused the pulleys to split apart. Had to properly shim the pulleys to get everything even.

I have the previous model of the Ikon XD52, bought August 2022 at Lowe’s. It’s been trouble-free. I bought it in the shipping crate at the store and assembled it at home.