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Hi, new to forum and new to Scag mowers. I recently purchased a brand new Tiger Cat ll 48' with the Kawasaki 691FX. I picked it up from the dealer with 0.2 hours on it. I took it home, drove it around some and put it up. The next day i had .3 hrs on it when i started it up, i let the engine get nice and warm before beginning the first cut. When i engaged the blades everything sounded nice in smooth, engine wasnt dragging at all. At about 20 minutes into it, I noticed a burning belt smell and ten feet later the mower instantly died. I got off of it and noticed a little white smoke. I immediately called the dealer and told them what had happened and he said if it would start put it on the trailer and bring back to the dealership. Mower started up immediately like nothing had happened. I got the mower on the trailer and back to the dealership and the found that the left side spindle (if your sitting on the mower) blew out its bottom seal and puked out all the grease. The spindle turned hard and had really rough spots during turning. Determined it was a bad bearing, and they put a brand new spindle on my mower and i'm up to .9 hrs with no problems yet.

My question is, has anybody heard of this happening before? I know Scag doesn't make their own bearings, and it was obviously bad from the manufacturer. But i paid $8k for a lawn mower that is commercial grade. I mow about 1.5 acre yard that is mostly flat, so this mower is a little over kill, but i wanted something that was going to last if i took care of it. I was taking it slow trying to break every thing in and that bad bearing sure put strees on the belts enough to smoke them and kill the motor. Should i be worried about this mower. I was really frustrated at first, tried to be as polite as i could at the dealership tho i think they could tell i was kinda upset. They handled it very well and had me out of there in an hour. They obviously said that they had never seen this happen before, but hey their the dealership so i was just curious as if anybody had heard of this problem before.

Thanks in Advance

I'd consider it an unfortunate quality control issue that is unlikely to be indicative of the overall quality of your machine and unlikely to be repeated.

Ya i agree it was probably a fluke that got missed but talk about making your stomach sick.

I finished mowing my yard today and i am officially up to 1.8 hrs with no problems :laughing:. This thing is a smooth running machine, and man does it make a nice cut. I am very happy i made the decision to go with the Tiger Cat ll.

It sounds like you're getting over it already but I can see how something like that would shake your confidence.

Could be the dealer missed prepping one spendel.