As was mentioned previously conver those $ into hours worked then ask yourself how can they make it so cheap.
I blew up an advert for my fathers first petrol powered mower
It was £ 69 back in those days dad made £ 8 / week so it was 8 weeks wages more or less & we paid it off over 3 years along with the fridge & washing machine because they were all months worth of wages .
That was 61 years ago and my sister still has the mower & her neighbour uses it to mow the common area of 5 blocks of flats, I service it every 2nd Boxing Day when I go there for lunch.
To Americans that is a 3 floor appartment building
It is still on the original bore
And this is a PUSH MOWER
So pay 8 weeks wages & get 61+ years of use quality = excellent quality & sound purchase
How much quality & durability do you expect to get from a much bigger & more complicated ride on that you only paid 4 to 5 week wages for ?
I have the sign there to drive this point home to people who get fixated on the number and not the real price , the hours of our labour that went into buying it .
At 3K you get a throw away mower and I am sorry if the economic truth is a very bitter pill to swallow and even sorrier that you got a dud
I have customers who have bought a $ 1999.99 Chinese copy of your mower come in all the time with all sorts of problems & I show them the sign then tell them it will cost at least $ 2000 to make it a reasonably reliable mower and even then I have no idea about how long it will last .
The 21Hp Kohlers fitted retail for $ 1700 and they paid $ 300 more for the complete mower
OH and these are Australian dollars so multiply by 1.4 to get rough US $ , but again the numbers are not important , it is the hours and $ 1999.99 is roughly 1.5 weeks of average wage. 2 weeks of median wage and 2.5 weeks of minimum basic wage down here
As for Husqvarna mowere it is a brand I advise customers to avoid for anything other than chain saws , with the added comment that "quality sells itself while junk has to be sold" so think of how many adds you have seen for Husqvarna and ask yourself why so many ?