Husqvarna, and others, deck flaw

I have a Husqvarna YTH24v48 riding mower, and it has been quite good. However, a few weeks ago, it broke its deck belt...no big deal, this happens, over time. Before I replaced the belt, I checked everything out and found what I consider a Design or Manufacturing Flaw. There is an idler pulley, PN 532197379 sitting between the center spindle, and the RH spindle, mounted onto a "fitting" which is welded to the deck, and held in place with a 3/8-16x2 1/4" bolt...PN 817490636. The problem is that this "fitting" in only about 1/8" thick, which allows only 4 or 5 threads of the bolt to be wound in. On my mower, the idler pulley was quite loose, and the bolt had actually started to bend. This allowed the belt to flop around, and wear prematurely.

I went to the hardware store, and bought a 3/8-16x2 1/2" bolt, and a matching locknut...about 75 cents, and mounted the pulley with these new parts....adding a flat washer under the bolt head so it wouldn't damage the pulley bearing. There is Plenty of room under the welded mount to add a locknut...although it is a bit tricky getting the nut started in such a cramped area. A few turns with a socket and a wrench now gives the pulley bolt a far more secure mount. Since the "fix" I have mowed several times, and checking the belt area after each mowing shows No signs of the pulley loosening, or belt wear/damage.

This type of deck appears to be commonly used on Husqvarna, Craftsman, Poulan Pro, and probably other brands. If you have such a deck, you might save yourself lots of time and money by checking this area out, and making this quick/cheap fix. IMO, the manufacturer has created a "weak spot" that certainly does not contribute to the Quality of their product. Adding a 25 cent locknut might save a breakdown in the middle of mowing, and $25+ for a new belt.

Ask any mower technician and they could add another 200 items to that list.
You are right, it is a cost cutting measure .
They are FORCED to do it because Joe Public DEMANDS the mowers get cheaper every year, it is as simple as that.
When a customer looks at a mower they have the oppertunity to check things like this, decide the mower is a piece of cheaply made trash and go by a good quality , well made mower, they are out there.
But that means paying a fair & reasonable price and in todays US $ that will be in the $5,000 to $ 10,000 range.
However that price range accounts for about 10% of tractor type mowers sold, the rest are temporary diverted landfill .
There is a weird mentality out there now that goes along the lines :if I can only afford $ X on a product some one has to make one for me at that price :
So the mower makers make you a mower for $ X-1 and you can not buy enough of them.
Look at the list of companies that have gone bust.
None of then went bust because they made garbage mowers that fell apart as you were pushing them out of he shop door.
The ones who went broke are the honest companies who made excellent quality mowers, charged a fair price for them but no one bought them because a schit box was cheaper.
SO if the market only wants to pay for schit boxes then schit boxes is what the companies will make.

Driving prices down leads nowhere except to the bottom

bertsmobile1 said:

Ask any mower technician and they could add another 200 items to that list. You are right, it is a cost cutting measure. But that means paying a fair & reasonable price and in todays US $ that will be in the $5,000 to $ 10,000 range. Driving prices down leads nowhere except to the bottom

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Spending 5 to 10 thousand dollars would make sense for someone who is in the lawn mowing business, but the average homeowner who just mows his own property a dozen or so times a year, should be able to find a decent mower for a fraction of that amount. Things like what I found could be corrected at the factory for pennies...just spot weld a nut to the bottom of the idler pulley mount...for example. But then, so many items made today seem to have a "planned obsolescence" built into them, such that they only last half as long as they would were they built properly. I guess that is how the global economies keep on growing.

bertsmobile1 said:

Ask any mower technician and they could add another 200 items to that list.
You are right, it is a cost cutting measure .
They are FORCED to do it because Joe Public DEMANDS the mowers get cheaper every year, it is as simple as that.
When a customer looks at a mower they have the oppertunity to check things like this, decide the mower is a piece of cheaply made trash and go by a good quality , well made mower, they are out there.
But that means paying a fair & reasonable price and in todays US $ that will be in the $5,000 to $ 10,000 range.
However that price range accounts for about 10% of tractor type mowers sold, the rest are temporary diverted landfill .
There is a weird mentality out there now that goes along the lines :if I can only afford $ X on a product some one has to make one for me at that price :
So the mower makers make you a mower for $ X-1 and you can not buy enough of them.
Look at the list of companies that have gone bust.
None of then went bust because they made garbage mowers that fell apart as you were pushing them out of he shop door.
The ones who went broke are the honest companies who made excellent quality mowers, charged a fair price for them but no one bought them because a schit box was cheaper.
SO if the market only wants to pay for schit boxes then schit boxes is what the companies will make.

Driving prices down leads nowhere except to the bottom

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The only thing driving prices down is corporate greed. If they did not build this crap then we would buy what was available. They want to increase market share and to do so offer $1.00 less than the other guy to sell more. The Truck market in the US has increased the cost by over $320,000 in 10 years with no improvement at all the vehicle. They are raising the price and the public is buying because they have no other choice. The corporations set the prices, not the public.

deminin said:

Spending 5 to 10 thousand dollars would make sense for someone who is in the lawn mowing business, but the average homeowner who just mows his own property a dozen or so times a year, should be able to find a decent mower for a fraction of that amount. Things like what I found could be corrected at the factory for pennies...just spot weld a nut to the bottom of the idler pulley mount...for example. But then, so many items made today seem to have a "planned obsolescence" built into them, such that they only last half as long as they would were they built properly. I guess that is how the global economies keep on growing.

Click to expand...

Did you drive round and round and buy the cheapest possible house ?
If you have a property of a size that needs a ride on mower to cut the grass then you can afford to pay a fair & reasonable price for the mower.
Quality mower companies will even offer very cheap finance to smooth out the initial cost.
If not then plant a garden ( which is cheaper & a lot better for the planet) or downsize into a property you can afford to maintain.

Realistically just how many hours do you think goes into making a mower ?
That cheap & easy spot weld, requires another station in the production line + another set of templates to make sure it is in the right place then another quality control step to make sure it is welded properly plus adds another potential warranty liability, where as a nut coming loose is the customers responsibility.
So go backwards.
The retailer makes some where between 30% mark up for a dealer and 100% mark up for big box stores.
Transporting them from the factory to the shop also is born by the factory and you don't get many ride on on a big truck.
All of the materials used to make the mower plus the wages of the employees has to be met by the manufacturer almost a full year before they are sold cause mowers are a seasonal item and they have to be in the shops before the season starts. Just how much do you think that costs ? Got the interest on $ 12,000,000 in your back pocket ?
Then there are massive warehouses full of parts for last years mower, the year before that, the year before that and so on many back as far as 10 to 20 years.
This costs a fortune which is one reason why cheap Chinese mowers are so cheap.
So just how much profit do you think is in selling you a $ 1500 ride on for the company that makes it ?
I would hazard a guess that they are making a loss at that price but the loss they make s less than the interest on the money they borrowed to make it in the first place.

If you look at the names on well made mower that are 10+ year old and still going strong, you will notice that the company that made them is gone, the name might still be around but the company that made good quality reasonable priced mowers went bankrupt because most of the people when faced with a decision between good quality with a long service life and cheap junk that will be lucky to stay together till warranty expires they mostly bought the latter.
Go round to the breakers yards and look at the names on the mowers, most currently in production

So a $ 5000 mower that has a 10 year service life is $ 500 /year, a lot less than what it would cost you to get the grass cut
If it has a 20 year service life then we are talking $ 250 a year and that is less than most would spend on beer of coffee.

The mower I use most is a 1966 Rover Rancher II with 30" up front slasher.
It cost $ 695 back in 1966 a house on a 1/4 acre was $ 18,000 a locally made car was $ 2,100
Because $ 695 was a fair & reasonable price in 1966 the factory could afford to make it properly and stay in business and this mower will last forever.
It uses standard belts standard bearings and all flat sections heavy steel bodywork, so it does not look "sexy" but then again it was not bought to go in the bedroom.

So working on % costs, a mower of equivalent quality should be around the same 30% of the price of a reasonable quality car or 4% the price of a house on a 1/4 acre ( now $ 750,000)
Or you can go the other way
The mean annual full time adult male wage down here in 1966 was around $ 5000 / year so that mower cost about 14% of a years wages
Now days the same figure is $ 56,000 so I would expect to pay around $ 8000 for a mower of equivalent quality, which is a little less but not far off the mark for a good one.

If you are just chasing profit then making a small volume of items with a large profit margin beats making a large volume at a small margin every day of the week, provided you can sell them all.
Husqvarna announced last week they are exiting the tractor mower market and the low end walk behind market.
Now they own the factory so can make them cheaper than any one else so why did they go ? You can bet your booty it was not because they are making too much profit by downgrading the product.

BlazNT said:

The only thing driving prices down is corporate greed. If they did not build this crap then we would buy what was available. They want to increase market share and to do so offer $1.00 less than the other guy to sell more. The Truck market in the US has increased the cost by over $320,000 in 10 years with no improvement at all the vehicle. They are raising the price and the public is buying because they have no other choice. The corporations set the prices, not the public.

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Total trash.
Trucks have to be made to a mandated standard or the government will not allow them to be sold or even driven on the roads.
As for being no different then the USA must be making the absolute worst trucks on the planet cause the ones we see down here are a lot more powerful, a lot more comfortable to drive, a lot safer in collisions, have less collisions, and cost about 10% less to operate every year but again the cheapest trucks sell the most in every class.
If mowers were covered by as much legislation as trucks are they would be a lot better.

Thus your argueing point is totally invalid.

OTOH The car industry cheapened itself to a level that they became unprofitable and all of them filed for bankruptcy during the GFC when sales volumes dropped.
The government of Presdent Obama bailed them out lending GM a massive amount of money under the Working America scheme .
They built a fully automated aluminium foundry in Michigan as pay back, the first such plant to be built in the USA for 16 years.
China has built 40 of them last year alone.

If you start to dig into things you will find that there is a lot of government interfearence with the truck industry because it is considered strategically important cause the military needs lots of them.
They don't need lawn mowers.

My Poulan Pro distributor sent me a price list of wholegoods that they stock for sale to the dealers for sale to customers. I checked the dealer prices on the list and then jumped onto the local farm store website that I know also sells those same wholegood items. And the farm store was selling the compared mower for $200 under my cost. So why should I order and stock those items.

I believe Husqvarna leaving the low profit consumer market will be the beginning to the end of cheap box store sales, since there is no profit for the authorized dealer to work on them outside of warranty, and even sometimes within warranty so the box stores will be forced to stop selling them because they wouldn't have any service support.

ILENGINE said:

My Poulan Pro distributor sent me a price list of wholegoods that they stock for sale to the dealers for sale to customers. I checked the dealer prices on the list and then jumped onto the local farm store website that I know also sells those same wholegood items. And the farm store was selling the compared mower for $200 under my cost. So why should I order and stock those items.

I believe Husqvarna leaving the low profit consumer market will be the beginning to the end of cheap box store sales, since there is no profit for the authorized dealer to work on them outside of warranty, and even sometimes within warranty so the box stores will be forced to stop selling them because they wouldn't have any service support.

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If only that was true
However I can still by ride ons from China for $ 475 ex wharf fitted with Chinese made Kohlers, cheaper if they fitted with Loncins or Ducars.
They claim to be able to fit 18 into a 20' container which cost $ 6000 landed + $1500 steveadoring and another $ 800 delivered to my door .
That would make them around $1100 sitting on my showroom floor ( which I don't have ) taxed ready to sell at $ 1999 and they would all be sold in a week.
Big Box will just import them direct and do like they do with all the other landfill they import, hold 10% in reserve to cover any warranty claims and make the customer return the mower to the Big Box store for warranty, which no one will do unless they have a trailer. Then when the last warranty period has expired sell the remaining stock + all the dead returns at auction where there is no warranty liability.
Don't know how it works in the USA but whole goods sold on ebay as a auction item also are exempt warranty but sold with a "buy now " price must have warranty which is 12 months down here.

A 40' container fits 42 but only costs $9000 shipping + $ 3000 warfage +$1500 delivery
Crated they cost $ 500 each but they fit a third row into the box.

And these are $ AUS which are 75% of $ USA

Now if you are a Walmart or Harbour Freight then you will get a lot better shipping rate that I can which will make them even cheaper, and cheaper still if I have my own truck to pick them up at the wharf.
Several of the mower shop franchise chains are doing this already down here one of which also sells Husqvarna but ZTR's only as all the LT's & GT's are Chinese and painted an almost identical shade of orange or green & cream.
They were flogging a lot of Husqvarna tractors . I seriously doubt that they are the only chain doing this. The Stihl shops are also selling Chinese GT's, LT's & ZTR's

The executives at Husqvarna would be well aware of this and had only two options, exit that segment of the market or get orange ride ons made in China

China will do the the USA manufacturing sector what Japan did to the UK manufacturing sector, driven by the relentless greed and selfishness of the USA population and no amount of flag waving gun toting rednecks in oversized trucks will change it