John Deere Contact

I joined this forum because I've been unable to make direct contact with anyone at John Deere. That is until today when the person was unable to do anything for me other than say, "See a dealer!" It is my opinion that their customer support is terrible and possibly the worst I've ever encountered.
The problems are multiple on a D140 with 44 hours and bagger. Personally I've never had good luck with Carlisle tires used on these type of products except for the product that came with inner-tubes. They have always started leaking and needing air frequently. The other problem is the bagger. They obviously need to bring an engineer from the farm design into that division. Someone that knows how to design chutes. Anyone that has worked that type of equipment know you do not use high head bolts which will cause plugging of the chute. Often the metal is dimpled at the bolt point to avoid obstruction. The method of attaching the chute is also very awkward and could be made much easier at the deck. And the design of the bag is terrible. When the clippings get packed in the bag expands and it is like trying to push a quarter through a dime sized hole. My previous machine had plastic tubs that tapered and were very easy to empty. They also had handles.
And their web system is near unnavigable for this product when looking for information relating to these products.
To sum up, I'd never recommend this product to anyone because Deere and company is apparently unwilling to deal directly with a customer.

My experience dates way back starting with farm implements in the 50's. There were many different manufacturers over the years but few John Deere. It now seems that was a good thing.
Recommendations welcome.

Do as advised, take it to the dealer.
Deer probably sell many million pieces of equipment a year so there is no way they could set up a customer service division to walk owners through any problem they might have with any of the 100,000,000 + pieces of green & yellow out there.
It is just not possible.
This is why they have a dealer network.
Going directly to Deer with your teething problems ( or any manufacturer ) is basically the same as you trying to go directly to the supreme court with a complaint about your neighbours overhanging tree branch.
It is a sign of the times only very small companies like Walker or Grasshopper or Spartan can handle individual customer problems strait up.

Other than than they all set up a structure so problems et handled as quickly as possible and people who need to know about problem get notified, the correct documents get generated.
When this system fails you , that is when you go directly to HO .


We can understand you are dissapointed with your mower & bagger.

So now you have vented and hopefully have calmed down a bit post what your actual problems are in detail, including engine numbers and the Deer owners on here will attempt to help you.
If you have problems that may require dealer warranty service then go to your dealer and at least get them logged.

bertsmobile1,
Interesting that you would take that view of going to dealer. Have you noticed that quite a few manufacturers warranty now begin at date of manufacturer, not purchase? Yesterday I was talking trade for a new car. We were at the point of haggling numbers with the GM. As to a better deal his response was he was not making any money on the deal, even a slight loss. He sells them so he can make money in service. Stop, digest that and think for a moment. Do you really want to purchase a product that will tear you up while you are making payments? Do you really want to live at the service department?
Now that I've possibly reoriented your mind lets go in my direction. The dealer could possibly take care of my leaking tire by selling me an inner-tube. Likely 4 of them if I keep the machine.
But the other issues are not problems the dealer can do anything about. They are design problems that should have never left the drawing board unless someone thought they could make bigger profits that way. Yep, someone invented the wheel and then a wheelbarrow. Now someone decided to remove the wheel. Farm equipment manufacturers fixed the problem I am having with the chute at least as far back as the 60's. John Deere does make farm equipment? (question mark for thought)

Numbers from plate: 1GXD140EVEE570432 081214 And Barcode 7 59936 76884 2

Yes the machine came with standard blade and their was no indication that a high lift blade was necessary when attaching a bagger. So initial problem was lessened by replacing blade but certainly not cured. The attachment points for the chute are not easy to work with. That certainly should have been thought out better since using the wash feature works best with it removed or just having to remove between uses. Then I continue with current issues. Even though I mow most of the time with a height setting of 2 3/4 or 3 in shady areas to keep from thinning grass too much it still picks up quite a bit of dirt. The sand is moved through to the bag quite well but the silt sticks in the chute at approximately the point which gets the most throw from the blades. This builds up quickly even when the grass is thoroughly dry. There would certainly but less if the chute allowed free flow. Of note is that I'm not mowing fast but rather slowly. And to promote a more even cut with the slight contours that exist in my yard I am taking half a swath with each pass.
The free flow is impeded by bolt heads used for rubber attachment devices. And may even be hindered by the hollow handle allowing air to bypass the main stream.

Norm.
I can sympathise with you regards warranty on manufactured goods.
That is something to take up with your local consumer advocate. We fortunately do not have a government that is captive of billionaire industrialists so we have something that the USA does not.
Mandated minimum government 12 month warranty period from the date of purchase and because Australians are a little less brain washed and have a better education system than the USA ( rapidly deteriorating ) and we are far less greedy lowest price is not the absolute determinant.
Down here average warranty on USA made cars is 3 years , Korean & Japanese cars 5 years and European cars 7 years from delivery date.
We also have a lot fairer & freer market than you do so in warranty services can be done by any qualified person without affecting warranty.
The difference is we pay a higher price for cars down here, in fact when the Pontiacs were made down here, we paid more for the local version that you did in the USA.

Leaving market structures alone, your mower could actually be defective requiring some restorative work or you may be totally correct it just might not be designed as well as it could be.
If it is not fit for the stated purpose, even under the very weak USA consumer protection laws you have a case for a full refund.
Even if that is the case the dealer is still the correct way to take up your claim as he knows what paperwork to generate & where to send it so the right people get it and actions can be taken to rectify the problems.
It is not in the dealers interest to fob you off and sell defective products because very soon the dealer will not be selling anything.

And just so you can see where I am coming from, I am an independent 1 man mobile repair workshop who has been shafted by all the brand names because I do not have a retail showroom

Not all that long ago manufacturers made different decks for different purposes.
Thus dealers had to carry 3 or 4 deck variations in all sizes for each machine.
This meant that the customer could not walk in slam a wad of cash on the counter then ride out on their nice new mower.
Dealers also ended up with a lot of decks sitting on the floor as no one ever bought multiple decks for their mower.
So in response to MARKET DEMAND just about all mower companies designed UNIVERSAL decks.
And true to their name they bag poorly, throw poorly & mulch poorly.
Comes back to the first point about the market being uneducated , poorly informed thus incapable of making a reasoned decision.
The market refused to believe that one deck could not do everything so they got one deck that did everything-badly.

Just a quick point that dealers often do have solutions for factory design issues so often they can indeed help. Ideally they would communicate known issues to their rep and the info would trickle it's way to engineering and production. I know that Exmark is pretty good about that and makes running changes to their equipment in response.

If you bought it from a dealer , take it back. It should be under warranty.

I have an old Ranch King with the bagger that I've used for years, really works like it should. Got a big JD L130 also with a bagger setup, thought I'd give it a try. Same results that you have described, lousy fit like it was made for a different mower, and really just didn't work near as good as the RK machine. I'd guess the bean counters are in charge with JD these days. But with both mowers the grass has to be bone dry to work right.

"Australians are a little less brain washed and have a better education system than the USA ( rapidly deteriorating )"

I'm learning a lot about mowers from your posts, but some of your other statements are out of date. For instance, US schools may rank fairly low, but Australia ranks even lower. This UN agency report ranks Australian school at number 39 out of the 41 middle income countries included in the 2017 study. Looks like both countries have a lot of improving to do.

www.smh.com.au/education/un-agency-...es-for-quality-education-20170615-gwrt9u.html

I am well aware of the short comings of the Aust education system, I spent near 20 years in it , and when I was in industry I taught at TAFE ( trade school ).
However you have to go to the actual UN report and read it to understand what it was actually attempting to measure.
About 15% of high school students in Aust are foreign students sent here to get a better education that their home country.
You also need to be aware of the political bias of the news paper printing the out of context part of the findings for shock value.
The report was exclusively about government funded schools and they educate about 40% of the population.
Religious schools of which catholic schools are the largest were ignored as were private schools.
When you include all students we come in about mid field in all levels of schooling except post graduate where we come in about 3rd.
Not good enough for a wealthy country like Australia but doing things like increasing taxes to fund a better education is political poison .
We are the lowest taxing country outside of Singapore if you include the entire taxation system ( no death duties or inheritance tax or gift tax ).

But yes the quality of the education system is declining at a rate of knots as kids get taught to answer tests , like NAPLAN which is one of the criteria used by the UN and not how to think.
The old days of getting 80% of your maths mark by knowing how to approach the problem has given way to 100% for coming up with the correct figure down to the 25th decimal place.
Parents have become so involved with winning the rat race that most of the basic education & life skills are getting pushed into the curriculum which is already too full of stuff like road skills & stranger danger & pollitical correctness & anger management and on & on it goes.
Corperal punishment has been banned so decipline levels are just about zero and the only tool head teachers have is suspending the student which of course simply makes things worse for any child with problems.
Then the bleeding hearts have decided that all schools should teach any child that comes through the door so students with difficulties are now forced into classes with students without learning difficulties because the political correctness clowns have decided we are all Gods children so are all equal.

And I am here to learn about what I don't know and the more I learn the more I know I don't know.

One of the biggest factors in American schools ratings these days are the failures in the big city school systems. These schools are filled with kids who basically have no parents and are supported by government at various levels. Total disaster. One school in Cols. Oh. was nicknamed the "rape school" due to obvious incidents over the years.
Mifflin, 70% absenteeism and ranked 671 in Ohio. And the governments just keep paying unmarried, unemployed, uneducated, fourth generation welfare women to have more kids.

We sure got off topic here didn't we!