John Deere z525e Opinions?

Got 1 in my service run.
Owner is on 10 acres of very hilly ground.
He has it serviced every year without any problems. Nothing has needed to be done other than scheduled service items.
It is fitted with a 48" pressed deck and he is now running Gator blades and throwing the clippings
He is very happy with it.
My only problem is the rear steel guard is very close to the engine and needs to be removed to check the valve lash.
And the oil filter is impossible to pull off clean apart from that it is a pleasure to work on.
All bolts are either 10mm or 12mm and JD provide a 12mm spannar in the height adjustment pin with has a keyhole pinch in it so it does not fall out.
The "edge" series decks were prone to cracking around the deck hangers but his has been fine.

I have 3 customers with the smaller Z225 fitted with 18Hp inteks.
Again none of them has given any problems except for the 1 which was used commercially where the lifting arm on the deck lift rod cracked through and needed to be welded .
All of these customers are very happy with their mowers.

Down here we get a McCulloch & Craftsman which are so close to being identical they would have to be coming out of the same factory.
They are both fitted with the AYP decks and give no end of grief, eat spindle housings, crack decks & drive like a drunk shopping trolley but they are 2/3 the JD price and you only get what you pay for.
 
Double Drops said:
Briggs 22hp. The Briggs engine is the only thing I have hesitations about.
Click to expand...

Why ?
Briggs make over a million engines a year and have been doing it for quite some time.
I prefer Kohlers but only because they are easier to work on and in particular the cowel comes off a lot quicker.

Honda was the last of the top shelf engine makers to exit the market because there was no profit in it and the rest are all fairly well so so.
Some are marginally better than others but none are particularly good nor particularly bad and they all have problems, I fix them daily.
No mower company is going to deliberately fit garbage engines to their mowers or they won't be in business next season.
It is a different world now.
With the internet and social media you can not pretend a problem does not exist as you could have done in the past and gotten away with.

The only thing I would be wary of is any Chinese engine that has no independent representation as there is no guarantee that parts will be available next year.
 
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