Oh Deere D160 48"

[Elias40]

Ordered unit from dealer November 8, 2012 and after pestering them twice, they dropped the jewel off in the yard December 15 2012. We included the year, as we have heard it takes months in some instances. What fool buys a lawnmower in the winter time anyway? We have the strange suspicion that this unit was a demo from a dealer trade, because of scratches and wax swirl glare on the metal, and the plastic hood scratched up as well, as if someone used a buffer to remove damage.


This will turn out to be a rather long winded review, as there are many issues involving this model and may apply to most of the other tractors of this type as well.

The reason it's taking so long to start up this review is because we still haven't discovered all the bugs after removing the wrapper.

Keep in mind that no matter how many negatives we post here from our finds, One is still getting a lot for their money. Really. It is just that most of the machine is not covered by a warranty, and the few parts they do warrant, will turn into a finger pointing pass the buck situation if it does fail.

Here is a picture to get started:

 

[Elias40]

Of course, we like this picture better:

 

[lawn mower fanatic]

Talking about the scratches on the mower, I have seen mowers at Home Depot (John Deere's actually) that have grass on top of the deck and were a little scratched up. Either, like you said, they were demos, or it was one someone returned. The workers could have at least brushed the grass off before putting it on the floor! :confused3:

 

[Elias40]

Talking about the scratches on the mower, I have seen mowers at Home Depot (John Deere's actually) that have grass on top of the deck and were a little scratched up. Either, like you said, they were demos, or it was one someone returned. The workers could have at least brushed the grass off before putting it on the floor! :confused3:

They don't care, as the mindset of companies is that Americans will buy anything, and eventually a materialistic person, possibly in love with brand, will take it out of their hands with glee.

When we went to the JD dealer to look at the D160, they had none on the floor. We already knew we were going to buy that particular model, so my wife applied a down payment, and the salesman said they would stay in contact with us. Nov 8 was the day we made the order. Nov 19 was the 54th anniversary of my body's birthday. My wife got it for that reason. @ Nov 22, we sent an e-mail inquiring about the status, and, @ Dec 10th, we went to the dealer asked if they submitted the order to JD company, and if not to just cancel the order. This scared the ghost out of them, and their quick reply was, "It was coming, and it will be here Thursday, the 13 of Dec." Lo and behold, the afternoon of the 13th, they dropped the thing off in the yard.


Will add more later

 

[DaveTN]

Talking about the scratches on the mower, I have seen mowers at Home Depot (John Deere's actually) that have grass on top of the deck and were a little scratched up. Either, like you said, they were demos, or it was one someone returned. The workers could have at least brushed the grass off before putting it on the floor! :confused3:

When I worked for Sears we had a guy who's job was to blow the grass off and pressure wash the mowers before the mechanics looked at them. You'd be surprised how many customers brought in mowers with grass all over and under them! As a customer service we would spray paint the shrouds to make the mower look cleaner and newer than when it arrived in the shop! We didn't have to but it helped keep happy customers. But I've seen Home Depot and Lowe's mowers on the line outside with grass on the decks and dusty. It wouldn't take 5 minutes to spray one off with a hose. Might make it sell better. But like you said, it's getting to be an "I don't give a crap attitude"

 

[lawn mower fanatic]

But like you said, it's getting to be an "I don't give a crap attitude"

Sadly, you are right! :confused3:

 

[Elias40]

Sadly, you are right! :confused3:

Worse, it applies to every commodity one would not really want, but necessary stuff, like water. this is simplified to keep from dragging this thread too far off .

Not the size, but the principal.

Back to lawnmowers

 

[Elias40]

Oh Deere D160 48" story continued

Pictures of the tractor did not put the actual size into perspective of our silly naive head.

Our body is a towering 6'2" tall, and we felt dwarfed by the size of this machine. We were kind of at awe; When did lawnmowers ever get to be bigger than the old VW type1 beetle?

So, anywho, we are going to apply our own thoughts, mixed in from other unfortunates we have read about scarfing them from the web.

How many D160 tractors are made? Only 1 all the rest are copies, like any other device that is mass produced. So, if the first one has a problem(s), all the rest will have the same, unless production is halted and the problem corrected, or taken offline and scrapped. And if the problem is serious enough to cause damage to a human, or sometimes even animals, Alarms are sent out. This is the reason for recalls

If you were to stumble upon a person having problems with the same machine like you bought, wouldn't it make perfect logic to think yours would have he same? Or do you think yours is special, built especially for you per your specifications, after all, you got that thing with a John Deere revolving, no interest credit card. Must mean something. Want to try again? From what was posted a few rows up, and we will repeat, They don't care about you. And while we are at it, to show we are all on the same titanic, they don't like us either. They actually despise us because we coughed up a few Honest to goodness real U.S. dollars to buy it. Cuts all the strings with them. They hold no lord over us.

 

[Elias40]

Update:

We decided, since the weather people couldn't really tell us how many inches of flurries we were to accumulate, because we forgot to turn the television on; we put the tractor out in the yard to use as a snow gauge. Best time as ever to break it in. We figured if the deck was close enough to specs; if we left the deck lever at the 2" mark, then when the snow accumulates up to the bottom of the deck, we would then have at least 2" of snow on the ground.

We guess it was the deck lever, although, numbered 1-4 with dashes in-between, maybe it IS the shift lever with enough math one could add up the numbers and dashes, to come up with infinite speed, and the automatic part they were just kidding about.

 

[lawn mower fanatic]

Update:

We decided, since the weather people couldn't really tell us how many inches of flurries we were to accumulate, because we forgot to turn the television on; we put the tractor out in the yard to use as a snow gauge.

That is a different use for a lawn tractor!