DennisFolsom
Gold Member
Here's an experience I had with buying a JD L120 from Home Depot:
I am a member of a model aircraft club which maintains a flying site on rented land. A bit more than a year ago, our club decided to retire our tired old Murray and purchase something newer and better. I wasn't on the committee for the purchase, but participated in the discussions. After a lot of chewing over how good (and expensive) an model to get, our committee settled on at JD L120 from Home Depot. We had understood that we could get the same model from a JD dealer at the same price, but the location of the Home Depot was more convenient for us to pick it up.
I was the one who had a tilt trailer of a good size for the job, so I went with the guy who arranged the purchase to pick up the new rig. When we got there, they had a "sold" tag on the machine, but it was still in the crate. They got 2 or 3 roustabouts to get the machine out of the crate. They didn't follow the instructions posted on the reusable steel crate, but they got the mower out without damage. (More luck than brains, I think.)
When I proposed to start the machine to run it onto my trailer, they said that there probably would not be enough gas in it to even start and they didn't have any available! I tried anyway, and got the thing started. It ran out of gas while turning around to back on the trailer! I was not impressed!!!!
The only "prep" we got was taking the unit out of the crate! They weren't even going to see if it would start!!
I realize that the margins are small and that we wouldn't have gotten much service if we had bought as low priced a unit from a JD dealer. However, I'll bet any dealer worth his salt would have started it up to make sure it would run. If he was feeling generous at all, he might have at least put in a cupful of gas so there would have been enough to run it onto the trailer!
The JD 120 has worked out fairly well, though its plastic hood and thin, flimsy hinge mechanism did not survive the season of being operated by some dub who didn't know enough to get it stopped before hitting the back of the shed! We have strightened the hinge, replaced the hood, and put in some really beefy stops to catch the wheels the next time it's Old Clumsy's turn to mow.
With the opportunity to buy a JD lawn machine at a tractor dealer for the same price, I would NEVER buy one from Home Depot! I would drive 100 miles out of the way to get my little JD from a real John Deere dealer!!!
Dennis
I am a member of a model aircraft club which maintains a flying site on rented land. A bit more than a year ago, our club decided to retire our tired old Murray and purchase something newer and better. I wasn't on the committee for the purchase, but participated in the discussions. After a lot of chewing over how good (and expensive) an model to get, our committee settled on at JD L120 from Home Depot. We had understood that we could get the same model from a JD dealer at the same price, but the location of the Home Depot was more convenient for us to pick it up.
I was the one who had a tilt trailer of a good size for the job, so I went with the guy who arranged the purchase to pick up the new rig. When we got there, they had a "sold" tag on the machine, but it was still in the crate. They got 2 or 3 roustabouts to get the machine out of the crate. They didn't follow the instructions posted on the reusable steel crate, but they got the mower out without damage. (More luck than brains, I think.)
When I proposed to start the machine to run it onto my trailer, they said that there probably would not be enough gas in it to even start and they didn't have any available! I tried anyway, and got the thing started. It ran out of gas while turning around to back on the trailer! I was not impressed!!!!
The only "prep" we got was taking the unit out of the crate! They weren't even going to see if it would start!!
I realize that the margins are small and that we wouldn't have gotten much service if we had bought as low priced a unit from a JD dealer. However, I'll bet any dealer worth his salt would have started it up to make sure it would run. If he was feeling generous at all, he might have at least put in a cupful of gas so there would have been enough to run it onto the trailer!
The JD 120 has worked out fairly well, though its plastic hood and thin, flimsy hinge mechanism did not survive the season of being operated by some dub who didn't know enough to get it stopped before hitting the back of the shed! We have strightened the hinge, replaced the hood, and put in some really beefy stops to catch the wheels the next time it's Old Clumsy's turn to mow.
With the opportunity to buy a JD lawn machine at a tractor dealer for the same price, I would NEVER buy one from Home Depot! I would drive 100 miles out of the way to get my little JD from a real John Deere dealer!!!
Dennis
