Sears Craftsman Professonal Tractor 28874 27HP 54"

   / Sears Craftsman Professonal Tractor 28874 27HP 54" #1  

sarcsurfer

New member
Joined
Apr 27, 2008
Messages
23
Location
Far western suburbs of Chicago
Tractor
2008 Mahindra 2516HST
Hi Everyone!

I just gotta call from my wife... The tractor is delivered and in the garage! I repeat, the tractor is in the garage! Adding to my excitement is her comment about how 'HUGE' it is... Something every guy wants to hear! LOL!!!

After beating up my local Sears sales team, I ended up picking it up for $2475. (List $3499) They had a 20% off sale, $50 Craftsman club discount and I talked them into letting me use a Lowe's 10% any purchase coupon! Got a free mulching kit too!

I was concerned about buying it because I heard it only had a Torq 46 tranny. This is not the case... It has the beefier 66 version. I have a 1/2 acre garden with my name on it!

I'm not feeling well right now... I think I need to leave work and run home to uncrate my... Ummm, I mean take some medicine! I'll update you all on my progress on my new toy in the next day or so!

Best wishes!
 
   / Sears Craftsman Professonal Tractor 28874 27HP 54" #2  
I think fresh air and lawn clippings are a good antidote for what ails you.:D
 
   / Sears Craftsman Professonal Tractor 28874 27HP 54" #3  
Nice, those machines will surprise you with what they can do especially if you add a johnny bucket or other type implements! :)
 
   / Sears Craftsman Professonal Tractor 28874 27HP 54"
  • Thread Starter
#4  
OK, the tractor is NO LONGER in the garage... I took it back to Sears yesterday. After using it for a whole two hours, the electric deck lift died. It took two days for a tech to come out and look at it... He proclaimed this was the 3rd Professional Series tractor he had to service with the same problem. There are are no controls to limit the movement of the deck too high or low and this causes something to burn out. He felt there was going to have to be a recall. Complicating matters, the service center had no parts to at least repair it for now. He said it would be at least a week and most likely more... So much for my $349 super duper your special for 3 years warranty.

Great price or not, I couldn't wait for Sears to get their act together. I loaded it on my trailer and took it directly back to the store. Initially, they wanted to charge me a 15% restocking fee for my 2 hours of use... I made it pretty clear that that was not acceptable and convinced them of the error in the ways. I received a 100% refund. Felt bad for the sales guy, but what can you do? I got really spooked after the service guy came. Hopefully, I was just an isolated issue.

The tractor did seem to be built well beyond the problem I had... It took me just over 2 hours to mow two acres. I may have gotten it done faster, but I had to make several passes in some particularily high areas. The transmission was the much beefier T66 Torq. It is rated for ground engagements. I was really excited and liked the tractor.

I have decided to go large and get a sub-compact or compact tractor. Probably should have done this in the first place. There is no comparing the two types of tractors and I know I will be spending significantly more for this type. I have a 2 acre yard at home and a small 10 acre farm.

Best wishes everyone!
 
   / Sears Craftsman Professonal Tractor 28874 27HP 54" #5  
Sorry to hear of your troubles.
I also have 2 acres at the house and a 10 acre 'farm' across the road for the horses and with a rental mobile home on it, etc.

I was a long time faithful Craftsman customer but finally gave up when the equipment quality dropped and the service contract prices jumped.

I have a 22 horse with 50" deck that I bought maybe 7 years ago. When it runs it does justice to the name Craftsman. Unfortunatly running well enough to spin the blades and move the tractor is not something that aluminum Kohler seems capable of doing very often. :( It's performance is very much unlike my old Craftsman tractors which would run well on varnish and at any temperature.

Ironically my wife bought a Huskevarna of similiar size, and I think the same origin, while I was out of the country when the Green Sears would not run (again). She is very happy with it and it matches my Big Kubota in color.. :)

If I can ever get the big Green sears to run again, I might turn it into a portable welder.... :)

Good luck with your choices....
 
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   / Sears Craftsman Professonal Tractor 28874 27HP 54" #6  
My experience as a 25 year Sears lawn and garden customer is over as of last month. I sold my last sears garden tractor (2003 GT 6000 with 48" deck) on craigslist. The tractor was powerful enough and, I guess it was as dependable as I should have hoped for in a 5 year old machine that I beat on pretty badly. It was the waiting time for service calls and the run-around on the phone that finally turned me away.

I think the quality of product has diminished, the cost of Repair Protection Agreements has skyrocketed, the quality of customer service on the phone has vanished and the repairmen are stretched too thin. I would expect more marketing ploys (i.e. Professional Models) and less quality in the future.

I bought a subcompact and will never turn back to Sears for any product with an engine. I need a smaller mower and will likely go with Simplicity or Agco.
 
   / Sears Craftsman Professonal Tractor 28874 27HP 54" #7  
sarcsurfer said:
I have decided to go large and get a sub-compact or compact tractor. Probably should have done this in the first place. There is no comparing the two types of tractors and I know I will be spending significantly more for this type. I have a 2 acre yard at home and a small 10 acre farm.

I can't believe you went with a garden tractor when you have a 10 acre farm. I have a total of 1 acre and now, own a CUT. It's a Kioti CK20s HST.

I have a Sears Yard tractor (Bob Villia edition) for cutting the yard. I had been severely abusing it for 4 years now, but it does a great job. It was used to move tons and tons of stone, dirt and compost, using a dump cart. Used it to level out areas of the yard, even though it was not meant for ground engagement. And because I felt bad for it, and my back, I bought the Kioti. The Kioti also makes moving dirt and stone, way to easy. No more shoveling, manually loading or unloading. :) Enough with my story....

Now that you've made the decision to get a SCUT or CUT, make sure you get one well suited for lawn cutting. My Kioti is really to heavy for cutting a finished lawn. Plus, the R4 tires don't help. Maybe if I had gotten turf tire, I might be singing a different tune, but with the cost of finish mowers for a CUT, I think I'll just spend a bit more and get a Zero turn.
 
   / Sears Craftsman Professonal Tractor 28874 27HP 54" #8  
Sears tractors are a crapshoot, with your chances of getting something in need of repair getting larger every year. Maybe I can live with that.

But the servicing and warranty work is what seems to be diminishing the most, with each call Sear's putting more burden on the buyer to proove a problem and then having to bargain with them to service the machine. For these reasons, I will no longer be buying Craftsman mowers.

I recently bought a CC 2550 and while not perfect, I can take it to my local dealer where I have faith they will do the right thing and get it fixed with minimal hassle. Negotiating to get repairs done under warranty should not be something a customer has to undergo for faulty workmanship.
 
   / Sears Craftsman Professonal Tractor 28874 27HP 54" #9  
The service people themselves for Sears (anything, including tractors or appliances) can be as much of a crapshoot as the products. The "technicians" are now contractors, people Sears hires out to do the work. If you get one who is trained on the product line and knows what they are doing, they should get the job done. If not, you generally get a line of excuses as to why they can't fix it with blame often being put on the product design. This is not limited to Sears- if you get a lemon of a dealer with even a big name, you'll run in to the same problems.

The Honda lawn and garden concept never caught on in America, as people only looked at initial price and decided against the machines causing Honda to discontinue selling tractors in the USA. The concept? A Honda built product, with a Honda engine, sold and serviced by factory trained Honda dealers. It's just something that does not exist anymore and can't exist in the USA anymore with the box store mentality of buying the cheapest thing possible that will appear to get the job done and rely on the "warranty" that is most often worth less than the piece of paper it is printed on once you get through the legal horse pucky.

I work for Xerox and the same thing exists here. They do not want any more factory trained technicians to exist, and have all service done by techs at places who sell the products along with a slew of other pieces of disposable office equipment. The concept is no longer to sell a quality piece of equipment and back it with quality service. It is to sell as many pieces of cheap Chinese and Korean equipment as possible, and back them with basically no service and outrageously expensive supplies so they are obsolete as fast as the plastic gears in them split apart. And then the people in the board room sit there and wonder why the company is going down the tubes??

-Fordlords-
 
   / Sears Craftsman Professonal Tractor 28874 27HP 54" #10  
Sorry to hear about your bad experience. But I do have to agree with whomever wondered about the garden tractor for a 10-acre farm decision. A SCUT will do you well!!! Something like a 2320 or 2520 Deere is the way to go. Of course, the other colors have similar equipment that will work just as well...

Good luck with your next purchase!
 
 
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