John Deere L118 Lawn Tractor

John Deere L118 Lawn Tractor September 7, 2005

In April 2004 I purchased a Deere L118 lawn tractor from Home Depot in Rutland, VT. After about ten 2-hour mowing sessions, it began to sporadically blow huge volumes of oil smoke. The problems began to surface when the engine had been running about 30 minutes, when the mowing deck was engaged, and when we were mowing on a slight incline. The tractor has been to a nearby Deere dealer (Trottier in White River Junction, VT) for three warranty repairs this year and the problem remains. I can now only mow in half hour increments before black smoke starts billowing out on me. It is a serious health hazard. The "customer complaint" people at Deere are always very polite, and say they want to help, but they have made no serious effort to resolve the problem. Sensing that they doubted my story, I offered to send them a video of the problem. I was told to bring it to the dealer who would evaluate it, then forward it on to corporate headquarters. Six weeks after giving the video to Trottier the folks at Deere said they had not seen it. I was told they were waiting for Deere's district representative to see it first, and they would be back in touch with me. That was two weeks ago. At this point they have had for two months visual evidence of a defective and hazardous product. Rather than taking the tractor back and having their engineers examine it for defects -- which could help them avoid similar problems in the future -- they are now just stone walling. This puts the lie to their talk about six sigma quality control. That is just marketing BS. To add insult to injury, Trottier has twice tried to sell me a larger tractor, saying I was over-working the L118. I responded that prior to my purchase of the Deere mower, a neighbor had mowed our grass with a smaller and older mower he had bought from True Value Hardware. Since his smaller machine had no trouble with our land, it was reasonable to assume that Deere's larger machine would perform adequately. I also told Trottier that professional mowing services in our area are using L118s much more aggressively than I do -- putting ten or more times the hours per week on their equipment and doing it on similar terrain. I have been polite with Deere so far, offering to give detailed feedback to their engineers plus additional video footage. But my patience is wearing thin. The bottom line is this: I got a lemon. It is a serious health hazard and Deere does not care. If any reader of this knows a consumer website where I could post the videos of my smoking tractor, I would be most obliged. JHB Rather than refund my money on the L118, he offered a Click this link to e-mail the message author: Email User

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when you buy lawn equipment from home depot lowes walmart you might as well be buying as is. the place they tell you to bring it to when a problem occurs under warranty the shop will tell you its not a warranty problem that you have to pay is because its to hard for the fix it shop to get any money from the manufacturer. they only want to pay 1/4 of what the shop deserves to fix the problem.buyer beware

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To me it sounded like you bought a bad and defective "Consumer" product. Since you have exhausted your patience with Trottier and Deere Corporate -- and your problem has not resolved. Now, I would file a complaint with BBB online and Consumers Affair online. Once they get a letter from BBB with your complaint; they (Deere) will jump up on their a** and offer to correct your problem. Or even better with a contact from Consumers Affair to Deere Corporate. I had a problem with Home Depot a few years ago; when they installed an entrance door at my resident. It was a few months of aggravations; going back and forth with emails between me and one of their Customer Care Rep. But finally the problem got resolved. To make a long story short; the door installed had cracks around the frame, door jambs, etc. We paid over $1200 to have this door installed. I sympathized your situation -- so my suggestion is to file a complaint with BBB and Consumers Affair online. Good Luck!!