John Deere plastic hoods

[WVAhills]

John Deere have to really be proud of the 4000 series tractors that you see in different places without hoods because people do not want to pay a ridiculous abhorrent price for a plastic hood made out of cheap GE made plastic. That is a statement for there quality. Good advertisement
Now that I vented I was wondering if anyone has heard of an aftermarket hood , has anyone ever been able to duplicate one out of metal, is there some type of laser imaging technology that one could be made ?

 

[s219]

John Deere have to really be proud of the 4000 series tractors that you see in different places without hoods because people do not want to pay a ridiculous abhorrent price for a plastic hood made out of cheap GE made plastic. That is a statement for there quality. Good advertisement
Now that I vented I was wondering if anyone has heard of an aftermarket hood , has anyone ever been able to duplicate one out of metal, is there some type of laser imaging technology that one could be made ?

I am sure it would cost tens of thousands of dollars to scan and setup tooling for an aftermarket hood. Probably not enough demand to justify it.

I cracked part of the front hood on my smaller Deere yard tractor, and that experience and cost was one of the reasons I shopped Kubota later on when buying a big tractor. That Deere hood shattered and left jagged sharp edges, and was downright dangerous to be around. It needed to be replaced for safety reasons, not for cosmetics.

I am not a fan of those plastic body parts. I see zero advantage as an owner. I am sure Deere sees many advantages as a manufacturer.

 

[darrenjttu]

I repaired all the cracks with a fiber glass kit from autozone. It reinforced the hood and made it more sturdy. It might crack agian but I will just put more fiberglass rather than buy an expensive replacement hood.

 

[WVAhills]

John Deere is making a FORTUNE on these hoods , at the time the plastic feed stock for these hoods was made I am guessing it cost about 80 cents a pound to make before it was molded into the shape of a hood. I bet they did not have over $5.00 a pound at the most in the plastic by the time it was molded into a hood, how many pounds does the hood weigh ? It should be illegal to price gouge like this..
They should have mixed thermoplastic rubber pellets/crumb in with plastic pellets. The thermoplastic rubber is strong and flexible ,it may have been $1.10 a pound back in the year 2000.

 

[WVAhills]

I patched mine for the last three years , but if the hood slips of your finger about 2 inches before it closes it should not be enough force to crack a hood 3/4 of the way across it.. What happened to Mr. John Deeres slogan "I will never put my name on a product that does not have in it the best that is in me " Pretty sad when a man who started the company making plows out of the finest steel around that his company would be putting cheap plastic hoods on the tractors that his company made. Oh well... I got that off of my chest for now.

 

[MF283]

Side grills, dash & all, my 5303 is going on 9 years now, so far so good, i know there will be the day though.

Ronnie

 

[4570Man]

I am sure Deere sees many advantages as a manufacturer.

Yeah, they get to sell you multiple hoods that way. I thought those plastic hoods were unbreakable. Just watch John Deers, Kubota bashing videos. I have a 20 year old Kubota hood. It had suffered a few dings, but is still in one piece. My other Kubotas hood suffered a hard blow. It has battle scars, but is still in one piece. Has anyone considered a different brand hood? They are probably equally as expensive, but at least are metal.

 

[WVAhills]

I am partial to Deere as well , it aggravates me that they shoved one into the customer and they know it. I bought the John Deer X 758 signatures garden tractor for mowing purposes and I love , it has a much better hood etc , they finally started using more rubber in the hoods , impact resistant.
One of my favorite old tractors is a Farmall 140 , had it on the farm growing up , learned to drive on it.

 

[Deere Dude]

I owned a dozen John Deere garden tractors since 1970 and only had 1 fiberglass hood break in the leading edge when I bumped a wall while parking, but it was a 1965 model garden tractor and that happened about 6 years ago. I dropped stuff on them accidentally occasionally, dropped a 5-10# rock out of a FEL onto a new hood and it just bounced off with no mark. In all those years I never broke a hood, but no doubt they can break if abused.

If I was fortunate enough to own a Japanese tractor with a steel hood that had a bunch of dents I would probably buy a new hood or pound it out and have a crappy looking tractor. Maybe I would paint it orange.

 

[4570Man]

If I had a little green tractor that was probably made it Taiwan, then I would have already had to buy new hood. The 20 year old Kubota was owned by a city crew, and we all know what good care they take of their equipment. They also left it outside most of the 20 years. We all know what sun does to plastic. My Kubota hood is certainly a little worse for wear, but is still in one piece. The same 20 year old Kubota garden tractor had fiber glass fenders, and they are way worse than the hood. It the John deer hood is so good, then why does this thread exist?

 

[WVAhills]

The newer tractors that have thermoplastic elastomer rubber in them are better hoods , the old plastic hoods had no advantage for the customer PURE plastic. I don't know what they were thinking. I like that idea about a hood from another brand of tractor.. Where to start ??

 

[WVAhills]

Good point why are there so many posts about John Deere hoods ?...my hood has not been abused . I would think reinforced fiber glass would be stronger than a thin sheet of plastic. A five to ten pound rock would more than likely bust mine can't say for yours sounds like you have some good plastic. If you like I will go find a 5 pound rock and drop it on the remaining section of the hood and take it up to 10 pounds if needed. You tell me how high to hold the rock before I drop it and I will take pictures . I am going to have to get a new hood anyway.

 

[TomSeller]

I am partial to Deere as well , it aggravates me that they shoved one into the customer and they know it. I bought the John Deer X 758 signatures garden tractor for mowing purposes and I love , it has a much better hood etc , they finally started using more rubber in the hoods , impact resistant.
One of my favorite old tractors is a Farmall 140 , had it on the farm growing up , learned to drive on it.

All brands (and I have Deere tractors in addition to other brands) have an issue here and there. I suggest you roll with the hood issue. It could something more serious.

 

[WVAhills]

I might add the cowing around my instrument cluster where the screws hold it in place have cracked and broke in a couple of places. The side panels have these little spring loaded latches that turn and you flip them over on there side to hold the panels in place and one or two of them have cracked.
The fenders you can stand on them and of course the floor boards and fenders are made out of different type of reinforced plastic

 

[sd455dan]

The newer tractors that have thermoplastic elastomer rubber in them are better hoods , the old plastic hoods had no advantage for the customer PURE plastic. I don't know what they were thinking. I like that idea about a hood from another brand of tractor.. Where to start ??

Possibly someone could do a mold from a good hood and then make some replacement ones out of fiberglass?

What kind of money are the JD replacements selling for?

 

[Deere Dude]

Good point why are there so many posts about John Deere hoods ?...my hood has not been abused . I would think reinforced fiber glass would be stronger than a thin sheet of plastic. A five to ten pound rock would more than likely bust mine can't say for yours sounds like you have some good plastic. If you like I will go find a 5 pound rock and drop it on the remaining section of the hood and take it up to 10 pounds if needed. You tell me how high to hold the rock before I drop it and I will take pictures . I am going to have to get a new hood anyway.

It rolled off the back of the bucket full of dirt onto a new 3720 from about 2-3 feet or so above the hood. It seemed like slow motion. If you hold your hands together like holding a basketball then have all the fingers apart about 2 inches, that was about how big the rock was. Needless to say I expected the worse and I said, "Oh ****," but all was well.

Another time the hood was wide open and the wind slammed it shut, not a problem but I cringed. The same hood on my X740 my wife after washing the tractor would just let it drop until I saw her do that and ripped he a tad, but nothing broke.

I take pride in my tractors and try to keep them looking nice if possible.

I am not a nutso fan of plastic by any means but never had a problem with plastic. Maybe it is luck. Tractors are always stored inside so no fading exists.

I have plastic fenders which may be a different material on my dually and a tree backed into me and cracked a fender. I had to replace that but I don't know if a metal fender would have fared any better. I could have pounded the dents down but if I wanted to keep it nice it would have been replaced anyway.

 

[beenthere]

New hood for 4300 is $299 on Amazon.. that is not high priced in my book.

No complaints on my 4300 hood.. dropped a good size tree limb on it without a crack or even visible scratch. Tractor is 18 years old now and have many people that can't believe that it isn't brand new.
If I would manage to abuse a hood and have it crack, I'd be real happy that Deere would even carry such an item in their inventory after 18 years.. regardless the price.
Anyone want to make an aftermarket hood... then which model would one pick to invest big bucks in tooling.. of the many many models of JD out there. It would be curtains for sure... and then how to reach out to those who might need a hood? And to have an off-green hood on one's JD would be embarrassing, to say the least.

My old 2cyl JD 420 had a small limb drop out of a tree and creased the top bend in the metal hood.. no way to get that out and it dropped the resale value by a lot when it happened. Just had to live with it, as bad as it looked.

 

[bigtiller]

Possibly someone could do a mold from a good hood and then make some replacement ones out of fiberglass?

What kind of money are the JD replacements selling for?

I don't know this as fact, but I doubt if JD makes the hood. It is most likely outsourced to a molding company. So if you were to get serious about it, you might be able to find that company and buy one direct from them.

 

[beenthere]

Possibly someone could do a mold from a good hood and then make some replacement ones out of fiberglass?

What kind of money are the JD replacements selling for?

Only $299

 

[murphy1244]

It might of been a few bucks in plastic but I can assure you the mold was expensive.