John Deere f911

[Greg_Phillips]

I found a John Deere f911 for sale locally, what can anyone on here tell me about these mowers? I already have a zero turn for mowing the yard, but I have been looking for a front deck mower to mow under fences and around our cattle barn. Would also likely use the f911 to be a multipurpose tool carrier (a spot sprayer, front mount broom, front mount rake/dethatcher, front mount fertilize spreader, and who knows what else I will come up with). Been looking for a f725 or so, but have not been able to find one around here for what I am willing to spend, but then this f911 showed up on the web, so please tell me if it something I should even consider taking time to go look at.

Thanks,

Greg

 

[TCowner]

The F911 uses the horizontal shaft Kawasaki engine that initially came with a plastic camshaft gear that would fail around 1000 hours. The same basic engine was used in the 425 and 445 garden tractors along with vertical shaft versions in the F725 front mount mower. There may have been others as well. But the culprit was the plastic cam shaft gear. The gear failed in my F725 at around 1,100 hours.

The camshaft gear failure was covered under warranty for a some customers who were lucky enough to have it fail during the warranty program and I believe that Deere may have covered the failure for a short time after the warranty expired. But most engines survived well past the warranty period so there was no help from Deere or Kawasaki. I am not exactly sure of the date but I believe it was around model year 2000 that Kawasaki went to the steel camshaft gear and the problem was resolved.

My F725 was in nice shape and I liked the mower so I decided it was worth the money to have the camshaft replaced. The service tech who replaced the camshaft stated that the engine rarely has other damage when the camshaft gear fails so replacing it was fairly uneventful. Since the water pump attaches to the underside of the engine in the F725 he recommended it be replaced as well. The engine ran great when done but I was around $1,100 poorer (included the water pump) when I was done.

So, if it were me, I would want to know if the engine has the newer steel camshaft gear or the old plastic. If its plastic, you should plan on replacing it at some time and probably factor that into the price you should pay for the mower.