Slight Rant...JD 155C deck drive belt

[jlangton]

This is ridiculous...14.6 hrs on the hourmeter,and this JD 155C has eaten a deck drivebelt. No load, no slippage, just disengaged the PTO clutch to move the worktruck and hopped back onto the mower. Throttled it up, and pulled the clutch button...hiss, pop...the belt is trash, and appears to have simply snapped in half. Anybody have any guesses as to why this happened? It was cutting well...no noises, no loose pulleys,no debris on the deck around the pulleys-any ideas? I'd been mowing for about 15 minutes and this happened-and it really reassures me that I'll never be buying a belt driven mower of any kind-Dad can keep this one at his place once he's moved into the new house.
JL

 

[dubba]

I had one new belt break last year on my snowblower attachment. I simply brought it back & the dealer gave me another. No problems since. I'm still using the unknown age belt that came with my used 48" deck 2 years ago. I bought a replacement for it, then decided if it wasn't broken, why fix it. Maybe it was just a fluke?

 

[mfd480]

Belt on my LX188 lasted 12 years! I'd say you probably just got a bad belt.

 

[jlangton]

Update:
Dad picked up a new belt so we could go mow his new place so the fencing contractor could get to the fenceline and do their job easily.
$33 later after a trip to Lowe's-we had the JD replacement belt,and installed it in about 10 minutes. Got a really good look at the design of the deck and the belt routing,and I'm not really impressed with the tensioning system,but it appears to work OK.
Dad fired up the mower and within 30 minutes the new belt had jumped off.....
Now-I'm more than a bit irritated since we had to pull the pulley guards off again,and it's over 90 degrees outside by now. Well,the new belt was gouged and had a nice sized nick in the outside cover, but considering we were almost an hour's drive to another belt-we put it back in place. Then I noticed something that seemed a bit odd-the deck wasn't even close to being level with it in the lowest position(first time I'd seen it lowered all the way on a flat concrete surface). At first I was concerned that Dad had hit something and bent the leveling rods,but after a very close inspection-all of those components were still like they were when it was shipped. It's pretty apparent that the local Deere dealer that prepped this machine didn't care enough to adjust it properly since he wasn't going to be selling it (Dad bought this machine at the same Lowe's we got the replacement belt from). Took me a mere 5 minutes to adjust the rollers and the leveling of the deck,and even with the gouged/nicked belt-Dad mowed the remaining 2 acres of thick grass/weeds without another incident(about 3 more hours of mowing time with several stops for water and stops to move property stringlines) ,and no scalping at all like it had been doing at my place.
This just proves that the Dealers don't care a bit about the machines that they are "prepping" for sales at the larger stores-and that's a terrible injustice to the very people that are likely to purchase other JD equipment from them at a later date. If I hadn't noticed the deck leveling issue,it's likely that we'd be on the 4th or 5th belt now,and at $30/ea...That machine would be getting really expensive and the general attitude would be formed that JD equipment was crap. I'm sure Dad would be ridding himself of this belt eating machine very soon if we didn't find this adjustment issue,and all he would have to say about it would be that he'd never own a piece of JD equipment again,and would tell everybody that.
JL

 

[bontai_Joe]

Was your tractor indeed prepped by a dealer? I only ask because some of the box stores do their own prep "in house". In any case I always tell folks that buy a new tractor, to sit down with the manual and go thru the set up procedure as though it hadn't been done, to verify the deck is leveled properly, all the hardware is tightened, check air pressure in the tires (usually has to be reduced from the shipping pressure), check all the fluids, that all spin on filters are tight, etc. The 30-45 minutes spent can sometimes avoid expensive problems and down time later. I'm glad that you got yours fixed and yes I agree that it stinks it wasn't done right before you got it, but it seems today that we all have to check the work others do for us.

 

[jlangton]

Was your tractor indeed prepped by a dealer? I only ask because some of the box stores do their own prep "in house". In any case I always tell folks that buy a new tractor, to sit down with the manual and go thru the set up procedure as though it hadn't been done, to verify the deck is leveled properly, all the hardware is tightened, check air pressure in the tires (usually has to be reduced from the shipping pressure), check all the fluids, that all spin on filters are tight, etc. The 30-45 minutes spent can sometimes avoid expensive problems and down time later. I'm glad that you got yours fixed and yes I agree that it stinks it wasn't done right before you got it, but it seems today that we all have to check the work others do for us.

Yes,this one was prepped by the dealer-even has their nice little dealer sticker applied to the rear of the machine. This is my Dad's machine that I'm merely storing for him until he gets moved into his new place.He actually went to the JD dealer that's being referenced here,and they were of no help,and acted as if the 100 series were garbage,and that they wouldn't sell one to him-that he was "wasting his money on that POS" as they put it.
It'll be perfect for what Dad's gonna do with it(mow about 2 acres of open flat yard) and will last him a long time.
JL

 

[plowrup]

John Deere does pay us Dealers to do a Prep, but I do not believe that Deck Leveling is part of the Prep (could be wrong here though)-please understand that this machine is a "price" machine-it is built to meet a specific price point, and, as such, compromises are being made-

 

[jlangton]

John Deere does pay us Dealers to do a Prep, but I do not believe that Deck Leveling is part of the Prep (could be wrong here though)-please understand that this machine is a "price" machine-it is built to meet a specific price point, and, as such, compromises are being made-

I'm not complaining at all with the price point for the larger buying market that these machines are aimed at. I'm just displeased at the setup and attitude of that dealer since it isn't a "John Deere"....John Deere machine. The people that buy these entry level Deere products and have a good experience with them will associate that with Deere, and they will remember that in the future. My Dad happens to fall into that group that will have years of reliable use out of this machine due to the type of use it'll see...He managed to get almost 10 years out of an old 16hp V-twin/46" cut MTD from Wal-Mart at his old place before the HST gave up on it. Did he get his $900 worth of use out of it?...Oh yeah-a couple of times over.
JL

 

[dubba]

It never fails to amaze me how much the dealer in a certain area can bias people for or against a product.
Short story... My mother bought the small JD pedal bike for my son for his birthday, on his birthday it was found to have flat tires.[2 days after purchase] She stole my phone with the salesman's cell phone number on it, called him and gave her a piece of her mind. 30 min later the kid that preps the bikes was at her house with an airpump...
Would I have bought orange, red, blue, black or any other color if the dealer was better in my area? Definitely

 

[cw max]

Pull the deck. Clean thoroughly bottom and top of deck. grease spindles, check for loose bolts, replace or sharpen blades. I prefer Kevlar belt. make sure spring loaded sheave moves freely and not bent. Check every third use.

 

[davesl708]

The JD I bought from Lowes was prepped by the dealer that supplies Lowes. Lowes did not prep the mower. Any warranty was to go to the dealer supplying the mower. Lowes was just selling the mowers on consignment. Not sure if this is true with all Lowes but the dealer then called me a month later to check up on how the mower was working and to see if I needed it serviced.

I went through the manual when I got home and checked everything out. Had no issues in the three years I had it except an idler pulley on the mower deck was bad.