Ok, last year our 13 year old Sears Craftsman lawn tractor was damaged when I ran over a chunk of concrete (long story). The belt that drives the blades snapped and came off. We were having some financial issues at the time, and it was late enough in the year that the grass almost stopped growing and we just let it go until this spring.
In late April I tried replacing the belt, and it kept coming off. Poked around and the pulleys that drive the belt are bent, and a couple clips that hold various bits on have come off. Found one of the clips on the grass outside the garage, made another out of a piece of coat hanger, straightened the bent parts of the pulleys with pliers. Belt was rubbing against something and getting hot, can’t figure out what’s missing or wrong. But sort of got it working, mowed one strip and then boom, the belt’s in shreds. Ok, it’s time to call someone who knows what their doing.
At the beginning of May I started looking around for repair shops. Sears has a tractor repair section on their web site, they’ll come pick it up and fix it. But it takes over a month to get an appointment, and my grass, it won’t stop growing for the repair man.
So we called a few local places before finding one that’s close by that was willing to do it. They said they normally only do engines but if we bought the parts they’d fix it. A few days after they picked it up they called and gave my wife a list of parts, which was a rod (that holds the mower deck in place), a pulley, and a bunch of nuts. My wife says they didn’t say anything about not being able to fully repair it. I ordered the parts from the Sears web site. Parts were $67, and if I wanted them to arrive before September, $25 to ship.
We got the tractor back Thurs and I mowed yesterday. On the highest setting, the blade is too low and goes to the dirt in spots (compounded by our yard being ravaged by gophers or moles or something and very lumpy and uneven). If I lower the blades even one notch it completely removes the grass down to bare dirt. It cuts lower on one side than the other. Either the deck is not even, or one of the blades isn’t. Even taking into consideration how lumpy our yard is, it’s obvious the tractor is not cutting right. The yard is mowed but looks like shit. Also the front wheels kept getting stuck and I couldn’t turn them. I had to yank it as hard as I could, then something would snap and then they’d turn okay for a few minutes, then get stuck again. This is not an issue I’ve ever had before.
Called the shop this morning and they said something about the deck being damaged and they couldn’t fully repair it. No, they can’t adjust it or fix it or anything. Yeah, I’d have liked to know that before I spent $95 on parts and $300 on repairs.
So now I’m not sure what to do. I guess they did do repairs on it and it somewhat works, but If I’d known how bad it would mow I’d have told them not to bother with the repairs. So I’m kind of upset that I spent nearly $400 to have this tractor fixed and it is not fixed. And I feel they should have explained that it had more damage than they were able to fix, and asked me what I wanted to do, before I spent money on the parts and repairs.
We have a push mower, but our yard is almost 3/4 of an acre and is sloped. It’s not super steep, but I have had back surgery and have 3 stents in my chest. Push mowing every week, or even every two weeks is not an option.
Buying a new tractor is at least $1000, and not an option right now. We might be able to get a new one next year when we get our tax refund.
I guess we could make the appointment with Sears but it will be at least the beginning of August before they’d even pick it up, and I don’t think we can afford hundreds more dollars on it. Especially if they need to replace the whole mowing deck, that could get very expensive.
I don’t know what a landscaping company would charge to mow my yard but I don’t think we can afford that either. We’ve spent too much on the tractor as is and need to get caught up with other stuff.
Is my only option to have my yard look like shit for the rest of the summer? Not sure what to do at this point.
