Cub Cadet Riding Lawn Mower

[Gerowen]

If you are in the market for a new riding lawn mower, I recommend not getting a Cub Cadet. The engine in this one runs great, and there's lots of little niceties about it that rival the features of some cars/trucks, but there have been all sorts of problems with the mowing deck and belt. Since the day he bought it the mower has not really had tons of horsepower; it would bog down in areas of tall grass where the Husqvarna would have no problems, and when it did the engine speed would not change, the blades though would stop and you could smell the belt getting hot. It was serviced at a warranty dealer a couple weeks ago because the belt wore out and it started vibrating violently. Upon getting it back I tried to use it to cut dad's grass and the violent vibrations continued. I got off and started looking around, and the belt had jumped off track AGAIN, and the nuts on two of the pulleys had backed off which allowed them to wobble. One of them at least has had the gear chewed out of it because not only would it wiggle, it would slide around on the bolt with no resistance, so that center gear has been destroyed. The middle blade pulley is also about 2 inches lower than the other 3 pulleys (one tensioner and 2 other sets of blades) which forces the belt to enter that pulley at a steep angle, which makes it get hot and eventually jump off the tensioner pulley which gives it enough slack to start vibrating and get hot, which is probably what made the nuts on the other two pulleys back off, which caused the other problems. The pulley that is lower than the rest is not damaged, it is obvious from looking at it that it was put that way on purpose. All 4 of the pulleys on the Husqvarna are level with each other so the belt does not have to traverse up and down, so it appears that this is a design flaw, or at the very least somebody put the wrong pulley mechanism on this mower in the factory.

 

I mowed dad's yard today and left the Husqvarna with him so he could continue mowing the grass, and look what I've got staged for going back to the warranty dealer for the 2nd time in less than a year.