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Opinion Summary
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Great Scotts!
by RichSAP | Oct 24 '02
Pros: Power and large cutting width = quick work
Cons: Width of cutting deck, over use of safety devices
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Re: Great SCOTT, When is DEERE not a DEERE (Reply to this comment)
by RichSAP
I asked the folks at Home Depot about the oil again a few weeks ago, as my engine had just over 10 hours on it. They restated their position about the 'break in' oil, so I took them at their word. I changed the oil last week, but put Mobil 1 synthetic oil in the crankcase and a new oil filter. The synthetic is suppose to hold up a lot better under high temperature conditions.
Running the mower only 10-12 hours a year for the small yard I have, I agree that a smaller mower would be better. I plan on putting this one up for sale soon and purchasing a new one next spring. I've been impresses with the Scotts/John Deere quality and will likely stick with JD.
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Sep 21 '03
2:09 pm PDT
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Great SCOTT, When is DEERE not a DEERE? (Reply to this comment)
by octagonpeg
I own this same tractor and bought it just about the same time as RichSAP.
The mower which is SCOTTS Orange is EXACTLY the same as the Green JOHN DEERE 2554. This unit has a Kohler Command engien with two cylinders and a fifty FOUR inch deck with three blades.
There are absolutley no differences except for the paint. Home Depot had an arrangement with Deere to produce a certain number of units to be sold at Home Depot stores under the Scotts name and Scotts colors. This was actually to protect Deere dealers who chould not possibly compete with a HD store that could be right down the street from them.
Many consumers still don't know a Tennis ball from a Tennis ball. Deere manufacturing and HD hoped that consumers would not cross-shop a John Deere dealer with a big box HD store. It didn't work. Prospective John Deere customes bought there OTHER lawn needs at HD and saw tractors that were indeed identical to the ones they might have seen at the Deere dealer. They bought he Orange one and saved a few hundred bucks, and thought they bought HD's reputation for customer service.
The Deere Dealer lost the sale to HD and the HD customer lost the service they should have gotten from the seller, whether it was Deere or HD.
HD at the time had absolutly provisions for servicing tractors...NONE!....Their "plan" was the same as it was for walk behind mowers.....if the customer had a problem they could bring it back to the store and exchange it for a new one or get their unit serviced at one of the very very few small power equipment dealers the HD might have made arrangements with....... trouble with this was.....
1- the serving dealer would place HIS customers ahead of the HD's customer ( makes sense,....after all, he lost the sale to begin with, and why should he service a "Scotts" product at a DEERE service center?) and waits for serviced units was quite long, and
2- most people had no abiltiy to transport a 20 or 25 HP tractor back to the store, and HD had no one to go out to your house to service it so you were screwed.
Trust me, I was THERE. I had a bum unit that the store would have replaced if I could just get it back to the store. I could not, at least not in my new 35,000 pickup. They finally sent a human body to my house with a HD truck and a fork lift. They exchanged the unit for me
Afte a number of complaints from customer, HD management knew they had a real big, real expensive problem throughout the Chain..
Part of their solution was a new deal with Deere to NOT carry John DEERE walk behind mowers, and carry a few JOHN DEERE tractor models that would be sold as JOHN DEERE models and left Green. The nonsense about being a SCOTTS product was at least eliminated. Scotts, does not make anything mechanical.
The issue of service was still a problem. Since tractors are quite reliable, I would be willing to take the chance again rather than deal with a sparse network of Deere Power equipment dealers.
The issue of "Margin", is not correct. Scotts name was only used a people would not buy a tractor that had Home Depot on the cowling, so Scotts was affixed to it initially.
This issue about the plastic HOOD....... The use of plastic in the hood benefits the owner. It does NOT RUST, it is much QUIETER and the COLOR goes throughout. So if you scratch it still show it's color, (be it green or orange).
A better choice for this user would have been the Scotts/Deere model 2048, a 20 HP twin cylinder unit with a 48 inch deck. It has smaller tires and wheels and lacked the cup holder and the hour meter, but was also cheaper and more manueverable.
These tractors are great units and very very well assembled. The comment about removing the deck is alos incorrect. One man can get the deck off in ten minutes. Two men can do it in five (after you have done it once). DEERE dealers do not consider these inits true DEERE products (probably becasue they know they might have to service something that HD sold. They only consider the UPPER CLASS units as true DEERES.
These units are not shipped with anything other than standard weight oil. It should be changed after a few hours to remove any filings that might have worked loose during break in. Gasoline consumption si directly proportional to power. You want to use less gas?..get a smaller mower. Te instructions for the fitment of the POWER bagging unit are incorrect and useless. Do not attempt to install the POWER Bagger yourself, unless you can interpret the problem. You will get hurt. DEERE's tech suppor t knwos about the problem wiht the instructions.
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Sep 20 '03
4:21 pm PDT
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Nicely Done (Reply to this comment)
by rfish,  in Home and Garden
A very good and informative article. Gave me a lot of the information I was looking for.
Thanks!
Ralph
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Dec 03 '02
7:11 pm PST
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