Mower Buyer Battles Iron Dome of Incompetence and Lies

Buying used stuff online seems to be getting harder now that Facebook has taken over.

I don’t have a Facebook account, so I don’t have Facebook Marketplace. If I signed up today, it would probably be 6 months before they would let me use Marketplace. They don’t accept new users, and you have to have “friends,” i.e. strangers you have no interest in knowing yet who read about your life every day. To look at items, I have to use my wife’s account, which she needs to delete for her own good.

Maybe I shouldn’t complain about the strangers, given that I blog, but here, no one is collecting my data, and I don’t have to worry about college and being looked up by old acquaintances I’m hoping I never hear from again.

Craigslist is drying up, and Facebook won’t let you play unless you join the slimy collective.

My mower saga started with a rude lady who treated me like a terrorist. Then I messaged another seller, and she didn’t even answer. She just changed her listing so it said the mower was sold. I reported her for not responding. You can do that.

I found a mower with 22 hours, listed under what looked like an individual’s account. In reality, the listing came from Crystal Tractor, one of the only two big Kubota networks here. They have a store in Deland, and that’s where the mower was, supposedly, at one time.

I messaged the account holder, and he said he would check on the mower. That was days ago. I messaged him again yesterday. No answer.

I Googled to find out who really advertised the mower. It wasn’t hard, because the ad photos and video matched photos from Crystal Tractor’s website.

Today I called Crystal Tractor, and they said the mower had sold long ago. They didn’t offer me anything else. Small wonder, because their online used inventory is pathetic.

I reported the guy who advertised the mower falsely and did not respond.

Why is Crystal Tractor advertising under individual accounts?

I think I understand why my local dealer has a whole herd of unsold mowers. It looks like Kubota doesn’t require franchisees to maintain basic competence or ethics.

I went to Ocala’s inaptly-named Florida Coast Equipment, and the nice lady I dealt with had no idea what she was doing. Didn’t know how the products worked. Didn’t seem to know Kubota made garden tractors. Didn’t know what mower buyers need. Didn’t offer to scan the chain’s inventory to see if they had anything I might want. It was like they had just hired her away from Olive Garden. How do they sell anything?

To sell people expensive machinery, you have to know your products. People don’t want to hand over 5 or 6 figures without some reason to believe they’re getting what they need and paying a fair price. You have to make them comfortable. The guy who showed me Scag mowers knew everything about them, and he clearly knew what mowing was like. If I decided to buy a mower from him tomorrow, I wouldn’t have to ask him a thing.

I’m so frustrated, I have considered the unthinkable: buying a John Deere.

I dislike the John Deere company because they treat customers so badly. Other companies make products that are just as good or better. Nearly all small tractors, for example, are of equal quality, regardless of what people with green hats and face tattoos tell you. But John Deere, like BMW, promotes a perception of nonexistent exceptionalism. As though they’re doing you a favor by selling you something exclusive and exciting, which is not an accurate description of their run-of-the-mill products.

John Deere charges way too much for parts. They fight people who want to repair machines they paid for. On the other hand, they do make good zero-turns, and if I had one, I could probably do all the repairs myself and never see the inside of a dealership.

I could paint it orange.

I like Kubotas for their quality and the easy availability of parts, but I also like a feature their zero-turns have. The decks lift up without floor jacks. Kubota builds jacks into the decks of some models. I don’t want to buy a mower without this feature if I can avoid it, because blades have to be removed and replaced once in a while.

My Bronze Age Deere tractor is repaired, maybe. I started it up, and it did not leak. I’m going to see if I can cut my waist-high grass, and I’ll keep looking for something better.

What if it keeps running? Should I forget about a new mower? I don’t think so. I don’t trust my mower, and thanks to leftists and their demented king, product prices keep skyrocketing. I think I already lost about $3,000 by not buying a couple of years back.

I really don’t like the idea of spending money on a gas zero-turn when a used diesel what will outlast it can be had for less money.

I have learned what a good used diesel should cost. With a few hundred hours, no more than $10,500. A mower with very low hours…maybe $12,000. In terms of what you get, there isn’t a big difference between new and 500 hours.

Hope the old mower will get me through a few more months. It will probably take me that long to find a replacement.