TO MOW OR NOT TO MOW , THAT IS THE PITS

So last Tuesday my wife and I traveled to Sears and bought a new riding mower. A mulching mower, electric start, 30" blade (single), fully automatic transmission, yada yada yada. I drove back on Wednesday morning to pick it up. Got there at 9:20 AM. Pick-up area doesn't open until 10 AM. Went to McD's and got breakfast, a paper, came back, parked and ate breakfast and scanned the news.

At 10:05 AM put pick-up receipt in slot and bingo, here it comes. I asked a simple question "Is the mulching attachment coming with it, or do I have to wait?" They do not know. They scurry around for fifteen minutes and no one knows what the mulching attachment is. I got down on hands and knees, felt the blade and it appeared to be a mulching blade. Then I asked where the side chute is, in case I decide to blow it out the side. No one knows. We have to walk around to the parts department and order it. Walk back to pick-up and the mower has been placed back in stock. The guy brings it out and loads it on the truck. After tying it down, making sure parking brake is set, I bring it home. Placed boards up to bring it off truck and cannot do it, the mower housing is catching on tailgate. I call up my engineering department (that is the other side of my brain, it takes a minute or two to reach there.) Solution--let down tailgate of old truck (tailgate hangs down at slant since no chains to hold it, back up new truck to overlap tailgate, move to old truck, move new truck out of way, put down boards for it to run on and, Voila, new mower is on driveway. Damn, my engineering department is good.

Read instruction manual, put gas in tank, check oil, all ok. Check all areas and turn key to start. RRRRR, RRRRR, rrrrr, clunk, clunk, clink clink. Battery dead. OK. Check date of battery-12/07, should be good. Get cables and jump from old truck. Starts up and runs well. But how do I stay in seat, disconnect jumper cables, and keep it running? Engineering?

Deadman switch can be controlled by placing foot hard on it, but easiest is to disconnect cables at truck and let it run to charge battery. So I do, by stretching this old body farther than it needs to be stretched. Truck is still running in neutral, mower is running. I let it go for about five minutes, plenty of time to get some charge in battery. Shut off mower, disconnect cables, close compartment. Shut off truck. Get back on mower, depress clutch, hit starter, RRRRR, rrrrr, clunk, clink, clink. Battery dead.

So I'm trying to think of a way to get the thing recharged without a huge amount of work. Aha, get my battery charger out of garage and hook it up to battery. Great. Except my charger has gone on the fritz, too. And while looking at it, I notice the rod that supports the compartment while open is supposed to be straight, and it is in the shape of a 'C'. Major pissed off. Next thought was to put it back on truck and return it. Then I remember the difficulty in getting it off. Got to be much more major pissed off to go through all that. Called Service Department, got some one in Phillipines, finally got switched back to Arizona where I set up service call for next week, 28th earliest can get here.

Wife even more ticked than me. She suggests returning. I tell her of the difficulty in getting it off the truck. We agree to be reasonable about this. She calls Sears sales floor and they tell her to bring the battery to their Parts Department and they will exchange.

Next morning I removed battery and returned to Sears Parts Department. They tell me I have to go to Sales Department to make the exchange. I then told them I wanted to order the rod (even told them I was willing to pay for it and even wait to have it delivered via USPS. No, they tell me, that also has to be done through the Sales Department. I ask why? Because it is a new mower. I can feel the major coming on again.

Well under control, I walked to the Sales Department. There were probably two customers and six or seven clerks. But no one inquires why I am standing there with a battery in my hand. Finally after about three passes past the counter where I am standing, one asks if he can help me. I explain. He says I have to handle the affair through the Parts Department. I reply that no, he can handle it through the Parts Department, that I have walked all I intend to walk. I told him that if he could not handle the exchange, that perhaps he needs to get his manager there to do so.

He asks to be excused for a moment so he can confer with other clerks. I say sure, I'm not going anywhere until I have my new battery. After about five minutes, another clerk asks me if he can help me. I said someone was trying to do so, but it had been a while since I saw him. So I explain again what the problem is. And all of a sudden, here is the woman who sold us the unit. And she gives me the same song and dance about seeing the Parts Department. By this time my cool is hot. I told her that I was not going anywhere, that if she intended to save the sale, she had best get on the stick and do her job. She then tells me that it will be a warranty exchange. I said no, that the sale has not been completed as a workable product has not been delivered and no charge to any warranty will be allowed, that I will simply go home, load the unit on my truck and bring it back, at which point she can issue me a check for the exact same amount my check was for, or give me cash, didn't matter to me.

Something must have clicked in her brain. For suddenly, I was handed a side chute, the rod, and a battery. This after over an hour of trying to get them to do their job.

Dumb me. I forgot to look at the replacement battery. I knew, because she told me, that she had taken all three parts from another mower to give to me, and dumb me, I forgot to look at the date on the replacement battery. I had gotten all the way outside and was putting the items into my truck when I remembered. Now, was that replacement battery charged? I took it to their Auto Center and, no, it was dead, but chargeable. That they did and an hour later I came home, after the guy in the Auto Center told me that Sears didn't even use that brand battery any more. I looked at the date and it was 01/07, eleven months older than the one I gave them back.

Back home. Battery back in mower. RRRRR, RRRRR, rrrrr, rrrr, clunk, clunk, clink, clink. Jump started it. Let it run for five minutes. Disconnect jumper cables. Hit starter, engine catches and I take it for a trial spin, cut two small sections of yard, probably about 30 minutes worth. Shut engine off. Start engine. Again. Again. Remove old rod, replace with new one. Leave side chute in truck. Put mower in garage.

Next day about 10 AM, I go to garage, start mower. Shut off, restart mower, shut off.

Monday, 19th. I string trim entire yard, inside and outside fence. Wife gets back from doctor appointment, we eat lunch and decide to mow yard. She will get outside gate along road, I will get inside with new mower. Back it out of garage and you guessed it, won't start. I try to jump, won't start. She will go to Sears and get resolution, I will mow with old self-propelled until she returns. Poor old Sears, they just do not know what a whipsaw they have had unleashed on them. But they found out.

She took battery with her, sales slip also. Goes directly to Sales Department. They say they cannot do anything, has to be handled by Parts and Repair. She tells them no. If they cannot handle it, get their supervisor. If supervisor is unable to handle it, get store manager. If store manager cannot, get location manager, and if they cannot handle it, send a truck to come and get it. That is their options. Pick one and do it. But it will be done that day.

Then she makes sure that the sign is still up that it is supposed to be a Die-Hard battery. The one she has is not, so she insists that only a Die Hard is acceptable. Like chickens with their heads cut off, scurrying around geting nothing done. A person who appeared to be a supervisor
appears on the scene. But no one knows the proper computer codes to do what needs to be done. She uses my technique, that is their problem, not mine, I just want my product usable, so do what ever needs to be done to get the customer happy.

The woman who sold the mower to us appears. And denies that she made the exchange with me. Denies that she gave me that battery. But finally is forced to admit what she has done, when the floor manager gets there, finally. Before he got there, they were informed the location manager was unavailable, was in a meeting and could not be disturbed, to which my wife replied that they better get someone really quick.

So they asked for the exchange receipt that I was to have been given. Of course there was none. They insisted there had to be one, that nothing could be done without one, that I could not have been given those parts without an exchange receipt. It was at this point the saleswoman finally admitted what she had done, which I'm sure endeared her to the floor manager.

So the decision was made to give my wife a new (03/08) Die Hard battery. My wife took it to the Auto Center and had it charged. (By the way, the Auto Center did not present a bill for the charging either time.) She brought it home, I put it in the mower, and it works like a charm. So far.

Which brings me to this conclusion. It is quite apparent that no one in the Lawn and Garden Department can think. Give them anything out of the ordinary, and they are lost. Unless it is on the computer screen, they don't know it exists. If what appears on the screen does not match reality, they do not know where to go to correct it.

I am very disappointed with Sears. As I usually am. But, dammit, they do have good products. Craftsman mowers are the best we have been able to find. But their Sales, Parts and Service departments are pure crap. And the only way to get satisfaction is to go to their store managers in most cases. If it doesn't fit their own prescribed mold, it is impossible for them to use their brain to solve a problem.

So we now have a riding mower with a three year warranty on parts and labor, in home service. If you can get them here within a reasonable time period. But judging from this last effort, two weeks is not a reasonable time. And their 'sometime from 8 AM to 5PM' is not acceptable either. Hell, even I could predict whether it would be morning or afternoon, even from two weeks out. If I couldn't, I would say one or the other anyway, and correct it as the time and situation drew nearer to when I could predict with some certainty.

I canceled the service call, by the way.