Normally, I'd be quite critical of someone hauling an old thread out of the archives and reviving it but your post does fit into the spirit in which this thread began. Ask an Ingersoll dealer and they will tell you about the customer loyalty they enjoy thanks to the durability that is built into every one of these garden tractors. I am not being critical when I say that there is nothing all that unique about your 19 years of experience with your GT. When John (Jack) Ingersoll bought the Outdoor Power Equipment Division belonging to J. I. Case and put his name on it, the slogans used in their advertising went as follows: - Quality in the American tradition - Be in a class by yourself - Ingersoll...Invest in the best - The tractor of a lifetime I would have to say that your experience proves that the above slogans were not an exaggeration in any way. I don't know of another tractor today that uses hydraulic drive, offers a large line of hydraulically powered attachments or still builds their garden tractors without compromise. You invested in the best and it paid off in spades because after 19 years of hard use, you still own a tractor that has value to others. If you amortize what you paid for your tractor over the 19 year period and include the cost of replacement parts, the annual cost of ownership of this fine quality machine is very low. The other bonus is the absence of the aggravation factor that comes with owing an Ingersoll. When other people are having to take the time needed to send their low quality machine in for repair and then pick it up, your Ingersoll was at home and ready to do some more work for you. A "generation" occurs every 20 years and to some, that is a lifetime. Your tractor is still far from being dead even after 19 years so Jack Ingersoll wasn't lying when he said his products were "the tractor of a lifetime". Thanks for providing your first-hand report about a marque that few people have heard of but still "makes them like they used to", only better.

I think that there are millions of people out there that don't have any trouble but also millions that end up scrapping their mowers because it is almost pointless to put them on Craigslist. Let's face it. There are a lot of people who should not be allowed anywhere tools or machinery. They never read Op Manuals, know how to use a grease gun or bother to change oil in their engine. They buy stuff, use it until it quits and then put it out at the curb for pick-up. They go back to the box store buy a new one and perpetuate the cycle. There are also people who think that a Deere lawn tractor is capable of the same work that a full-sized Deere Ag tractor is. They disregard the "lawn tractor" description and use it to jerk old shrubs and tree stumps out of the ground along with numerous other tasks that the tractor was never built to perform. The item that takes the most abuse is the trans-axle because that's what links the engine power to the ground. Someone figured out that average property owner puts 50 hours per year on their tractor. Ten years of average use equals 500 hours. The engines used in these tractors are supposed to give 1000 hours of use before needing rebuilding but that's based on the owner changing oil, filters and performing other routine maintenance diligently over that time-frame. The main problem with the low-end tractors these days is the hydro. The manufacturers decided to make the hydro's a sealed unit. Presumably, that was done to put an end to owners that put the wrong oil into the hydro's and also contaminated them with dirt and water out of sheer carelessness. Sounds like a plan but the only people it benefited were the hydro builders and the tractor manufacturers because of frivolous warranty claims. The problem with that idea is this. Thanks to time and heat, multi-grade oil begins to break down and change viscosity. When that happens, the hydro no longer performs as it should and if there are no drain and fill plugs, then life is not good for the tractor owner. The oil is critical because that's what transmits engine hp from the hydro's pump to the hydro's drive motor, just as the driveshaft in a car transmits engine HP from the transmission to the rear end and ultimately the rear tires. For the most part, these lawn tractors are pretty good machines providing the owners take proper care of them and use them as a lawn tractor was designed to be used. If I owned one, then it would have an hour meter on it for sure. After every two years of use, I would remove the trans-axle from the tractor, hang it upside down and let all the oil drain out of it for a couple of days. Then I would refill it with the correct oil and put it back into the tractor for another two years. When you do that, you are not only replacing the partially worn out oil but you are also removing contaminants that are in suspension in that oil due to the detergents the oil manufacturers add. High-end hydro's have oil filters to look after that problem. Low-end one's don't. No matter which brand of LT you choose, all you are truly buying is the name because 90 percent of the tractor's components are made by companies other than the one whose label adorns the hood. You are relying on them to select decent engines, trans-axles, tires, rims, electrical components, bearings, rod ends, springs, nuts, bolts, washers, drive belts and so on for your tractor. They just stamp out the chassis and some other metal bits and pieces before assembling everything. Find a dealer in your area that has an impeccable word-of-mouth reputation and buy your tractor from him. Get to know him because box store employees come and go and box stores do not perform warranty work on what they sell. They rely on the very dealer you should be doing business with so just cut out the middleman. Go and sit on all the tractor brands and if possible, test drive them if they have a used unit around or a demonstrator. Searching the internet is helpful but we all know that happy owners don't post on the internet but disgruntled ones do because they want to get even. Take your time, do your homework and then decide which brand you like, which deck width best suits your property and which dealer you feel really good about. It's your money and it's not chump change. You and that tractor will hopefully be married for at least ten years so this should be more than just an over-night fling. Think with the big head, not the small one. LOL

Glad I found this; I have a Z5000 (purchased new) with slipping trannies. Toro replaced three under warranty, but refused to do any more. I mow just over an acre, and as the mower heats up the left transmission starts whining, then quits. After it cools (several hours) it will work again for a while. The three that Toro replaced (both sides did it) did the same thing. Now they insist that it doesn't do it any more, and won't replace them. When it started I could see a fine coat of oil on the tranny case, but enough has been puked out now that it doesn't leak any more. Toro told me that the oil I saw came from the engine, even though the engine uses no oil. When I found this site I was looking for replacement transmissions -- but not from Toro. Does anyone know if someone makes a better transmission that will work? I can't afford a new mower and I don't want to buy transmissions from Toro that will just fail before the year is out. I bought the mower to cut the time it takes to mow my yard, but with the overheated tranny slipping (which Toro insists isn't happening) I need three or four sessions with extended cooldowns in between to get the yard mowed. Thank you so much, Toro. On another note, every time I put it in the shop (and it spent more time in the shop than at my house the first year I had it), they would replace pulleys (not under warranty), saying they were worn out. The pulleys were fine, but the cheap bearings Toro uses would be toast. I was paying outrageous prices for the new pulleys. I went to a bearing supply with the pulleys and bought a bunch of replacement bearings, which they pressed into the old pulleys there, for far less than the price of one pulley. All of the new bearings have lasted several years, and I haven't had a pulley failure yet since buying the better bearings.

dnt1 said" john g you have gotten yourself stuck on the wrong area with your business. You have to show people something besides good work and here it is. People dont care how much you know until they know how much you care. Customer service good listening skills and lots of empathy man, now get on it and get that business growing as it should." Well if it was really only that easy. I repaired a Jeep Cherokee that had bounced around between 5 shops/techs. The problem surfaced alledgedly right after a major transmission replacement. The symptom was a surging/high idle speed, missfire/cutout when driving. The AC was inoperative, the clutch would not engage. The customer had already tried adding refrigerant with sealer himself, without gages. Plus the 4WD display was blank. The soultion was the computer had failed, but before the computer could be replaced, every possible reason that something on the car could be causing the computers microprocessor to continually reset had to be explored, and proven to NOT exist. Plus I also had to be sure that something else on the data bus on the car was not causing the reset to occur. There are no training manuals anywhere, nor is there service information/repair manuals written at this level. Guys like me are totally on our own with this stuff, and we often spend two times as much time studying the system at home to make each diagnostic move faster, and in analyzing the results to make sure we haven't overlooked something which would result in a customer potentially buying a part they do not need. I had well over eight hours time in this car, and ultimately billed three. The result had everything working, and I did notice some belt squeal, it was a newer, and properly tightened (within tension specs) serpentine belt. Now do you think this guy appreciated what I did? I did not sell any unneeded parts or service and I even cut him a significant break on the real amount of time required to do that. For my trouble I can tell you that I have 80% of the fuel injection wiring diagram memorized for a 97 Jeep Grand Cherokee. That's how close I had to study this system to be positive I was making the correct call. He went out to the Jeep after paying his bill, five minutes later he came back in and wanted me to go outside and hear something. He was concerned about the belt "chirping" when the AC was turned on. He was complaining that it did not do it before, well of course it didn't, the AC had not worked in the month and a half they had been fighting this. I told him shut the engine off, and went inside and got my laptop, and my belt tension gage. I showed him the spec, then I measured the tension on the belt and showed him it was in spec. The I showed him how the belt that was on the Jeep was one of the discount aftermarket replacement ones, that does not actually fit the pulleys correctly. He still insisted that I do something, and at that point I said fine, I'll take it to the maximum tension allowed on the spec, for a fee. At that point he balked, and said it's not adjustable, it has a spring tensioner, which I really got a laugh out of, because I asked him to show it to me. Then I showed him how the belt adjusted with the idler that is just below and inside of the power steering pump. I then asked him, who put this belt on? He said it was another shop he had dealt with recently, and I asked him why not go back to them and have them deal with it? His reply? Because he didn't pay them for it. I didn't press him for details at this point, but one way or another he managed to coerce them into doing it for free, or flat out managed to rip them off somehow. In the end, he paid me to adjust the belt. I refused to touch the rest of the AC system at all, because the sealers that he added have the potential of damaging my AC recovery/recharge equipment, and I'm not ready to have to spend another $4,000 on a new one. I also told him to the best that I could be sure, the transmission shop had nothing to do with the failure of the computer. Three days later the transmission shop involved called me up. He had not seen this guy and was glad that I had straightened his Jeep out. He was having trouble with a Ford tranny he had rebuilt and needed me to help him figure out what was wrong. He had one dissapointing thing to say. No matter what the outcome was, this guy with the Jeep would bad mouth me about fixing his car. It's just the way the guy is..........