Ok I'm VERY familiar with the G series. My small family (dad, brother and myself) all own 2 G1900's and a G1800. Dad likes the 1800 because it's a little quieter running, and he's right. Anyway, they ARE old, they ARE well-used by now.
Sprung deck hangers? Never heard of it. Not even mowers with decks that are severely damaged due to overly abusive owners using the DECK for a bulldozer. These mowers are quite strong, overbuilt if you ask me. BUT the problems I've run into are where the front hanger brackets sits in the saddles, it wears grooves in that 5/8" (or whatever diameter it is) steel shaft. I know about the cost. I worked at a dealer and I wasn't about to put that much money into this old mower of mine. The cure? Weld the sucker up then re-machine (with a grinder, then file, then paint). Really easy to just build it up. Readjust to 0 difference between front & rear of deck, new set of blades, and these things cut AWESOME. I love mine. Dad loves his, brother, he loves his too. Just wish I could train him to be easier on his equipment.
These mowers are at the newest 25 years old. They are antiques. Think about this to put things into perspective. A dealer (and Ford in this example) isn't going to give you a lot of their time if you run down there looking for a ball joint for a 1993 Mustang. They, too, are antiques, they're well worn by now. The aftermarket has them mostly covered though. Unfortunately, there wasn't/isn't nearly the aftermarket support for lawn & garden equipment like there is for cars & trucks, for one reason there were millions of cars & trucks made, but maybe a few hundred thousand at the most, mowers.
You aren't immune to this issue. Many of us have gone through it, myself included, with my antique mower fleet-even with working at a dealer at the time, it was tough getting certain parts for my old mowers.
Now, one could very easily assume that Kubota "wants" you to buy a newer more expensive mower. One could assume that Kubota and possibly the dealer(s) doesn't put a lot of time into getting support for antique mowers. BUT, those are both ASSumptions. The fact of the matter is, dealers are busy. Kubota is busy. There are folks out there with week old Kommanders with broken belts. There are folks out there who have month old tractors with mice chewed wiring harnesses. There are commercial customers at every dealer who needs their stuff ASAP as downtime costs them (and THEIR customers) money. Now if you're a dealer service tech, and you've got 4 or 5 repair orders and some of those are new-ish machines and/or commercial machines, and one antique, who's going to get prioritized? Most dealers put different levels of priority on different repair jobs. We had 3. Commercial, emergency, and regular (A,B,C respectively). Manager would put the letter at top of R/O and in the morning, then again at noon, then again in the evening, as the tech was his or her jobs lined out for the day, they'd look at it. If he/she sees an "A", that one is immediate attention only. B goes behind A, then C is last. Similar to military priority levels if you're familiar with those. The fact of the matter is that I personally do not want to give anyone regardless of how much money they spend/spent in any type of favoritism as doing so is a quick way to run people off. But at the same time, it is imperative to take care of the needs of everyone; however some have different needs which is why priority levels are assigned. It has nothing to do with how much they spend or who they are. I have had friends bring their stuff to the shop, and they don't get any different treatment than anyone else. If a commercial customers' got his mower there, my friend waits. That's the way 99.9% of dealerships are. People just don't want to understand that though, for some reason.
So what I am asking is to be careful with assumptions. The word in itself has a meaning; look at the lettering. ASSumptions are very good at making a fool out of you and I both, thus it's never a good idea to use them.
Put yourself in the situation--you have a 2 week old mower that has a failed idler pulley. You just made the first payment on your $6000 mower and you can't use it. You take it to the dealer, drop it off, come back in 2 hours, and a tech is working on someone's antique, while yours is sitting out back in a pile of other mowers. Are you going to be upset?
Lastly, having done restorations, they'll ALL money pits, every single one of them, and there is NO exception. I thought restoring an ORIGINAL Hemi Cuda was going to be a money maker, but that is incorrect. I made $200 on it and spent strikingly close to $40,000 in restoration costs. This was a top notch restoration. Mowers? Worse. I buy & sell quite a few, and I'm choosy about what I buy. One, I can't make a dime and stand to lose much by restoring any Murray, Crapsman, John Deere L series, Yard Man, etc cheapies. It's REAL easy to spend more on it than it's worth, which you've found out. I've done that stuff at the dealership too; mostly with motorcycles. When doing that kind of thing, pre-payment of parts and part of labor is required. Why? Sounds shady. Again, think of the other side of it. Guy takes a '79 KZ1000 to the shop for restoration and repair. Tech can EASILY put $5000 into it quickly. The bike is worth maybe $2500 in good condition. Guy decides shop is into it too deeply, and changes his phone number, address (moves?), becomes non-responsive to phone calls, email, text, and snail mail. Business has $5000 tied up in it, attempts to sell it for parts (can't get a title in certain states), and loses $4000. How many people enjoy losing money? Pre-payment is a way for the shop/business to see if the owner is really serious about repairing. If he's willing to put some up front, shop will get started. If they balk, load it back up & send him down the road.
The only time restorations are worth what they have put into them is if YOU'RE the owner and you expect to keep it forever, along with the repair & maintenance required to keep it going. You (and I) can't guarantee that it'll run 10 more years, nor can we guarantee that it'll work for 10 minutes. If we could, dunno about you, but I for sure would be in a different line of work if I could accurately predict the future
