I have not heard other complaints like this but ALL mfgs. have problems from time to time. I have had some knock down, drag out bouts with GM. Eventurally, when I got to the right person, things were taken care of.

In the area where I live, Dixie Chopper is by far the dominate commercial mower, vertually all the large lawn services us them.

As a home owner, I use a competator, Dixon.

Walt Conner

The fine art of communications is NOT taught well, if at all in our country.
Also, remember the virute of patience.
This Dixie Chopper is probably like all the others..

Buy from the Japanese if you want better quality....

Remember, it is the quality of the message, not the quantity...

BTW, dixie, Apparently only minor things went wrong with the mower, it did work well for you, did it not ????
Their customer service could be better.... maybe.
But is customer service taught in our country ???

I will give it credit, it mows well. I am just afraid everytime I use it something else will be wrong with it.

I did a test and emailed John Deere at 10am this morning. They have already emailed me back

I believe the fact that you get an answer is almost as important as the answer you get. When a company ignores your calls and emails, they are saying they don't care about you as a person. A few months ago I emailed a maker of computer peripherals and received no answer. Later, I found the answer buried in their web site. A simple one sentence email would have sufficed to show me they cared about my problem; they didn't. So I buy another brand the next time. Sometimes the problem can't be solved, but showing they care is important to repeat business.

I don't understand the problem here...Why is it so difficult to have the dealer deal with the machine he sold??? If all you wanted to do was notify Dixie that you were displeased I'd say they got your message...several times at that...What exactly were you looking for from them???

As I say, the fine art of communications is NOT taught in this country. This includes many, many things, such as prompt and real replies, common courtesy, respect, no small print, honesty, openness, proper English...

I think some educated man at Dixie Chopper should sit down with the customer and allay his fears - and this is no easy task !
It may not even be possible....

Next time buy Scag.You will not have any problems.

The folks at Dixie are too busy hanging out with Mikey, Paul Sr., and Paul Jr. for customer service...

Some companies just don't manage back office functions like email/voice mail well at all. Why not take the mower back to the dealer?? I realize that is probably a pain - but you are going to end up there anyway to get it fixed even if Dixie calls you directly. Are you trying to squeeze them for some $$$???? Not being critical just not sure what advice we can offer. You are PO'd - rightly so - but you have a dealer you can go to. When my stuff is under warrenty I beat the servicing dealer over the head if something goes wrong. I want it fixed free and I want it fixed yesterday.

Jim

I am having similar problems with no response from dixie chopper. Within the first 9 hours of operation, my $5,000 dixie chopper quit 4 times, twice I could not restart it no matter what I tried. Imagine having the neighbors know you spent that much money, then you have to borrow their ancient 17 hp, 24" John Deere to finish my lawn. The local dealer took his best shot at fixing it, now at 25 hours it's quiting on me again. I've tried emails, letters, no reply from dixie until I posted a complaint at LawnForums website, got a reply from someone at the factory that they're real busy making more of those mowers (me, I'd say get them right before making more...). My post was then taken down because it was determined to be a slam of dixie.

Someone here said they had similar problems with GM, and others have questioned why those of us with problems with a brand new expensive machine would be trying to contact the manufacturer, not just work through our dealer. The point is that if you have a continuing problem with a GM product, you would at least go to a zone manager if not the next level up. What's our recourse with these mowers? I've got a great dealer, the service guy knows his stuff, but he's shooting in the dark if he can't recreate an intermittent problem, and just like the other guy with a hydraulic leak from day one, my problem is obviously a manufacturing problem, and I want to make sure they make it right. They need to stand by their products, not hide behind an overworked local dealer.
And according to the manual, I have a one year warrantee, which is up next April, so it's nearly out of warrantee, which is covering this work for now, unless I plan to be mowing snow this winter. Now I know this is a continuing problem, and the dealer will stand with me, but no reply from the factory is not owning up to the situation.

The whole idea of having dealers is so they can be the contact person out in the field. If Dixie had to come out and fix every problem, they might as well sell them through the internet. If the dealers have problems, I can guarantee they will call Dixie and they will answer quickly. It is not a communication problem, it is that you are not going outside the setup lines of communication.

Dixie Choppers are a decent mower, but plagued by little
problems, once hammered out, you have a good mower.

The second poster with dixie problems, give a better
description of your mower's problems, as well as what
engine is on it, and we could possibly help you.

Fish

My problem is the mower simply quits while mowing. Now I've been mowing for 40 years, I know what I'm doing, and I have read all 3 manuals for the dixie chopper silver eagle cover to cover. The mower simply quits while mowing, I'm not running it too fast or anything like that. Usually on a planned restart, there's no need to choke the engine (Generac 24 hp). The first two times it quit and it would not restart (it quit a total of 4 times within the first 9 hours of operation), I tried everything, including choking a hot engine, no luck. At that point, the local small town dealer (whom I've dealt with for several years) replaced the mercury switch (tilt switch), and checked the wire routing (apparently there where issues with the way the wires were routed on some mowers).
The mower again quit twice at approximately 25 hours. In these cases, after 4 or 5 attempts to restart, if I choke the heck out of the mower, it'll sputter and cough and eventually run fine. Each time I checked that I had plenty of gas. The local dealer hauled it in (they gave me a loaner, it's raining like crazy around here), I told him I also had had problems with the left control handle, you need to put them all the way out before engaging the parking brake, but it would still die when I went to get off it (blade had been stopped). If I repositioned the left handle, then it worked as designed. This time around, they replaced the fuel solenoid (the local service guy said he had heard of problems with them, he said the solenoid was there to prevent backfiring, I told him it's always backfired when I throttle it down and let it idle, after turning the engine off, it always backfires once).
I trust the local dealer, I have my mower back and tonight it worked fine, but really makes me wonder if I can depend on it. I payed a premium price for a mower that's crowed about how reliable it is, but here I am, nearly out of warrantee, and not sure it'll keep going. I'd be cranked off if this was a brand new $1500 Sears mower and it quit this many times, but a $5000 mower that fails like this, and the manufacturer hides behind the dealer, that's just not right. It obviously is a manufacturing problem, and they need to at least reply.
I've also been told there's a 2 year warrantee on this thing, but all I can find in the manual is a 1 year warrantee. If it's 2 years, that also needs to be in WRITING, considering my experience with this company so far.

Lack of customer service stems from the president of dixie chopper. He is a very independent man without much compassion for his clients. There are lots of design problems which have later been remedied by improvements and changes, but, as everyone knows, there aren't any recalls at Dixie Chopper. Each customer is on his or her own and must find their own way.

The best way I have found to get problems solved with the factory is to have a caring dealer on your side. A good dealer will be able to get warranty claims through for you. If you don't have a caring dealer, become friends with the mechanic. And of course the best way to do this is to show him the face of Andrew Jackson on each visit. Invest in your future!

Warranty problems are supposed to be handled by the dealer with authorization from the warranty department of the factory. You do not go straight to Honda of Japan when you have a neutral light burn out on a Honda motorcycle. Besides, I wouldn't load my mower up on a trailer and haul it in for an hour meter or PTO light problem. Just fix these yourself.....or take it to the dealer. What did you want the company to do? Bow and scrape and beg forgivness and say you are so right, we make a horrible product??? Follow proper channels and give the dealer his chance to make it right.

I have been a tech working on DC's for over 18 years and I've worked with a dealer that sold them for over 20 years.
I have seen the quality of them start to decline in the last 8. The same go's for customer service. Heck! We as a dealer were having several problems with DC. If a dealer can't communicate with them, what makes you think that they are going to respond to the customers? Do your self a favor. Check out BADBOY Mowers or ExMark. At least they have much better quality and customer service as well as complete dealer support.

I took my new 2012 SE2760 HP to the local dealer (I didn't buy from him as he was more than $2,000 higher than another dealer further away) as I had a couple of issues to have him look at. He stated that right side pump was weak and most likely would eventually fail but he wouldn't warranty it. He stated I should call "my dealer" and have him ship a pump to him and then he would replace it. He then tried to fix another issue in the front end and finally gave up and said "if you had bought this from me I would bend over backwards but you didn't so take it to "your dealer" and have him fix it." Country Pine Mowers in Marshalltown, Iowa stay away as they have it all wrong as far as customer service and warranty obligation goes! Unacceptable!!!

I just want to say that my husband bought a Dixie Chopper in April of 2011. In May of 2011 the fly wheel broke(manufacturer defect)...in the middle of our 2 acres. He spent alot of energy and time to get it to and on the trailer,(you obviously cant just drive it on the trailer and there is no steering wheel to keep your wheels lined up) towed it the 50 minutes to the dealer, went back in four days to pick it up. Things seemed fine. Now this season, 1 year old, and 32 hours on the mower,( and i don't think that's much for season of mowing a two acre lawn), he used it two times this season, third time, mower quits in the middle of the lawn...and hour and a half to get it to and on the trailer, then the 50 minute ride to the dealer, and they find a broken wire. They fix it, and he is very late to his granddaughters birthday party. He finishes mowing the lawn the next day. Less than a week later, starts mowing the lawn, and about 1/3 done, and mower starts stalling out, quitting. Restarts, mows a bit more, quits. This continued several more times with no pattern, rhyme or reason, but then the battery would not turn the mower over when it stalled. had to drive the truck out to the lawn mower to jump start it. Got the mower back to the garage, and put it on the charger. Next day tried mowing again. Kept stalling, and could not even pull the handles in which is necessary to move forward or reverse with out it stalling, so once again, he is out there now struggling in the heat and humidity to get it on the trailer. This is just ridiculously poor performance for a very expensive mower. Would I like to vent these problems directly to DC? ABSOLUTELY! Do I expect the dealer to present the extent of our frustration to the Company? Doubt it!...They just act like it's just another day of repairs in the life of a DC dealer/repair shop...just drop it off over by the others...we'll call you when it's ready. They may have the dealers for customer repair/service, but they should most definitely have a complaint handling procedure for dissatisfied customers like us!