posted 3 years ago
I knew this moment was coming for a while now. I have a 2018, JD 2038R that I just love—it’s perfect for my needs. It’s 37 HP/30 PTO, sized right for my needs, mows w/a 6’ rough cutter, has just the right number of bells and whistles without going overboard, etc. But it has one, basically trivial yet frustrating design error—the key placement!
Instead of being located up on the dashboard, the key is located down under the steering wheel below my knees. It is at just the right position to accidentally kick while getting in and out of the tractor seat—and I have done so a couple of times, and bent the key a little bit each time. Yesterday while working with my neighbor I finished my job, reached down to turn off the tractor and ended up twisting the back of the key off!! There I was with a broken key in hand, a key remnant in the lock and the tractor was still running.
Fortunately my neighbor is a retired mechanic and had the exact tool to pull out a broken key (it looks like a dental instrument). I ran home to get the extra, grabbed one and ran back by which point my neighbor had the key out and we found out that my extra key was a key to a different tractor!! They are not all all interchangeable as we had thought!
We had to push the key remnant back into the lock (which is now broken as well as the key) and we’re able to use the key back to push in and turn to get the tractor going back to my house, get parked and get turned off again.
I called the dealership and they had to order both the lock (not surprising) and the key itself! We are going to replace the lock ourselves. We might even improve on JD and see if we can move the key to some other, more logical place than a point where it is bound to get kicked again!
At any rate, I just had to vent. Like I said earlier, this has been a great tractor and does all sorts of work for me but the darn key was terribly placed!
Eric
Some places need to be wild
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