Write On: Buying Ad Mortem: To The Death

By PETER S. FERRARA<br>Record Columnist

Doesn’t “lawn tractor” sound more manly than “riding mower?”

I thought so when, at my advancing age, I went looking for something to help me mow my yard. It was just getting harder and harder to push my old lawn mower up and down the slope of our property. Going downhill was easy but going back up—that was the hard part. I could just see myself sinking slowly to the ground one hot day, clutching my chest as my heart decided to go on strike.

For years I had ended up mowing back and forth across the property. This made things a little easier than going up and down, but I was still always at a slant, like a sailor struggling across a ship’s deck at sea on a windy day. Not having ever owned a self-propelled mower was becoming a challenge. The only way my lawn mower was self-propelled was that I propelled it myself.

Finally admitting to myself that the time had come to get some motorized assistance or end up in the Emergency Room, I went looking for a riding mower. Lowe’s being adjacent to Wal-Mart, that was the first place I checked out. There I was greeted by row after row of shiny new riding mowers.

Each was different from all the others, with special features and blade widths and turning capacities and varying horsepowers and a million other things to consider. Making a smart choice was not going to be easy.

After checking out enough equipment to turn my mind into mulch, I came to a row of bright green beauties with yellow printing. These were John Deere’s. John Deere. The very name suggests power and performance. Like Mack trucks, Harley-Davidson motorcycles, and Sherman tanks, John Deere is a name that reeks of manly power. “Nothing runs like a Deere,” they say.

You pay for such celebrity. The Deere equipment was more expensive than the others, just as a Cadillac is more expensive than a Chevrolet. The question was: Was it worth the extra money? For years I played music with a bunch of fellows at Big Bill Roberts’ house over in Marshes Siding. I play an old Martin guitar. One of the guys used to look at my “axe” and tell me that with Martin I was “just paying for the name.” He couldn’t hear any difference in sound quality that made Martin’s worth more than most others.

Was I falling into the same trap in being drawn to the John Deere equipment? Was I simply the victim of a clever advertising campaign that had created an image of quality and dependability not actually possessed by the merchandise? There was no way to “test mow” this equipment to see which unit actually performed best on my tilted property.

Fortunately, my brother-in-law Doc Coffey had bought a John Deere. I would often see him slowly going down the road to his daughter Carol Jones’ house to mow their yard. Doc is a very smart and practical man. You might be able to pull the wool over my eyes, but I don’t think you could fool Doc. So I asked him about his John Deere. He let me try it. I was hooked.

But the price of those green and yellow beauties was off-putting. How could a Deere be so much more than a Murray? Was it worth it? How do you know? I always try to buy quality. I think if you save up and get a better-made product that it will pay for the price difference over the long haul. It’s called amortization, a really big word but one worth knowing.

Amortization comes from the Latin words “ad” meaning “to” and “mortis” meaning “death.” What it means in my case is that if you use a high-quality product “to death” --when the product gives out—you will have actually spent less than if you used a cheaper product you had to keep replacing over and over. So there I was, stuck between quality and price. I decided to compromise by buying a John Deere—but a used one.

Like cars, many things lose a great deal of their value right after you purchase them. The same applies to riding mowers. One use, one ding, one scratch, one bent mowing blade, and the riding mower becomes less valuable when you go to sell it. I went to the John Deere store in Somerset and told the fellows there that I was looking for a good, reliable used John Deere, that I had less than an acre to mow, but I wanted something that would last. Would they call me when they had something that would fill the bill?

While waiting to hear from them, I continued to push my old lawn mower around the yard, cursing myself for not just going ahead and buying a new mower. I was about to throw in the towel when the phone rang. It was John Deere—well, not him exactly but an employee. They had an LT133 in great shape for $900. I went up to see it. It had a couple of dings and one hairline fracture where the previous owner had evidently driven it into a tree or a post. Anyway, it had hit something that didn’t “give.”

But the unit was sound and the price was right. That’s when I asked what the “LT” of LT133 stood for. To me, “LT” had always been a football player named Lawrence Taylor. But this “LT” stood for lawn tractor. I liked the sound of that. Being a guy raised in the suburbs of New York City, I associated tractors with rugged farmers whom I admired. And being a John Deere was like icing on the cake. So I bought it.

I’m happy to say that after five years of running my “tractor” I have never had a problem. This is not a plug for John Deere. It is a plug for holding out, saving a little more money, and buying something that’s the best quality you can get. Folks, in the long run quality is cheaper. If you “amortize” the cost, you will find it saves money to buy a better made product.

These tough economic times are going to be with us for a couple of years. The mess we’re in will take about as long to get out of as it did to get into. A huge economy like America’s cannot turn on a dime. So while we sweat through this difficult period, we need to be as smart with our money as we can. In that spirit, I urge you to hold off on a purchase until you can buy the best that’s out there. In the long run it’s the most practical, least expensive way to go. And, in my case, I get to mount up on a lawn tractor to cut my yard.

It sure feels better than going around in circles on a riding mower.

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