Craftsman 131.96615 Riding Mower

I bought Craftsman DSY 4500 because it was on sale. Do yourself a favor; they are not worth the trouble even if they are on sale.
At 10 hours on the clock the ignition went out. When I took it in to get it fixed the guy at the Sears store said that this was a common problem from the factory. The fuse for the ignition is too small. I would not have been so aggravated if I had not been out of town mowing on a three-acre lot I own.
At about 50 hours on the clock the transaxle shift link broke. Mower stuck in 6th gear and would not stop when the brakes were applied. It tried to run up one of the post on my deck and threw me off. After quite a time waiting on delivery, no one keeps it in stock, replaced the link and an hour later it broke again. This time Service Tech. came to the house under the warranty to fix it. It seems the problem was that the bolt the factory installed to connect the transaxle to the frame was too small. This allowed the transaxle to shift and break the linkage. The Tech put in a larger bolt and said the only permanent fix was to replace the transaxle because the smaller bolt had allowed it to be damaged. My warranty was going to run out in a couple of months so I requested that Sears replace the transaxle. They refused and my warranty ran out before I could get them to do anything. I have had about ten conversations with Sears and various others. At 70 hours on the clock I have a lot that I could say to Sears about standing behind their warranty. Like they say in the business I’m in, “the warranty is only as good as the Company behind it”. When it came down to a costly repair versus the safety and satisfaction of the customer Sears failed.
Too many factory and warranty failures, buy a somethinge else.