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X580 Questions

11K views 81 replies 18 participants last post by  mrmagloo 
#1 ·
Because of the Black Friday deal, I went ahead and grabbed an X580 rather than the X390 I was originally looking at. Ordered with a 48" deck and 44" blower, the blower hasn't arrived yet but I am concerned about it fitting. Dealer said they were supposed to sell the 47" blower with the 580, but the salesman called another guy and OK'd selling me the 44" one. The price difference is basically negligible, I just have a gate that I'd like to fit through (not a dealbreaker, more for blowing out a path for the oil delivery guy).

So will the 44" blower fit on the X580? Far as I can tell all the attachment hardware is identical on the two blowers (it even looks like the manual is the same). The one concern I had was the X580 has the standard front weight bracket which I know sticks out further than the X570 bumper for instance, and from prior threads about the earlier-year X530 for instance, there may be a lower maximum lift height due to interference?

Have they done away with anti-icing screens/grill covers for the latest 2018 X580 models, or is that another thing I have to worry about?

Anyone know the part number for the Technical Manual on CD for the 2018 X580?

Thanks in advance.
 
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#73 · (Edited by Moderator)
Sarg, as you know, I think the world of you, but I've had more than enough conversations with the JD tier 2 engineering support about easy fixes on countless different items that would cost them next to ZERO to improve the durability and reliability of a given component, and I have never once received a positive response

Not to rehash with what jgayman just stated, but that's exactly the point I was going to make. Being forced to replace an entire gearbox just over seals? I mean, JHC, all they have to do is tell the Indian plant to send a skid of misc parts, and that would supply the entire USA for a year or two, no doubt at a higher margin on the individual items than the entire unit. Over time, they would more than make out.
To the contrary, this is the kind of Information that is disenfranchising their long term customers.
 
#75 ·
Darn... If you think you have it bad. I was just helping someone out with a parts look-up on the main gearbox for the 59-inch front blower. Surprise surprise, JD only sells it as a complete unit for $1276 !!! Supposedly it just needs a new main gear but of course no parts are available.

And if you really want to feel good about your 47/54-inch blower. The front auger bevel gear box on the 59-inch also only comes as a complete unit along with the two auger half shafts for a tidy price of $1114.

Please someone tell me again how this is all due to JD giving customer's what they want?
 
#76 ·
Like I said above we are Dinosaurs In the minds Of today's world because we Like to fix it our self's But Deere Bases a lot of there design changes Based On Customer Feedback.

The X300 is a Prime example The LX200 series had serviceable transmissions that you didn't need to removes the Transmission to service it.

But the feedback they got was Most were Not servicing there Transmission themselves So they Just Had Tuff-Torq send them Transmissions with out drain Plug and Deere doesn't Put In Fill tubes In the fender deck anymore .

The world changed and Deere changed with it to Match the Majority feeling about serviceability or the Lack there of.

I would say If You got every Member On this forum regardless if the Deere owners or Not to send Deere a email about Having serviceable Gear Box In the Blowers we Might Just get them back In the Blowers

Sometime In the 1980's the was a Letter writing campaign to change something On Row Crop tractors Hydraulics and Deere changed it Based On all the feedback they Got.

The Bean counter I interviewed was a Former Deere design Engineer who I shared some of the same Dirt with In a Little Caribbean county in 1983. Long before He was a Deere Employee

I asked what it would Take to Change something such as a serviceable transmission being Put Back Into all there Lawn Tractors and He told Me Massive amount's of Customer & dealer Feedback.

1 Voice Just isn't enough nor is 10 little Indians But a 1000 Voices Might get them to change a design. Because They got a lot of dealer feedback On the Transmissions and the use of sealed Gear Boxes Big reason Deere went to them.

Now weather there was a lot of customer Feedback Or Just dealer feedback on the Gear Boxes who knows:dunno:

I am sorry we all have to deal with Non serviceable components But I guess are voice just isn't strong enough compared To the People that want Plug and Play components:tango_face_sad: .

Look at the silly Oil change Kits they Have for the E 100 series. I think that was terrible Idea:tango_face_sad:
 
#79 ·
I forgot to post that I am in love with this thing. Worked as advertised. I'm sure I could improve traction with chains but went with just the HDAPs and 4 suitcase to start. No serious traction issues, we will see how it fares in the spring once I get some ice in the poor drainage areas. I don't know that I would have gotten stuck without the diff lock but there were some parts of the walk and lawn (for the oil delivery guy) that got interesting until I stepped on the orange pedal.
 
#80 ·
Posted elsewhere but figured I'd repeat here for a follow-on question.

I deliberately waited for the 4" of snow to take on the 1"+ of rain last night/this morning to see how it did. It was heavy and sticky as ****. Took a bit of learning to balance everything but it did way better than my walk-behind. Pushed big piles, sometimes only threw 10', and the chute threatened to clog, but each was relatively easy to overcome with some finesse. I would have been unclogging the walk behind multiple times based on experience, and it wouldn't have thrown 5'. I think the difference was being able to get a bit of a run up to ram snow into the auger/impeller that broke the clog free, while being able to continuously vary the speed so I could back off after the clog broke and resume a normal pace. The discrete speed selector on the walk behind made that impossible to balance out correctly.

My question, probably a dumb one after snowblowing for 20 years and just winging it, is how much is it reasonable to load up/bog down a carbureted 4-stroke like this? Do they run (and last) fine when loaded so that the RPM drops a bit? A lot? Am I doing a disservice to the engine to let it drop at all and should endeavor to keep it running at full RPM by modulating the clearing speed? I mean I know that if I'm bogging down so hard I'm in danger of stalling it I need to ease up, but is it acceptable to run it at WOT and have the RPM knocked down by a couple segments on the RPM display for extended periods? Not that I enjoy torturing the engine, it's just that doing so allows a way to get enough snow into the auger/impeller to actually get it thrown 10-20' as opposed to pushing a pile and having the thrown stuff land just beyond the edge of the housing when the snow is heavy and wet. Just another thing to vary along with how wide of a cut I take at the snow.
 
#81 ·
This is just my 02 cents on running your snow blower. I run my machine at full throttle when using my 47 blower. That is what Deere designed the machine to run at under load. I throttle down when moving from one area to another and not engaging the blower. I live in Utah where we get lake affect snow so I see everything from fine powder that gets thrown 40 feet to heavy wet slush that only throws 5 feet. If you're running at full throttle and the engine bogs down a few hundred rpm this isn't a big deal. If you think you are going to stall the motor you should always back off to let the machine catch up or stop and clear the snow or ice out of the blower.

I have seen a few on MTF here that complain about the performance of their snowblowers and in my experience the blower works awesome when using a little common sense. I have only had to clear ice from the shoot one time when there was 5" of snow and the bottom 2" was slush. Some folks want to wait until it stops snowing before removing snow and then think their snow blower isn't working when they are trying to move 18" of snow. If the snow is powder it isn't a problem. If the snow is heavy they probably should have removed 7-8" at a time while it was snowing.

Last week Utah had its first snow day for school in 30 years. I clear 6 driveways and cleared snow three times that day to remove 14 inches of snow. My blower had no problem clearing the smaller amounts throughout the day. If I lived up any of the close mountains to me where they got 60" of snow that day I would have taken the day off as most people did that day and cleared every time there was 10" on the driveway.
 
#82 ·
I'll second that emotion about ALWAYS running the engine while blowing at Full Throttle. Maintain the forward speed of the tractor based on the amount and density of the snow, and the quality of the clearing so that the load to the engine does not reduce the RPM more than say 5% to 10% max. Imho, even 10% might be too much and you'll know it as the thrown distance will fall off pretty quickly. I think you will find the sweet spot pretty easily just watching the thrown distance and listening to the engine. Pretty straight forward.
 
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