I'm frustrated, X530

We had the bearings fail on our x500 54" deck 3 times in less than 100 hours. The bearings that went were the ones in the idler arm that has the double pulley set up that transfers power from the engine to the deck. They replaced it 3 times under warranty. The last time I kind of expressed my frustration to the parts guy that had been at the dealer forever. I told him I thought it was a bad design with no grease fitting for those bearings and I was going to drill and tap a hole for a grease fitting and pull the inner seals and fill them with grease. He gave me new bearings, 6205 i believe, a grease fitting and he ordered me another complete idler arm assemble all for free. I have had no problems in the past 150 hours. They took care of me for sure. Moral is, talk to your dealer, maybe not the same service guy you talked to and let them know what is up. It will be documented and if , when that bearing lets go, you should be good to go for new. You should have a 4 year warranty on the 500s. By the way, if you get a new pulley assembly with a new bearing, pull the seal and pack the bearing. There is little to no grease in most bearings sold today. Just something that will increase the life tenfold.

Good job on finding the problem and fixing it even if temporary. I would call the dealership to inform them what you found out and have it (make it) documented to that ticket so in case the noise comes back they can look back and see where to find a possible source of the problem. WD-40 will only last for so long before the noise comes back when it does tell them to change the pulleys under warranty.

Thanks for the support y'all. Wd40 being so thin may work its way to improve things but it's also likely to make it worse in another 10 hours, so I'm watching it closely.

I will probably just remove the assembly some day and take it to my dealer and just tell them that something needs to be done, period.

I've seen 3 dealerships get acquired by the big regional companies, this one is hanging on, maybe they're "stingy" on warranty stuff because they're still independent? I dunno

My dads 2013 X530 with 100 hrs just had 2 go out a few weeks ago. Both were on the deck, one was the idler pulley and a mower spindle. He called the dealership were he bought from and they said it would be a few weeks before getting to it, so he bought the parts and had me install them. So far since new he's had a mower spindle come apart with only a couple hrs when brand new which messed up the top of the deck. Upper transmission seal blow out i think a month later and now these two items.