SaferProducts incident

Failure type

Fire / ignition

Incident narrative

SaferProducts.gov consumer incident report 20160129-CBB42-2147424193. Severity: Incident, No Injury. Product: Cub Cadet RTZ L Series Tractor (zero radius turn riding lawn mower). Incident: Cub Cadet RZT L Series tractor after being turned off caught on fire. The submitter added: History of Lawnmower Cub Cadet RZT L Series Tractor, purchased on 6/2/2014 for $2655.19 and delivered on 6/4/2014. Caught on fire on 1/15/2016 and burned to the ground: Homeowners (State Farm) reported coverage limited by my deductible (1%) of home value, so deductible would be $3000. Cub Cadet said that they referred people to their homeowners once the tractor was over 1 year old, since almost all the defects happened in the first year. They told me Big Reds Equipment was the authorized service dealer in Granbury, TX. I called Big Reds and scheduled a time to pick up the tractor for them to determine the cause of the fire. Received a call back from who requested the receipt and shipping information, which I scanned and attached to an email. She called back and said I needed to contact Cub Cadet and obtain a incident report number. I called Cub Cadet and was told they would give me a number, but because of the time of ownership was greater than 1 year (1 year and 7 months) they would only refer me to my homeowners policy. The person I dealt with also indicated that since I could not come up with the model number or serial number he couldn�t do much to help. [REDACTED during PII review], service manager for Big Reds called on 1/22/2016 to discuss the lawnmower. He said he felt my best option was to deal through Home Depot, who might have more influence with Cub Cadet. Cub Cadet was not helpful at all. He also said I had several options at this juncture. He would buy the burned up mower