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John Deere x350 mower troubles
May. 13th, 2023 03:24 pmBack in early April our John Deere x350 mower did not want to start anymore. After doing ourselves a solenoid and battery check, the dealer took it in and billed us $225 ($150 transport, $70 diagnostics labor, $0 parts) for a faulty fuse (and returned it to us after almost 2 weeks).
This week, same thing happened: did not want to start anymore. I refused to have the dealer charge us another $200+ for a fuse (which I was sure was the issue), so I tried to diagnose it myself. First I checked the 3 fuses in the fuse box (and the additional one outside): all good. After pulling off the relay (301-1C-C-R1-U01-12VDC) from the fuse box ($4 part) and doing some minor corrosion cleaning (see pics below), the mower is back in operation (but not after spending US$45 to buy the Feb 2016 TM138119 technical manual which has wrong info on the fuse box contents, possibly because the latest official TM is from Dec 2018 and costs US$154).
For the curious, here is a good video on testing a 5-pin relay and another video that I actually used with my multimeter to complete 3 of 4 checks (as the 4th involved connecting a fuse inline).
PS: The non-starting this time might have been due to mower blades being powered and a safety that prevents starting the tractor with them on (and nothing related to the relay contacts). I remembered that I turn them off after cleaning and putting back the relay, but before attempting to start the tractor. I realized this when M could not restart the tractor a while later and all I did was to turn the power off to the mower blades before restarting it without problems.
This week, same thing happened: did not want to start anymore. I refused to have the dealer charge us another $200+ for a fuse (which I was sure was the issue), so I tried to diagnose it myself. First I checked the 3 fuses in the fuse box (and the additional one outside): all good. After pulling off the relay (301-1C-C-R1-U01-12VDC) from the fuse box ($4 part) and doing some minor corrosion cleaning (see pics below), the mower is back in operation (but not after spending US$45 to buy the Feb 2016 TM138119 technical manual which has wrong info on the fuse box contents, possibly because the latest official TM is from Dec 2018 and costs US$154).
For the curious, here is a good video on testing a 5-pin relay and another video that I actually used with my multimeter to complete 3 of 4 checks (as the 4th involved connecting a fuse inline).
PS: The non-starting this time might have been due to mower blades being powered and a safety that prevents starting the tractor with them on (and nothing related to the relay contacts). I remembered that I turn them off after cleaning and putting back the relay, but before attempting to start the tractor. I realized this when M could not restart the tractor a while later and all I did was to turn the power off to the mower blades before restarting it without problems.
