Is There a Way To Tell If You’re Buying 2012 Model Lawn Tractor, As Opposed To The 2011 Model?

Is There a Way To Tell If You’re Buying 2012 Model Lawn Tractor, As Opposed To The 2011 Model?

A lot of readers have been asking how do you determine the model year of a lawn tractor so here is a short article telling you what I know. The answer is simple, but the explanation is complex.

Figuring out when a lawn tractor was made has always been a mess.  L&G, agricultural, and construction does not use individual serial numbers like the automotive and over-the-road industry. Finding an individual tractor, owner or the year it was made is next to impossible. Some of the construction equipment now has individual serial numbers, but as a whole there is no constancy.

What Year Was It Built?

In addition, when it was made has no corelation to when it was sold. Jacobson used to make their golf course equipment 12 to 18 months before it was sold.  The dealers had to order their equipment in April for the NEXT year! Back in the 90′s John Deere had so much fun with their new combine production line that they made them so far in advance that some of the combines had to be repainted before they could be sold.  International Harvestor used to make tillage equipment in five year runs….for example, they would make enough corn pickers and send them to the dealers to last for five years. If the dealer ran out, you sometimes had to wait in line for years to get a new one.

The majority of the manufactures use model numbers to determine the tractor series. These model numbers are not associated with a year as much as they are a set of features. For example, when Craftsman came out with the new Turn Tight Technology last year the model numbers of the YT series tractors changed. They will keep those model numbers as long as they don’t change the features of the mower.

Most of the manufactures will also change the model number when they change an engine.  If there is a EPA change required on the engines, they will change the model number of the tractor.  That way if there is a recall for that engine, they can contact the owners easily.

Some of the manufactures use the serial numbers for production runs.   Others use the model number.  There is no standard way to determine the model year.

There is a “Tractor Blue Book” but it only covers the sub-compact tractors and larger.  It does not list Craftsman, Cub Cadet etc.

I look at the owners manual copyright to determine at least when a particular model was FIRST introduced.  This usually gives me a general idea of when the tractor was made.  This works well for the Craftsman branded tractors.