Get tough... do it in writing... sounds like phone calls haven't done any good... play hard ball... use legal terms and threaten legal recourse under the Magnusan-Moss Warranty Act of 1975 (see link below). Deal with Toro's warranty company directly rather then Toro or the dealer. Sounds like you are caught between the dealer and Toro. They are just trying to stall you in hopes you will give up... I bet the dealer is hiding something... like the mower was sold to you with you believing it was under warranty... but maybe it really wasn't (re sale, old inventory, etc). If the dealer wanted to... they could easily code the labor/parts as warranty work and get paid for it from Toro Warranty... granted the dealer would get paid at a lower rate then what they would get from you. Try another Toro dealer in your area. The warranty company is likely a third party. I had an issue like this with my Saturn car... I went round and round with the dealer to no avail... then escalated it to Saturn... they sided with the dealer... finally got to the warranty company... they said... my claim would be covered with in 10 seconds of hearing the issue. The warranty company said... the dealer had to cover my claim because the dealer could not prove the item that went bad was due to my neglect or lack of routine maintenance. It took me a couple of week's a couple of letters and countless phone calls to get that situation squared away. From the get go... the dealer was against me and told me to bug off. When I went to Saturn corporate... they sided with the dealer too. Toro and their dealer network are going to stick together. Not sure... maybe Toro's are sold through a three party system... Toro, Distributor, Dealer? If that is the case... the distributor is likely the one not playing nice. Here are a couple of web sites that go over some of the warranty laws. http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/products/warrant.htm http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/buspubs/warranty.htm#Magnuson-Moss It is very hard if not impossible for the Toro dealer to prove that the failure of the piece in question was due to any lack of routine maintenance by you. If they think that is what it is... then have them prove it. Have them show you where in the warranty the part/item is not covered. I looked briefly at the Toro Warranty... pretty straight forward and brief. Don't let them tell you... if you had the work done at their shop or by Toro everything would be fine... that is against the law (as stated in the Magnuson-Moss Act). As long as you have the preventive/required maintenance done... you are set. The only preventive maintenance on a barely used lawn mower is changing engine oil... pretty hard for the dealer to prove that you did or didn't do it. Depending on what state you live in... you could take it to your state consumer protection office. Here in New York State... http://www.consumer.state.ny.us If the tactics above don't work... and you purchased the mower with your credit card or debit card with MC/V logo and signed for the purchase... you could seek recourse through MasterCard/Visa purchase protection... or though a charge back from your bank. I had an issue with a local retailer... they wouldn't work with me... called MasterCard... issue couldn't be rectified with them... went through my bank and disputed the charge. After two months... the retailer refunded my money... as they bank reported them to the better business bureau. Best of luck... don't give up... if you are truly in the right it will work... if you keep fighting. After all... what you are asking for is with in your warranty rights and certainly reasonable given the situation. It isn't like you are trying to be fraudulent.

after reading all the opinions about this guy, i'm convinced that there are more misinformed fools in this world than i had thought before i just bought an older 12h.p. simplicity tractor that came with the 36" blower, and the 36" mower deck, all for $500.00. it's not that i couldn't afford a nice new j.d. tractor from the local big box store, i'm 70 years old. most people i know, realize that the big box stores sell inferior merchandise. j.d. tractors that are sold from these places are cheap, junk.. this is all because j.d. wants everybody to own their product. they have done the one thing that will damage their good name, forever, all because they are trying to tighten their belts and make even more money..in the end, anybody with a half a brain could figure this out. i'm a believer that the older tractors are built better and they were meant to last and last. the newer ones are meant to be thrown away so you will buy another new one, just as it is with most things..for my money, anybody is better off buying a good used tractor that still will outlast a new big box one, providing that the older one has been taken care of. the guy will probably regret ever buying the piece of junk but, i'm sure he'll enjoy driving his tractor that shines more than the used simplicity. just my three cents worth. jim.

It's best practice to use perforated PVC (NOT PE black slinky) around the outside of footings/bottom of basement and retaining walls. This pipe is wrapped in a filter sock, clean gravel and protected by thicker geotextile fabric like a burrito. It's best to backfill with clean gravel on top of burrito and against buried walls. This gravel is also protected by fabric. A cap layer of less pervious soil and good slope away from the house redirects surface water, the drainage stuff below is for times of heavy rain and increased groundwater. The perforated pipe transitions to solid pipe as it leaves the gravel burrito at house. It's pitched to drain by gravity, just like downspout drains. Some sites may need to trench 100' or more to drain to daylight. Cleanouts should be provided as needed, same as with waste plumbing. It's also best practice to have a drainage pipe in the slab gravel layer that maintains a consistent slope to daylight, usually requiring a penetration of the stem wall on the downhill side. Very few residential monolithic slabs in our area, but those might need the pipe to go through or under footing. A dry, monolithic slab site may not need a drain if built up well. If basement is a top design priority, and gravity drainage is not possible, then I would specify an airtight sump cover and look into battery backup if in an area of frequent power outages. The wetter and more remote the site, the more nervous I would be without gravity assist. Power failures often coincide with the big weather events that require drainage.

I'm not an industry pro but I have a limited understanding. Any heat pump, which a plain AC unit is a type of, pumps heat from one place to another. As explained to me, AC equipment doesn't bring cool inside as much as taking heat out. Warm indoor air passes by the indoor coil, raising the temperature of the coolant inside the coil. The coolant travels to the outside unit where the heat is released (put your hand in the airflow to sense that) and the coolant is cooled by being "condensed or compressed" back to a liquid and the cycle repeats. To heat, the same equipment needs a slight modification to run in the opposite direction, the outdoor unit functions like the indoor unit in AC mode, capturing heat from the outside, and the indoor coil functions like the outdoor unit in AC mode, releasing the heat to the indoor air passing by the heat exchanger in the air handler or coil. With a ground source system, "Heat" is either taken from or released to the ground, depending on which mode it's working in. In heating mode, so long as the temp of the air or the ground isn't very cold, there's heat to extract and pump to the indoors. I welcome being corrected by anyone whose knowledge is greater than mine is. That's a lot of people, so thanks in advance.