Electric LT42E - Foot Throttle Problems

[Chris Godfrey]

I bought a 2020 LT42e with 12 hours on it at estate sale this winter. It's my first spring with it, and I was super excited. It's incredibly quiet, and the battery life should be more than enough to cut my lawn. The torque this thing has is, to borrow a Tesla-ism, ludicrous. The negative 'not ready for primetime' reviews on this mower usually involve charging problems, of which I've had none.

My problem is, I CANNOT get this thing to go any speed other than WARP SPEED. The slightest pressure on the foot pedal, and this thing wants to throw me over the back of the seat. Let off, and it stops on a dime. This is a legimate safety concern. Accelerating on a sharp turn, and I'm about to snap an armrest off and go flying.

Is this a known problem? Am I doing something wrong? Is it really all or nothing in forward on these things?

 

[kphill]

After looking at the owners manual online, It appears like the further you push the forward petal down the faster it goes.. You push it down far enough to get the speed you want and then set the cruise control that is at the bottom right of the dash across from the headlight switch.. then you can take your foot off the petal. To turn off cruise just tap the brake or push the button like in a car.. If that is not the case then maybe you do have something wrong...

 

[Chris Godfrey]

There is definitely no range or variability in the pedal travel. It's either stop or rocketship. Nothing in between.

 

[Chris Godfrey]

I should mention, I'm big dude. I bought this thing expecting it to struggle as it hauls my 6'6" 400lbs. Nope. This thing wants to buck me like I'm a kid at his first rodeo.

 

[Chris Godfrey]

Cub Cadet dealer has suggested I have a bad potentiometer in the foot pedal.

 

[jpaulus]

It can be tested with an ohmmeter. Should be an easy test and repair

 

[mgonitzke]

2020 model with 12 hours? Is this not under warranty? Dealer should be fixing this, not you.

 

[JPrattico]

2020 model with 12 hours? Is this not under warranty? Dealer should be fixing this, not you.

problem is the dealers don't have a clue how to, nobody was ever trained to fix these electric ones!

However, I will say that I think they might be onto something with the broken potentiometer theory.

 

[jkoenig]

Chris,

A potentiometer is fairly easy to test if you can get at the connections. A faulty pot could definitely be your problem.

That said, it may simply need calibration, or it may have a poor ground somewhere. Any chance there is corrosion on a ground after sitting the off-season?

My beloved/hated Audis do that on both the throttle pedal pots, and the throttle body pots if the battery gets too low, or if the connection gets any corrosion. Cleaning connections, or calibration, or both become necessary. I haven’t replaced an Audi pot yet, but have replaced many on our printing presses.

What are the chances of learning a calibration procedure for the Cub Cadet throttle pedal pot? I wonder if these machines forget their calibrations if the batteries die. Anybody find a service manual for this yet?

 

[kphill]

I punched up Cub Cadet LT42e on the Home Depot website and read the owner reviews and man are these things a problem child.. And the owners are complaining that the dealers are clueless on how to work on them.. One owner hit a rock mowing and snapped the drive motor shaft and said you can't buy just the shaft you have to buy the whole mower blade drive motor and you are talking around 4 figures... There are also owners complaining about the speed control...

 

[Wes Bryan]

You need to do the VCM calibration and remember to have the break off and to push the peddle slowly when it tell you to push it to the stops. This calibrates you peddle. Your potentiometer ….. hope this helps you.


Mine just keeps giving me an electrical fault and won’t start I can get the reverse light to come on on the button but not the pro light? Any one have any ideas? Thanks