I understand the concern and I too was this adamant at the start of the season. Since then, I thought "Well, as with everything, the customer will decide." If this model does not sell enough or if it is plagued with repair issues, it will be discontinued. Or adversely, if sales are good and this model is without transmission issues (so far so good), they might add one or two more models with this transmission.

Yeah, I know. I've made sure to let customers know about the maintenance involved with this style of transmission (not to bash it, but they should know that it WILL need regular maintenance). Not many people find it attractive after that. What am I going to do, lie by omitting extremely important information? Most people find the $100 jump to the hydrostatic worthwhile. I wonder if they're making a very tiny number of the belt/pulley automatics to create an attractively priced version of automatic, and then we can more easily sell up to the hydrostatic? I mean, it's possible. *shrug*