Customer Reviews

John Deere Gator Ride-On

5 star:		(117)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(14)
2 star:		(12)
1 star:		(13)

 

 

I first came accross this product a few months ago while researching potential gifts for my son's upcoming third birthday. When it finally became available at Amazon in mid-August I jumped at the opportunity. It arrived via a special cargo service due to it's near 100 lb shipping weight. It was a breeze to assemble and the instructions were easy to follow for a change. This is my first Peg Perego product and I must say I am impressed with the quality of construction and the durability. My son has rammed the the Gator into several immovable objects including the house and my truck without any signs of physical damage. He also took his 8 y/o 90 lb cousin for a ride without difficulty. The steering is very responsive and the seats have four different settings to accomodate your growing child. The dump bed can hold several items and can be tipped up at an angle to unload cargo. The horn actually works and requires a 9V battery (not supplied). The 12V battery (supplied) needs to be charged (standard wall outlet) for 18 hours prior to it's first use so if you plan on purchasing a spare you may want to have one charged before the Gator arrives to avoid any initial disappointment. The battery is installed in the front of the gator by removing one screw to open the hood and simply connecting it to a 12V adapter. I was amazed at the speed in high gear. Five MPH may not seem like much, but this thing goes! There is a safety lock to prevent the manual shifter from being put into high gear if you're not comfortable with your child driving that fast. I initially had the safety lock in place , but took it off after my son got use to the steering and controls. Reverse is activated by holding the shifter down while depressing the "gas" pedal. The brakes automatically engage when your child takes his foot off the "gas" for added safety. This feature also allows the Gator to do some impressive fish-tails which my son has perfected. I have looked at the Fisher Price Power Wheels and there is just no comparison in terms of quality and appearance. If you are in the market for a ride-on you gotta get a Gator!

THE ABSOLUTE 100% HANDS DOWN BEST RIDE ON I HAVE EVER PURCHASED. The Gator was a birthday present for my 4 year old twins. After owning the power wheels bigfoot and jeep it is evident that this peg perego product runs faster and handles all kinds of terrain better. From grass to driveways, hills to ditches, my kids can't stop it. My 14 year son wishes he could fit in it so that he could drive it. I would HIGHLY recommend this product over ANY other ride on. It is worth every penney and will provide years of fun and loads of beautiful memories for your family.

Santa brought our 4 year old a gator to his grandpa's farm. He had asked for one since grandpa has a gator that he uses on his farm.

The vehicle performs well and I estimate that in high gear we took it about 3 miles on dirt roads around our orchards before the battery gave up. In low speed it goes at a perfect pace for a nice walk, but in high speed, you better get ready to jog.

The tires are actually plastic so traction can be a problem, but we added about 20 lbs of weight in the bed and it works well on concrete and short dry grass. It will take a fairly steep hill, but as the real gator it has a good wide wheel base so it's not likely to tip. I've used it to haul wood from the wood pile to the back of our house since it has a 140 lb capacity ( of course the manufacturer wouldn't recommend this).

I had to remove the cover on the speed control to get the reverse gear working, but other than that it seems to work fine. If you're expecting a long walk, I'd buy a second battery, but we're sticking with one right now since a battery would probably last 2-3 hours of "play" use and that's enough for a day...and a good excuse for mom and dad.

It's now 5 days old and has a few battle scars since learning to drive is a challenge for most 4 year olds, but since it's plastic it doesn't scar up your vehicle too bad. When they first drive it, give them a big area to learn in.

Also it doesn't turn too tightly which prevents it from turning over, but then it requires a good sized area to make a turn. To make a complete circle it requires about a 40 foot circle.

I'd buy it again.

We bought the Gator for our son's 2nd birthday. I was a little hesitant at 1st, thinking it was too big and too much for him to handle at 2. But, boy was I wrong! At first, we blocked out the high speed gear, just to be safe, but that didn't last long. Be prepared to RUN if you'd like to catch up to your child on the Gator, it moves fast. The battery seems to really hold up. It doesn't lose power like other brands. The adjustable seat is great. The neighbor kids love it too. All in all, this is just the best ride-on we've encountered. We've laughed for hours watching our son and his friends zoom by with big grins on their faces.

I AM A GRANDPA RAISING A 4 YEAR OLD GRANDSON...AFTER RESEARCHING AVAILABLE CARS DECIDED ON THE GATOR...THIS CAR IS ALL OF WHAT IT IS REPRESENTED TO BE AND MORE. AT FIRST, I THOUGHT THE SINGLE 12 VOLT BATTERY WOULD NOT
RUN THE CAR BECAUSE OF ITS' SIZE AND WEIGHT. TURNS OUT THE BATTERY HOLDS UP FOR ANY OF HIS RIDING VENTURES. AM EVEN ABLE TO RUN THE CAR WITHOUT CHARGING AFTER EACH USE, MANUFACTURER INSTRUCTS OTHERWISE. EASY TO ASSEMBLE, VERY DURABLE, AND WITH THE RAISED BED FEATURE, TURNS MY LITTLE GUY INTO A HAULER OF SAND, GRAVEL OR ANY OTHER ITEMS HE DESIRES.

We purchased the Gator for our 5 year old daughter for Christmas 2001. After 4 months of use, I now feel comportable writing a review. All I can say is "WOW"! The Gator is hands down the best ride-on I have ever seen. We have had two power wheels ride-ons in the past. My daughter rides her Gator on almost a daily basis, and it is still going strong. The battery has held up incredibly - just as fast 4 months later as the day we bought it. She rides over grass, dirt & rocks - through ditches, potholes and everything else. The Gator takes it all in stride. If you're shopping for a ride-on, I highly recommend this product. I know it is rare these days, but you won't be disappointed.

I bought this for my son's 5th birthday. I had purchased him one of the cheaper ride-ons (6v one drive wheel) at a garage sale about two years ago, mostly to gently introduce my wife to the possibility that they are not horridly dangerous. Being 6 volt and 1 drive wheel naturally meant that it barely functioned new, never mind used from a garage sale.

On to this model. I am impressed. Yes, the entire toy is plastic, but it is reasonably heavy duty plastic.

Pros - *A handsome ride. *My son loves it. *Enough battery to carry the kids around for a couple of hours non-stop even with a couple of Cinder Blocks for traction. *Power applied to both rear wheels. This makes a huge difference in how the toy drives. *It is rated for 130 lbs which means that two young children can ride or even one older child. The cheaper toys are rated at 65 lbs or so.

Cons - * EXPENSIVE! At $[...]after tax at the local Wal-Mart this is not a cheap toy. *Not father friendly - you have to undo a screw, drop down the front panel, and unplug the battery to recharge it. *Enough power to carry the kids around for a couple of hours. You really must be with the children (walking right along side them) while they are learning to drive or they WILL drive into things, kill the gears etc. *The traction is non-existant - see "making it better". It absolutely requires at least one and possibly two cinder blocks in the back, right over the wheels, to give it enough traction to make it up the slightest incline. Adding these cinder blocks then shortens the battery life (and slows it down) since it is hauling more weight. This is an issue with all of these ride-on toys - the wheels are just hard plastic! * Nothing to prevent going from forward to reverse while moving. I am convinced that this is the cause of a lot of the stripped gears that you read about in the other reviews. You MUST teach your child to come to a complete stop before pushing down the reverse and (even harder to teach) before releasing the reverse. My son is having a hard time with this but he is learning. Will a 3 year old be able to understand this? BTW, this is NOT unique to this toy, AFAICT all such ride-ons that have a reverse have this problem. * Additional batteries are expensive at ~$[...].

Making it better - I decided to try to do something about the traction first. I went to the local department store and bought one of those black rubber door mats with the little rubber nubs sticking up. I trimmed it lengthwise into strips about 5 inches wide. I then applied silicon seal/adhesive to the back of the strips of rubber mat and using 1" sheetrock screws and washers, I screwed it onto the traction surface of the back wheels. Three screws across, every 4 inches or so all the way around the tire. Repeat for the other tire. Whooo doggy does THAT give traction. I am able to remove one of the two cinder blocks from the dump section now just because the rubber GRIPS. Because of the thousands of little rubber nubs it seems to wear fairly well and if it ever needs replacing, I can just unscrew it and screw on a new set of strips. These tires are apparently about $45 a pair so it might just pay for itself in tires I don't have to buy.

I then bought a pair of 12v 20 amp hour sealed lead acid AGM batteries and wired them in to the toy.[...]

I will say that a pair of these is likely overkill. Having no idea up front how much power was really needed I went for two and just wired both in. The pair add 25 lbs total to the weight. My son is 5 years old and weighs 43 lbs right now so this toy is well within the 135 lb max, even with the batteries and another child his size. However if I had it to do over I would add just the one, behind the passenger seat.

I used lots of Velcro to fasten the batteries in to the front corners of the dump bed, right over each rear tire so it does add extra weight to help the traction even more. I wired them in parallel with a 20 amp fuse between the first and second battery, then a 30 amp fuse between the second battery and the 10 gauge wire I ran up to the front. Given that the motors draw 170 watts max (340 for both drive wheels max), Power (P) = Voltage (E) * Current (I) so I (amps max) = 340 (watts) / 12 (volts) = 28.33 amps max.

Anyway, with the extra batteries the toy now has a total of 52 AH of battery or an additional 40 AH. Given that the original battery is 12 AH, one additional 20 AH battery provides an additional 1.66 times the original power (ride time, not speed) and would probably have been plenty. Additionally I moved the charge point so that I don't have to open the front grill any more to charge it.

It turns out that the Gator has an overheat circuit breaker (auto reset) which never triggered in all the time my son ran it in low gear. However once I enabled high gear, the breaker will open whenever he goes uphill very long in high gear. Without the battery mod it might not overheat since the original battery may not provide enough power to ever reach the max power long enough to overheat, but with even one extra battery it will be able to.

To give credit where due, as long as the terrain is mild slopes and varied, the circuit breaker does not open. With the two batteries in place, he ran the Gator around his "racetrack" in the back yard for well over an hour in high gear before the breaker started to open occasionally, and there is a moderate hill - perhaps 10? or so - 4 feet rise over 40 feet run. However it opened before even making it up a 35? hill only about 4 foot rise. 35? is VERY steep though and it will go up that same hill in low (now, with the extra traction and extra battery weight over the tires). When the breaker does open, he has to wait perhaps 10 seconds to get moving again, and it helps if he drives in low for a minute or two.

And of course I also went for a BatteryMinder Plus. This thing is not cheap, but it is a high quality computer controlled battery charger (1.3 amp) that will also safely maintain the battery indefinitely without worrying about over or undercharging it. Batteries will self discharge over time, and not keeping the battery charged will quickly kill it (especially in the winter). The problem is that overcharging it will also kill a battery.

All in all a pair of worthwhile mods IMHO. This toy went from no traction and 1.5-3 hours ride time (depending on terrain and weight of the riders) to lots of traction and at least 6 hours ride time and likely 10 or more hours ride time before a charge is absolutely required.

This Gator is already expensive and IMO these mods make it truly useable instead of something that will end up sitting in the corner. All in all, a cool toy and my son loves it!

The vehicle was relatively easy to put together and included the typical pictures to aid assembly. Not too many stickers to apply and it looks great when you are finished. The vehicle is too small for my 7 year old son to really enjoy but my 3 year old has been completely taken by it. We have had a Jeep and Dump Truck by another manufacturer but this one seems to be the top of the line. The vehicle handles most inclines with ease, but it does slip on the grass and could use a bit better traction for the power it has avaialable. I would recommend it to anyone with a large area to use it in and who doesn't mind chasing after it while your little driver learns the ropes of avoiding obstacles. This little green machine is a great toy.

I got this for my son 1 year ago when he was 4. He LOVES it. It's a great product and theres no comparison to the power wheels jeep we have. It has bigger motors(2), bigger battery, and is just engineered to a much higher standard. Just last weekend my son was hauling a 13 year old around the yard in it! We've used it to haul gravel, etc. It's been a solid little machine.
I have read the odd review where people complained of battery life: this is not a reflection of the product - one MUST follow proper charging/recharging procedures. These same people probably had probelms with battery life in their cordless and mobile phones :) We get several hours of off road use out 1 charge. I'm a bit of a hobbyist (electric RC monster trucks, electric go-karts, etc), and I've learned that the "hotter" the set-up (like the gator is vs the power wheel), the less forgiving battery care becomes. Follow the gators guidelines and you should have no problems with battery life.

This toy is fun and seems to be durable, although it is new to me. And my son does love it. But it has one major problem- it is unsafe. It was the only ride-on we looked at that didn't have a seat belt. It almost kept us from buying it and I wish it had. My three year old ran into the curb yesterday and nearly flew out of it! He did in fact bust his lip. He has also hit his head one other time that I know of. Also, he has only had two passengers and both times the other kid fell out when he made a quick turn. (. . .)If it had a seat belt it would be the best toy we have ever bought. We have had it a month and he rides it everyday!