Riding Lawnmower

I also like my Murray, I have a 40 inch deck one and 10 years old now, and I have treated mighty rough over those years hauling a dump trailer behind FILLED just Heaped with cow manure~! So that is a LOT of wt. but this is with a B/S, I/C 14 hp that Industrial/Commercial engine is a good one.

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Stay far away from MTD. (Even some Cub Cadets are made by them). They have flimsy decks, cheap blades, expensive belts, etc. etc. And go to an equipment dealer. Stay away from Lowes, Home Depot, etc. I made that mistake last year and spent $1300 for a Troy-Bilt SuperBronco 19HP. Absolute piece of junk. Sold it for half what I paid and spent a little more, about $2200, for a brand new 42" Toro Z-turn. (2006 floor room model. 07 runs about $3000). Totally different animal in terms of quality. Cuts the lawn in literally half the time, and does a LOT better job of it.

Cub Cadet consumer products are mfg by MTD. Murray went belly up and owed Briggs tons of money. Briggs now owns Murray and Snapper by the way. Kawasaki engines are probably the best gas engine or a Briggs Vanguard (mfg by mitsubishi). Honda I have not much experience with other than a few small ones. They seem to have weak connecting rods. The other briggs and the kohlers are just so-so, good engines but not expected to have long life. Built cheap to sell cheap... Diesel, Kubota or Yanmar or both very good long lasting engines.
Do you need a new mower? How about a good used one. A John Deere 318 is very popular for example. They can be repowered with Honda or Vanguard engines. Just a thought. Tom

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Tom Lavalette, Garden Farmer
Owner Toms Tractors, Buy, Sell, Trade Garden Tractors and Implements. Custom Built machinery by order.


If Farms were Smaller, Communities would be Closer.

I have a Husky. I got it from Tractor Supply and yes the deck is a piece of junk. The lawnmower repairman rewelded it for me which will probably make it stronger than it was originally and I am very, very careful when I mow. I plan on replacing it as soon as I can afford to.

I finally decided on a John Deere and got it (today) from Lowe's. Why? Because there is a John Deere dealer near me that can service it if warrantee things go bad. Otherwise, the other dealers are 30-35 miles away. It is a 19.5 hp with a 42 inch deck and the price was 1649 with a 10 percent discount for signing up for a Lowe's card. I can also get an extended warrantee but have 30 days to decide. So, for basically $1500 I got the size I needed, with local availability of service. I also have a small engine guy across the street that will fix anything, but I paid attention to his recommendations also.
I was told by Sears that the Husky and the Craftsman are made in the same factory as a former poster mentioned. They look alike except for color. My friend bought the Husky, because a service person was near where they live. We'll see whose machine lasts longer.
Ann

For those of you who have mowers with weak decks once the deck is trashed it doesnt mean the mower is . look for an old heavy duty deck from the 1970s cubs or sear suburbans and replace the bearings then retro fit the deck to your mower. Want the mowers to cut better and baldes to last longer ?? not to difficult have your local machine shop cut some discs out of plate then go to tractor supply and get reversible free swinging disc mower blades and install four on each disk. the blades themselves are pretty cheap the bolts cost . These are much harder than any mower blade you will buy and stay sharp . The free swinging means even if you hit a rock or some other obstruction it wont bend the spindle shaft or the blade .
Another option is to bolt sickle blades to the disc .

I have a friend that is very good with metal.

Wonder what it would cost to build just the deck portion, and transfer over the pulleys, blades, etc?

I've got a White lawn mower that still has lots of life left in it, but if I was in the market, I'd check out some of the Kubota diesel lawn mowers on e-bay. Here is one example I pulled up:

http://cgi.ebay.com/Nice-18-HP-Kubot...QQcmdZViewItem

Kubota makes good stuff, and a well maintained diesel engine can last a life time. Good luck in whatever you choose to do.

We got a Gravely zero turn for around $2k. It's much better than the Dixon and I reccomend it.

My opinion with Cub Cadet is a "little bit different" than OkieDavid. We had bought a brand new Cub Cadet 12 years ago. The thing did fine for the first year or so, and then every single year we had major repairs. That machine was a total lemon, and while perhaps I got a "bad" one, Cub Cadet had no sympathy with me when the a part went bad right after the warranty went out. I hear that the old Cub Cadets were good, but anything made in the past 15 or so years with the name Cub Cadet is actually made by MTD.

In fact, I just traded in that evil piece of junk last week for a brand new Mahindra.

DO NOT BUY A CUB CADET!!!!

And OkieDavid, I would certainly be interested to know your opinion of your Cub Cadet in about 2 years - trust me - you WILL have problems!

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Michael W. Smith in North-West Pennsylvania

"Everything happens for a reason."

My poor hubby spends about 2 hrs. every weekend trying to fix our junk mowers many problems. Anyone know of any good comparitive "mower" sites
We need to get a good used one (riding, lots of varied terrain ) for just under 2K

I think Cub Cadet's suck, the new ones are MTD and the old ones were geared wrong, too slow or too fast and because they were so heavy they sucked gas like a dual-quad big-block chevy. I have a Deutz-Allis 1920 which is basically a Simplicity Sunstar painted green. I really like it for around the house, it has hydraulic lift and a 50" deck. For field mowing I use a brush hog hooked to a Ford 600 tractor.

We pulled a Roper rider out of the metal pile at the dump. The guy pointed out a deck that might fit. I welded up a few brackets, replaced a few filters, and it has mowed our back field for 4 years. It has an 18 horse BS cast iron engine.

The older ones were made by IHC.

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Just saw the White brand of riding mower at Atwoods, is it any good? Not going to buy one just wondering. Is it the same white that made tractors?

We bought a troybuilt and it sucks!!!!!! Repair is really expensive. DH will not try to work on them. He was going to replace a belt and found out you had to darn near take everything off to just replace a belt.

Didn't realise we needed a brush hog for our back yard but every now and then the boys or dogs hide a treasure shovel, wood, toy whatever and it wreckes the mower. this year we have had so much rain we have to wait to dry out some and the yard is a jungle. We walk it but somtimes that is not enough

I will buy a real mower next time. Who has a mower that makes relpacing blades and belts easy?

I have one of these mowers in the 13.5 HP version, and it's been fine so far (5 seasons). My yard is only about an acre and mostly level, so it's not like it's being put through any tough work. The belts have been replaced once (last Fall).

Although I think this will be a good mower long term, you really don't know what you have until after ten seasons or so. As I noted above, I would be looking at used Kubota/JD diesel mowers if I needed one right now.

I think this mower gets it name from the old White/Freightliner company, but I don't think there has been any relationship with that parent for many years.

Briggs and Stratton Power Products Group owns the following:
Simplicity (which owns Simplicity, Snapper, Ferris, Agco, Massey Ferguson, and Giant Vac)
Generac
Murray (which owns Murray, Turfmaster, Dynamark, and YardKing)

MTD Holdings owns the following:
Cub Cadet, Troy Built, Yardman, White, Bolens, Yard Machines, and builds some of Craftsman brand for Sears.

Toro Co. owns the following:
Toro, Lawn Boy, Exmark, Hayter

Electrolux owns the following:
Husqvarna (which owns Husqvarna, McCulloch, Dixon, Poulan, Poulan Pro, and Yazoo/Kees).

Ariens owns the following:
Ariens
Gravely

There are lots of others as well but this was a pretty good start. These should be correct but that doesn't mean that there isn't a mistake in there somewhere. As well most of the higher end mowers are their own companies...

E.C.

Well it looks like I picked a good topic and thanks for all your imput
I will be getting rid of my one 20 year old wheelhorse and I will keep the 30 year old one for heavy work
Today I bought a JOHN DEERE 120 series 2 cylinder with a pressurize system it cost $2400 plus 14 percent tax
My eyesight is almost totally gone now and the wife needed a machine she could run easier then the old wheelhorses thanks