Although I'm what you might call a dedicated Husqvarna owner, owning a Husqvarna garden tractor, riding mower, wheeled string trimmer, and a string trimmer... I, sadly, can not recommend you buying the YTH20k46 at any price.
My son just bought one for $500 with less than 50 hours on it. It was originally bought from L*wes in a divorce settlement case. With less than 25 more hours of use this summer, it has been in the shop twice, and for more than 2 months. Transmission troubles twice, no power to even pull itself across a level yard. You would think that an originally $2K mower would hold up with more reliability than that.
And - you would think that all of the failures would be completely covered by warranty. Wrong. The big box store slaps you with $130 pickup and delivery charge - and that is for their charge from THEIR store to THEIR contractor repair shop, not pickup and delivery from your house. And they hang you for $60+ for oil, filter and shop rags, etc., no matter if you need an oil change or not. In addition, they 'require' you to give them a $300 deposit up front... just in case there are repairs required that are not under warranty. You can bet - there will be, or will claimed to be "other repairs" needed.
It certainly appears that Husqvarna's cheap mowers with the unsatisfactory TuffTorq K46 transmission is sub-quality. I sure don't know what has changed lately. My 13 year old Rider with the K46 transmission has held up flawlessly - and it has been used like a workhorse. But from what I read and know, the newer cheap mowers are not up to the historically top quality we expect from Husqvarna.
