Is thirty years too long to keep a lawn mower?

   / Is thirty years too long to keep a lawn mower? #71  
We have a Yard Machines 21" mower I bought from Lowes in 2005. It's had about a dozen new wheels, couple of spark plugs, about five plastic carbs ($20 each...) and about a half pound of welding wire over the years. We have a 2/3 acre lot and we're one of only two houses on our 70 house street that push our own mower. That mower cost a couple of hundred to buy, and another couple in new parts. Also, we're not fat like all the tractors, zero turn owners are who also pay a few hundred or more a year for gym fees. Having that mower saves us money and improves our health so, while it's 20 years old, it still gets the job done. The 4.5hp Briggs also conveniently provides mosquito protection in summer..... : ) Sometimes, taking the easy way costs more.
Grandma well into her 80’s was still pushing her manual real mower and had a beautiful front and rear yard on her 20,000 square feet homestead.

Can’t say the age of the mower but it has cast and forged components…

Every year she had her mower guy tune it up… sharpening and adjusting…
 
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   / Is thirty years too long to keep a lawn mower? #72  
JD also made those orange mowers for HD. They were junk. Then they started painting them green, and they were still junk. My mom had one of each, and I hated them.
I don't know anything about orange mowers, but Deere did indeed make different variants of their riding mowers for sale in big-box stores. Lots of troublesome cost-cutting items, to try to meet the prices dictated by buyers at HD and Lowes. They should have just walked away from those offers, or held out for a price that would've let them build them without cutting so many corners, rather than signing on to build that crap.

Apparently the dealers threw a fit over the whole arrangement, since they were getting undercut on sales, and then also expected to supply warranty service on that junk. Apparently the dealerships pushed back so hard on Deere about this, that this practice was ended many years ago. Unless things have switched back recently, the service manager at my local Deere dealer told me that the mowers sold at the big box stores today were identical to the same models sold at dealers.

That said, all of the homeowner stuff is still made for very limited use, even the full-spec dealer models. It ain't commercial equipment... and that's why it doesn't cost nearly as much.

I went with a commercial ZT from a different brand when I bought. Not sure about the green ZT equivalent commercial models. I never looked at them after the problems with the non ZT's my mom had.
Corvettes and Chevettes both wear bowties... but don't assume they have much in common. :p

A commercial 7-series or 9-series mower from Deere has about as much in common with their homeowner-grade lawn tractors as a Hellcat does with a Dodge Colt.
 
   / Is thirty years too long to keep a lawn mower? #73  
I've got a 1990 Toro 2 stroke 21" I still use. Still works great, original engine not rebuilt, a couple new blades along the way. I bought a used broken 4 cycle one for parts like the wheels/tire asm's and the best part was a new bagger asm which are hard to find now. Still using the bagger and mower starts 1st or 2nd pull with the primer system they have. Amazing how long it's lasted. $399 brand new.
 
   / Is thirty years too long to keep a lawn mower?
  • Thread Starter
#74  
Saving money and getting a good workout is great. I get a good workout from manually doing some things in the garden. Any time you sit down and rest for too long you might not get back up. We were designed to work. I still disk the garden, but I weed and plant by hand. I get a kick out of the youngsters asking if I need help at the local hardware store when I load pavers or bags of feed. I refuse to be one of those old people that can't move, and i am 61 now.
It's getting harder at my age.....;-)
 
   / Is thirty years too long to keep a lawn mower?
  • Thread Starter
#76  
   / Is thirty years too long to keep a lawn mower? #77  
I hope I'm not alone in thinking that 61 is not old. I was indignant when the whippersnapper (see what I did....) at the store said I could get a senior discount. I said "no way, I'm not old". Thinking old makes you old
 
   / Is thirty years too long to keep a lawn mower? #78  
I should have posted my story in this thread, but here you go... a tale of my 54 year old Toro!

My lawn is literally standing water right now, at least an inch of water on top of the dirt in some areas, walking on those areas is like having someone try to tug your boots off. Total swamp, we've been there.

One wet area in particular has not been mowed yet this year, and was at least knee high while I was out zooming around the rest of the yard with the ZTR this evening. So, I decided to pull out my trusty old push mower, and hit the areas too soggy to do with the ZTR.

I dig my 1971 Briggs-powered Toro mower out of the shed, and find a piece of masking tape over the throttle lever marked, "oil changed 1/23". This is WinterDeere code for, "this mower was last run in 2022". I tape over the throttle lever on seldom-used equipment when I do the annual oil change, and tear that off the first time I use it, so I can avoid re-changing oil each winter on equipment that never even got used that year.

I unscrew the gas cap, and see there's a half tank of fuel. That'd be E10 or E15 fuel, whatever the local pumps dispense, I never buy special E-free gas (longer drive).

So, expectations are low, but I top off the tank with fresh pump gas (E10?), and give the rip cord a pull. It catches on the very first pull!

That first pull and the second were just a pop, mind you, but it caught and ran smooth as silk on the third pull. This is a mower that hasn't been running in 3 years, sitting on ethanol fuel in an unconditioned shed with a gray metal roof! It's 140F in summer and 0F in winter... for 3 years on old fuel.

I mowed 1/4 acre of wet knee-high grass, and put the thing away. It'll get an oil change come January, and then sit until the next extraordinarily wet season or other odd specialty need, I rarely use the thing.

View attachment 3551235

Disclaimer: It may actually be a 1973 model, not 1971. I always have trouble remembering.
 
   / Is thirty years too long to keep a lawn mower? #79  
1989 1811 Cub Cadet 36 years, 780 hours, runs great - is ride on a mosquito sprayer now, the Ferris is 15 years old with 500 hrs, and the Cub 1864 (1996 model) with 220 hours, from an estate sale deal I restored
Cub1811 & Plow.jpg
Cub 1811.jpg
2010 Ferris in 2025.jpg
Cub 1864 Restored.jpg
 
   / Is thirty years too long to keep a lawn mower? #80  

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