BEST MOWER YOU'VE EVER HAD?

[keving]

Scag Turf Tiger, Briggs Engine, 60" deck. I replaced several Murray, MTD and other mowers with this bad boy about 9 years ago. I have saved a ton of time, and have had NO problems.

 

[AchingBack]

I started in the landscape maintenance business in 1976. My first mower was a push, Lawn Boy. It was a terrific mower, nice and light. For heavy duty, brush mowing, you can not beat a DR walk behind mower. I've owned two. I also had a very good MTD mulching mower with the Briggs 5 horse intek engine.

My latest, and favorite mower of the past 60 years, the 19" Neuton, battery powered, combination, mulch, side discharge, bag, mower. It has plenty of power, uses no gas, and doesn't require jerking on a rope to start it. Even a jerk can run one though.

 

[larso1]

A close second was my Toro 21" walk-behind push mower w/ 4.5 tecumseh (what could go wrong with something that simple), but my 1987 M. Wards LT w/ 38-in. deck, bagger system and 11 HP Tecumseh is still being used by me (my mom bought it new for me on Father's Day back then), and it still looks pretty good too. Sure, I've had to replace the consumables like deck spindles (non-greasable), belts and blades of course. And I did opt to buy a complete new motor for it 5-years ago for around $450, rather than fix the leaks in the old one which was starting to smoke a little. It was an easy change-out. But that "shift-on-the-fly" vari-drive transaxle has never given me any problems in all that time. I now own a JD EZTrak 425 and have had it for a year. It's great, but it still has to prove itself to me like the Wards has;o)

 

[stevem5215]

Best mower would have to be the free one I picked out of the trash last year. It's a Scotts self propelled model with 3 speeds. There was a little bit of varnish in the carb but I cleaned that out. Had to straighten a crooked wheel with a sledge hammer and grease it a little and put some fresh oil in the engine. Starte d up and have used it since. It mulches better than the Toro I have and it holds more in the bag since it grinds it finer. It sucks leaves and holds bushels of them. I often wonder where they are going but it's amazing since it only cost me some time to fix it. I didn't spend a dollar on it. (except for expensive gas and a little oil i had laying around). I did sharpen the blade after a month or so and it's just been awesome. So much so that I don't even start the 15 year old Toro anymore. Maybe this summer I'll run it a little just to keep it going. It's the 2 stroke model toro and needs to be run once in a while at least.

Steve (just picked up a weekwacker out of the trash this week. A Homelite that needed a gas tank and just put it on today... works fine too. And is one of those "convertable" models for a tiller, pruner etc... nice too) Amazing what you can find laying along the road

 

[IllMarty1]

Had? Have! I bought a 20" Homelite with an aluminum deck back in 1987. I still use it weekly to trim around the house with. It is so light and a pleasure to use. Shame on me but that spark plug is twenty years old but I do change the oil every spring.

Brad

Bought a Homelite 20" w/ Aluminum deck in 1990, the first year I had a yard to take care of. Self propelled mechanism is broke, but she started up at the cabin last week after 5 pulls. Change the oil maybe 5 times and spark plug once. Always added fuel treatment every year.

 

[shortlid]

Best mower would have to be the free one I picked out of the trash last year. It's a Scotts self propelled model with 3 speeds. There was a little bit of varnish in the carb but I cleaned that out. Had to straighten a crooked wheel with a sledge hammer and grease it a little and put some fresh oil in the engine. Starte d up and have used it since. It mulches better than the Toro I have and it holds more in the bag since it grinds it finer. It sucks leaves and holds bushels of them. I often wonder where they are going but it's amazing since it only cost me some time to fix it. I didn't spend a dollar on it. (except for expensive gas and a little oil i had laying around). I did sharpen the blade after a month or so and it's just been awesome.

Some of the Scotts mower were made by Jon Deere with a Yanmar rear diff!! Good mowers and Deere dealers will suport them if they are JD built

 

[Ledgemere Farm]

John deere GT 225.

 

[bontai_Joe]

What's the best mower of any kind I have ever owned? Easy! That would be the 1978 Deere model 316 I bought early in 1979 as a left over (had I been a month later I'd have been stuck with a 317 with the bad motor) That tractor is now 30 years old, and still runs like the day I bought it. I used it for 6 years as the primary cutter in my lawn business. I literally wore outthe mower deck and rplaced that, replaced the carb, some belts, blades and filters and many oil changes. No hour meter on it, but my guess is it has somewhere around 2500 hours on the original Kohler "K" series 16 hp motor. I repainted it around 15 years ago, and it could use some paint now, but it's never let me down. I bought the tech manual for it and it's never been back to the Deere dealer for work, as I have been able to fix everything so far myself. I've plowed snow with it in the winter, installed a 2" ball on the rear hitch and pulled my 6' x 10' utility trailer with it, and it's been a real reliable working machine for me. My only regret was not getting the rear PTO with it and 3 point hitch. They would have been more affordable new, than used parts are now.

 

[Tig]

This spring I tossed out a brigs and stratton that my father bought in the mid 70s. He upgraded and gave it to me in the late 80s. The body was replaced once. I resurrected the body with an ancient Tecumseh engine that my neighbour threw out 15 years ago. Still going strong, but not very pretty.

 

[RWEST]

I had an aluminum bodied Toro push mower that I bought in the late-70's. Lasted 18 years. 1 spark plug each spring. My sister would borrow it to cut Dad's lawn, and, almost without fail, would knock the key off the flywheel when she lowered it on the ground rod sticking out by the phone line connection at the house. She just never figured it out, I guess. Dad and I got to where we could take it apart and change the key in about 8 minutes flat!! I think I only changed the oil once the whole time I had it.

The Toro finally died about '88 or '89, and was replaced with a 2-stroke LawnBoy, another aluminum bodied unit, for trimming and stuff. It's still going strong.

Oops. Which one was best? Tossup. Boy, that's not much of an answer, is it? Hmmmmm, okay, the LawnBoy.