Fixing drive belt on low end riding mower.

[4570Man]

Good lesson here. Mower lasted 25 years. 350 hours. May have cost $1000?

I would be happy with that level of (or lack of) durability. Buying a $5000+ mower does not make sense for most people. Especially once you are old enough to afford one!!! I will be 70 this year. A mower that will last 20 years of light use (2 acres of level lawn and 20 cuts a year) will be all I need once my cheap Husqvarna dies. I will probably get a $3000 ZT. Should get about 20 hrs of use a year and last 20 years...if I live that long.

You’d have never gotten 25 years use cutting a 2 acre lawn with one of these mowers. It’ll probably take 4 hours with a unit like this. That’s less than 5 years. The $5,000 mower would make better financial sense especially if you started earlier in life with one. Don’t overlook the fact you’ll a lot of hours of your life back using a faster mower.

 

[stevem5215]

More money usually gets you a better quality product too. But, the truth is that even these small cheap homeowner versions can last a good long time as shown here. Just when not used heavily. He's gotten his money's worth out of it for sure.

Steve

 

[shooterdon]

You壇 have never gotten 25 years use cutting a 2 acre lawn with one of these mowers. It値l probably take 4 hours with a unit like this. That痴 less than 5 years. The $5,000 mower would make better financial sense especially if you started earlier in life with one. Don稚 overlook the fact you値l a lot of hours of your life back using a faster mower.

You nailed it about getting more hours back!!! I hate cutting grass.

My Husqvarna rider has a 48' deck and it takes me 1.5 hours to cut my lawn. One reason I plan to get a "cheap" 52" ZT is that it will cut my time in about 1/2. So I will be down to an hour per cut. I cut and/or mulch leaves 20 times a year. So 20 hours a year with a ZT. If the life of a "cheap" ZT is 400 hours it will last me 20 years....for a 70 year old...a life time. And the longer the Husqvarna keeps going the less justification for a better unit to replace it.

BTW, the Husqvarna came with the house or I would have bought a ZT. It is 8 years old and still doing the job. Had to replace a spindle four years ago (from hitting a rock) and a starter this year. Total cost under $100. Keep wishing she would die, but I may pull the trigger on the ZT next year anyway. She will not last another 20 years and I may as well reap the advantages of the ZT while I am still alive...LOL

If I was younger, I might be able to talk myself into a better unit. If I had more grass to mow, I could justify a better unit. But with my circumstances, there is little upside to investing more.

I went through the same process when I bough my LS last year. Really wanted a Kubota but could not justify getting a "better" tractor. I put on about 100-125 hours a year on a tractor. So it made no sense.

 

[Diggin It]

Low priced or economy doesn't have to mean cheap. I just want serviceability. I don't want to have to tear the whole thing down to replace a belt whether it initially cost $1,200 or $3,200.

 

[crazyal]

When MTD bought the Troy Built name they milked it for all it was worth. Sad. I have an '06 Troy Built and it's a low quality but probably the cheapest rider you could buy at the time. The 19hp Kohler has to be one of the worst engines made. Lots of reports of the engine block cracking and the plastic decompression tab breaking off. I have changed the belts on it due to old age. They have improved things as now they use a round rod to keep the belt from coming off the pulley. It's held on with two bolts. But it's still a pain to replace. About the only thing good about the thing is the variable speed. Unlike every cheap rider today it doesn't have the K46 in it. Instead it's a reeves system, kind of like a snow machine. It works great. The transmission, which is nothing more than forward and reverse and the brake sucks though.

Tell him to put it for sale for $100 and let some other person deal with changing the belt. If it's like mine the grease in the bearings are most likely dried up. That means it'll need new idlers in the near future. Of course these machines were made for the guy who didn't want to use a push mower to mow his postage stamp size yard.

 

[fruitcakesa]

My 97 y.o. nearly blind and deaf father bought a new Troybuilt lawn tractor to replace the Craftsman LT3000 that he seized the engine in.
This was at least the sixth machine he has owned and destroyed in the past 15 years.
I figured the cheapest tractor was the best choice for him seeing as how it will likely be wrecked before it dies a natural death.
Or it will outlive him

 

[HenryIV]

I have a LT series Deere, maybe the last good small tractor they made if it was made on a Wednesday when the workers in Horicon, WI had sobered up from the last Packers game, and needed to work to get paid for the upcoming binging on cheese curds and HotDamm. That was 20 years ago. I use this just a little to do some laps around the house and trees before my Ford and finishing mower gets fired up. Drive belt replacement is fairly easy. Deck belt replacement not so easy and the deck hanger can easily fall off, get run over and sent into the yonder, never to be seen again. I can see now why zero turns which are cheaper to make, more comfortable to ride and cutting faster are so popular. Belt driven anything is always some Rube Goldberg contraption.

 

[4570Man]

I have a LT series Deere, maybe the last good small tractor they made if it was made on a Wednesday when the workers in Horicon, WI had sobered up from the last Packers game, and needed to work to get paid for the upcoming binging on cheese curds and HotDamm. That was 20 years ago. I use this just a little to do some laps around the house and trees before my Ford and finishing mower gets fired up. Drive belt replacement is fairly easy. Deck belt replacement not so easy and the deck hanger can easily fall off, get run over and sent into the yonder, never to be seen again. I can see now why zero turns which are cheaper to make, more comfortable to ride and cutting faster are so popular. Belt driven anything is always some Rube Goldberg contraption.

Honestly the reeves drive setup isn’t terrible. If it was made from better quality parts that lasted more then 300 hours and took less then a couple hours to work on they would be better.

 

[4570Man]

Low priced or economy doesn't have to mean cheap. I just want serviceability. I don't want to have to tear the whole thing down to replace a belt whether it initially cost $1,200 or $3,200.

I can agree with that, and that’s the biggest reason I won’t own a Ford truck. On the belt changing subject it probably cost 5 times your high end estimate but I can change all the belts on my Grasshopper in just a few minutes with minimum tools. I’ve also changed belts on high end Kubota mowers and it’s a real chore. At least they only have one belt and it last 1000 hours or more.