On Wed, Jun 20, 2001 at 04:10:33PM -0700, Keith Kaplan wrote:
>
> Does anyone know about the Scotts ride on mowers sold at Home Depot?
> They're made by Deere, but are they close enough to the real thing for
> my (non-commercial) use? In particular I'm eyeing the 16hp, 42"
> hydrostatic unit that's about $1800 without a bagger. This is my first
> ride on, is there anything unobvious I should look for?
>
I have one (sold as a Sabre by my Deere dealer).
I have the 16hp single-cylinder 42" hydrostatic.
I'd recommend spending the extra $$ for a v-twin engine.
The single is powerful enough, but it vibrates. A V-twin
would vibrate a lot less. It was about $200 more when I
bought mine, I'd have gone for it had I known.
I've had it for about three years and I have a good sized lawn
(takes me about an hour to mow). So far it's been pretty reliable-
one of the blade brakes broke off, cost $7 to replace it.
I had persistent low battery charge until I disconnected the
headlights (there's no switch). Now it starts every time.
I don't miss the headlights, they were useless and I don't mow
in the dark.
The air filter is a paper filter with an oiled foam
pre-filter over it, and the design means that dirt gets sucked
in by the engine cooling fan and goes into the air box. So
the pre filter needs to be cleaned often. I mow some non-lawn
areas, so I probably run through more dirt than the usual owner.
It's easy to clean the pre filter with some motorcycle filter
cleaner and spray filter oil.
The general quality isn't anywhere near a regular Deere, or my Kubota, but
then it's a hell of alot cheaper. And it's good enough.
Now that I have the Kubota I wish that the Sabre had a foot controled
transmission instead of the hand control, but before I had
the Kubota I didn't know what I was missing so it didn't bother me.
Eric
///
/// shop-talk@autox.team.net mailing list
/// To unsubscribe send a plain text message to majordomo@autox.team.net
/// with nothing in it but
///
/// unsubscribe shop-talk
///
///
|