Cheapish but okay ride-on mowers!
Discussion
Hello chaps!
If i manage to get the house i am after i'll need a ride-on mower! as i just said to Scotal - i'd like a honda so i can get 'ironic' type-r badging - but they're dear...!
we'd be getting circa 1.5 acres of which a fifth has the house on it (give or take), a third is all wild flowers and stuff (oh yes i know my horticultural s
t) and the rest needs mowing. it's on a bit of a hill it's a bit up and down but it's not really 'bumpy' or anything.
i have found this website where you seem to be able to get the mowing equivalent of a hyundai rexton! based on the little i do know/am looking for.. the black one looks quite groovy:
they seem to fulfil the specifications i seem to require but for £1.5k:
http://www.mowdirect.co.uk/acatalog/RIDE_ON_MOWERS...
do you know of them? have you used them? do you know anything about these brands of mowers?
remember naming and shaming rules so feel free to PM me.
_____
obviously i want a Husqvana but budget gets in the way of this!
___
also i think i want one of those auto type ones rather than a manual - am i condemning myself to a lifetime of crazy service and repair bills..?
If i manage to get the house i am after i'll need a ride-on mower! as i just said to Scotal - i'd like a honda so i can get 'ironic' type-r badging - but they're dear...!
we'd be getting circa 1.5 acres of which a fifth has the house on it (give or take), a third is all wild flowers and stuff (oh yes i know my horticultural s
t) and the rest needs mowing. it's on a bit of a hill it's a bit up and down but it's not really 'bumpy' or anything.i have found this website where you seem to be able to get the mowing equivalent of a hyundai rexton! based on the little i do know/am looking for.. the black one looks quite groovy:
they seem to fulfil the specifications i seem to require but for £1.5k:
http://www.mowdirect.co.uk/acatalog/RIDE_ON_MOWERS...
do you know of them? have you used them? do you know anything about these brands of mowers?
remember naming and shaming rules so feel free to PM me.
_____
obviously i want a Husqvana but budget gets in the way of this!
___
also i think i want one of those auto type ones rather than a manual - am i condemning myself to a lifetime of crazy service and repair bills..?
Oh the joys of ride on ownership.
Having experienced this for many years one thing I can say is they are more of a pain in the ass to own then a French car. You think they'll improve your life but the moment the grass gets long it'll break down with some random fault, you'll then find the parts network is like an old boys club and no one can turn round a parts order in less then a week.
I have been running and maintaining Westwood and Countax machines for several years and really there is no such thing as a good cheap Rideon, they all seem to chew belts bearings and blades at a rate that'll make your wallet cry.
The choice would seem to be buy the best you can (John Deere etc) and pay up front or buy something cheaper and pay for repairs.
Just to give you an idea my current steed which is a C600H Countax with a 42" deck currently gets through a set of blades every 6months at £45 a go. I have just rebuilt the deck with 6 new bearings, idler pulley, tensioner pulleys, belts, blades the cheapest I could get the parts for was £170.
Not trying to put you off here and I do have more grass to cut then you (machine has clocked up 500 hours in the last 4 years) but like a car keep an eye on the running costs!!
Having experienced this for many years one thing I can say is they are more of a pain in the ass to own then a French car. You think they'll improve your life but the moment the grass gets long it'll break down with some random fault, you'll then find the parts network is like an old boys club and no one can turn round a parts order in less then a week.
I have been running and maintaining Westwood and Countax machines for several years and really there is no such thing as a good cheap Rideon, they all seem to chew belts bearings and blades at a rate that'll make your wallet cry.
The choice would seem to be buy the best you can (John Deere etc) and pay up front or buy something cheaper and pay for repairs.
Just to give you an idea my current steed which is a C600H Countax with a 42" deck currently gets through a set of blades every 6months at £45 a go. I have just rebuilt the deck with 6 new bearings, idler pulley, tensioner pulleys, belts, blades the cheapest I could get the parts for was £170.
Not trying to put you off here and I do have more grass to cut then you (machine has clocked up 500 hours in the last 4 years) but like a car keep an eye on the running costs!!
Edited by eddie1980 on Tuesday 9th June 16:12
RedLeicester said:
So you want a ride on for around an acre? 
what's all the rofling?! it's just over an acre (i reckon if i did decide to mow the bit with all the wild flowers it'd be something like 1.4 acres)...all the blurb says "ideal for 1 to 2 acres" on some fvcking great big things so i don;t see what's so daft about this!i am working on the basis that if it's 2 or 3 times as wide and has a big bag on the back it'll save half the time. seeing as i want to get it all done on a saturday morning it seems to make perfect sense to me!
unless you like the idea of walking up and down for hours! if so you're weird.
Edited by briSk on Tuesday 9th June 16:20
Sorry chap, it was an unqualified roffle without explanation - our old house had an acre which took about 30 mins to mow with a simple walk-behind jobbie, and we're currently shifting to 17 acres including 8 acres of lawns, so it just seemed both apposite and sniggerworthy! Didn't mean it to be at your expense!
I bought one a Honda 1211H like this 2 years ago.
I paid around £1500. It comes with a 5 year warranty.
It's a good bit of kit, but because it relies on the fan action of the blades, rather than a belt driven sweeper to push the clippings into the collector, it struggles with wet grass.
I paid around £1500. It comes with a 5 year warranty.
It's a good bit of kit, but because it relies on the fan action of the blades, rather than a belt driven sweeper to push the clippings into the collector, it struggles with wet grass.
Edited by sparkythecat on Tuesday 9th June 19:29
Friends of mine have muchos land and have several Toro mowers which get a *lot* of use.
e.g.
http://toromowers.co.uk/Toro-Recycler-XL-Lawn-Trac...
e.g.
http://toromowers.co.uk/Toro-Recycler-XL-Lawn-Trac...
We've got roughly the same size grass as the OP - Greenthumb were determined to give us a quote after knocking on the door, and measured it out at 1.4 sq km, some with a good slope to it. Think that's about an acre?
Got a Countax C600H with 42" IBS deck as above, barely secondhand for about £2k with about 20 hours on it - three years on, it's still under 100 hours I think - so the 500 hours example above is for serious grasscutting. With a tractor
I can do ours in maybe 45 mins to an hour.
Breakdowns so far causing a failure to proceed have been a handbrake switch, a plug lead fell to bits, and that's it. Plus me nearly doing an Italian Job with it down a six foot high bank when the grass was too muddy.
Repairs and costs - sharpened the blades with an angle grinder twice, changed the oil and filter, fuel filter, waxoyl'd the cutting deck and fitted an essential recaro seat
Could do with new blades, maybe next year.
It'll sweep the cuttings and leaves up (great in autumn, or when it's a bit wet), you can attach all sorts to the power takeoff, tow a trailer (or a tree) and it's built properly - thick steel, chunky brackets, that kind of thing. Of my nearest half a dozen neighbours, all have Westwood/Countax rideons bar one push-along mower. Most are kept under tarps in the garden all winter too.
I would recommend one - rather than buying a cheaper make (look in B&Q at their ride-on for the definition of junk - it's all baked-bean-tin steel and crappy plastic), get a used pricier one, Countax/Westwood/Deere/Honda. You'd get something pretty good for £1500.
Got a Countax C600H with 42" IBS deck as above, barely secondhand for about £2k with about 20 hours on it - three years on, it's still under 100 hours I think - so the 500 hours example above is for serious grasscutting. With a tractor
I can do ours in maybe 45 mins to an hour.
Breakdowns so far causing a failure to proceed have been a handbrake switch, a plug lead fell to bits, and that's it. Plus me nearly doing an Italian Job with it down a six foot high bank when the grass was too muddy.
Repairs and costs - sharpened the blades with an angle grinder twice, changed the oil and filter, fuel filter, waxoyl'd the cutting deck and fitted an essential recaro seat
Could do with new blades, maybe next year.It'll sweep the cuttings and leaves up (great in autumn, or when it's a bit wet), you can attach all sorts to the power takeoff, tow a trailer (or a tree) and it's built properly - thick steel, chunky brackets, that kind of thing. Of my nearest half a dozen neighbours, all have Westwood/Countax rideons bar one push-along mower. Most are kept under tarps in the garden all winter too.
I would recommend one - rather than buying a cheaper make (look in B&Q at their ride-on for the definition of junk - it's all baked-bean-tin steel and crappy plastic), get a used pricier one, Countax/Westwood/Deere/Honda. You'd get something pretty good for £1500.
RedLeicester said:
our old house had an acre which took about 30 mins to mow with a simple walk-behind jobbie, and we're currently shifting to 17 acres including 8 acres of lawns, so it just seemed both apposite and sniggerworthy!
did it really only take that long?i am a bit unsure what to do to be honest - in that i obviously don't want to spend all that money unnecessarily.. but the poster directly above me seems to suggest it'd take the same length of time on a sit on as you say for a push a long...! you can surely see my uncertainty! it is all uphill effectively rather than these sort of 'football pitch' lawns a lot of people have...
i'd show you a picture but i don't in anyway want to compromise the sale!
I've had a John Deere for nine years, it now has just over 1500 hours on it.
The water pump has failed twice which I find annoying (BTW water cooled mowers are usually longer lasting). The first time it ended up taking a head gasket out, the second time it filled up the sump with water.
Apart from a steering joint a few years ago I've done very little maintenance - sharpened the blades a few times - changed a drive belt.........and cut grass. Lots and lots of grass. I do tend to leave it to get rather long as a gallon of fuel can disappear in a couple of hours - but the thought of a normal mower for a lot of grass is !!!
I probably would have regretted buying a cheaper model, from memory it was a couple of thousand when I got it, secondhand.
The water pump has failed twice which I find annoying (BTW water cooled mowers are usually longer lasting). The first time it ended up taking a head gasket out, the second time it filled up the sump with water.
Apart from a steering joint a few years ago I've done very little maintenance - sharpened the blades a few times - changed a drive belt.........and cut grass. Lots and lots of grass. I do tend to leave it to get rather long as a gallon of fuel can disappear in a couple of hours - but the thought of a normal mower for a lot of grass is !!!
I probably would have regretted buying a cheaper model, from memory it was a couple of thousand when I got it, secondhand.
RedLeicester said:
Sorry chap, it was an unqualified roffle without explanation - our old house had an acre which took about 30 mins to mow with a simple walk-behind jobbie, and we're currently shifting to 17 acres including 8 acres of lawns, so it just seemed both apposite and sniggerworthy! Didn't mean it to be at your expense!
Assuming a 600mm wide mower blade, you walked (and mowed) 6743m in 30 minutes? Damn, it used to take me about 20 minutes to do my families lawn to a decent standard and that was only 150m squared! (ish)
other than prove that all the people who've been on here ages seem to be able to mow whilst running i am not sure we've achieved all that much.
(to be honest i am still thinking that it's just more evidence for a sit on - if you think 1 acre is 30mins then tha means 45 mins for me. so if i divide that by 2 for a mower twice as wide that under half an hour! )
(to be honest i am still thinking that it's just more evidence for a sit on - if you think 1 acre is 30mins then tha means 45 mins for me. so if i divide that by 2 for a mower twice as wide that under half an hour!
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