Looking at one of these mowers after finding a good price on craigslist. Anyone have experience with this model?
Yup, I have two of them, a 38" and a 42" machine. 1998 and 2000 I think. Owned the 38" first bought new, then picked up the 42" one off ebay years later. Both have the hydrostatic transmission. I mow the lawn with the newer 42" one, and beat the older 38" one pretty much any way I can. I don't think JD quite had this in mind for them when they built them to mow grass! Only problems I ever had were with the engines (18hp B&S) and with the mowing decks. The mower itself is great.
Before the spelling police drop in, the spelling was Sabre... Just remember that these were economy grade machines built for sale at big box retailers and Sears and have been out of production for a dozen years.
My parents had one years ago it did 2.5 acres of mowing for 10 years or so. It pulled a cart all over the yard full of wood and whatever else we could imagine. I think it even pulled a big dent out of the bumper on the old diesel VW Rabbit. The mower still ran when they gave it away too...
Sabre, saber....who cares already...geeze I got one, 14/38, bought it when my neighbors moved, for real cheap. I haven't had any trouble except the deck linkage seems to be cheaply made. I have a hard time keeping it adjusted to cut level. Other than that it's been a great machine considering they were cheap to start with. I also have an STX38.
While I generally agree that one should be wary of whatever is sold through a mass retailer, these machines are the exception. For the money, nothing was close. Based on the STX platform so parts are plentiful, new and used, and plenty of donor machines out there for engines, decks, transmissions, etc. The whole machine is built worlds ahead of the junk for sale in box stores today. Even the L/LA/D100 series machines, which I feel are pretty good for the $$, are not built as well as the old Scotts/Sabre by Deere machines. They never should have retired the Sabre name IMO(would have saved everybody some confusion in the early days of the L100 line) but marketing dictates otherwise..... Adam, what model did you find? The lawn tractors are great, the garden tractors were spectacular buys (based on the GT275 frame).
I haven't heard back from the seller yet, so I have no model number and am not positive that it's still for sale.
