Looking at new "rider" lawnmowers...chime in!

Granted most of the time I was welding one of them back together it was a heavily abused commercial unit. The 52" fixed deck walk-behinds were notorious for egging out the mounting holes.. Most of the time we'd weld the deck to the tractor frame so they would stop throwing the belt all the time. It's just too much deck for the mounts. And the floating deck frames were worse. They would bend mid-section or break the welds around the tubing. The riders wouldn't take much curb-hopping (the ultimate way to destroy your mower) before the wheel motor mounts would break, usually at the welds holding the mounts to the frame.

Every mower has it's weak points when pushed to the limit.

 

Ok MasterMech, I defer to your experience
BUT the (1) I had the privilege to operate in the early 90's (& it was probably an 80's model) was bullet proof... come to think of it there were a lot of extra welds here and there
It was a 3 wheel version, operated from the back of the machine, your seat was over the third wheel- it was pretty neat.

 

Hah, I grew up on a couple of those. For their time, they were indeed the chit. Over time, we welded the deck back together a few times on the oldest one. They ate a lot of rock,fence wire and baling twine in their day.

That style of machine was very popular back in the day, as the ZTR matured in the late 90s, three-wheelers all but disappeared. Scag built their reputation on those units.

 

Right on!