Anyone bought a push mower lately?!

Wow!


They arent cheap...


About 2 or 3 years ago i bought us a new Troybilt mower.
Self propelled, bagger, B&S engine i think..
It ran great for the first 2 years, after that, it was one carb problem after the other.
Small engine guy said the problem i was having wa sin relation to the vent on the
gas cap being to large. It was sucking debris into the gas tank and that debris was
making its way into the carb. He recommended i install in inline filter on the fuel
line, which i never did...Of course. I ended up selling it as is on facebook, i explained
the problem, some guy my age bought it.


Anywho...

I just bought a new mower the other day.
Im one of those types who tries to invest in the right things..
I dont cheap out on mowers, i want my mower to last a long time and be problem free.
So i researched the highest rated push mowers..Ended up buying a Honda HRX series
from Home Depot. How much did the thing cost? Wow... Of course it was my choice to
buy it.. But it was $599... Internet said it was THE ONE to buy, and they didnt have
a display model at Home Depot. First thing i noticed when i unboxed it.. The deck is
plastic! What?! Yes... The deck is made of some sort of high grade, state of the art, plastic...
I dont remember reading about a plastic deck, i remember reading about how reliable
they are, how well they cut with the twin blade design and how well the honda engine runs.

Ive mowed the entire yard with it once so far, seems to work well.

 

Plastic should be great! Unless you hit something like a rock

 

Lifetime warranty on the deck, 5 year warranty on the engine.


Its noticeably lighter weight, should be a pretty obvious difference.
Just entirely new to me.. Never thought i would have a $600 pusher with a plastic deck.

 

Lifetime warranty is great! I gave away a 35 year old Honda walk behind mower to a friend. She loves it and it still works great. I have a 30 year old Honda in the barn.

 

Several years ago I bought a 7.5 hp, self propelled mower. As I remember it was $599 plus tax.

It came in a box, fully assembled with the handle folded down. I opened the box, unfolded the handle, added oil and fuel. It started on the second pull.

My wife then took it and mowed a 5' strip and hit a large rock busting the crank!

By mutual agreement, she never again has touched a lawn mower.

Ain't nuffin cheap no mo. We's ah disposable socity that builds a lot of junk. Dey calls hit 'job security.' I calls hit 'corporate welfare.'

 

Unlike the cheap stuff, Honda will still be around if you ever need to cash in the warranty. Bitter pill to swallow, but might as well only swallow it once.

Like you, I'm looking for a push mower. In my case it's to leave at the apartments for tenants to use - no way are they getting a $600 Honda though! Lol. It's going to be left out in the rain, run over rocks, used to puree dog crap..

 

This one came assembled, i unfolded the handle, added the supplied oil that it came with and added premium gas to it.
Started on the 2nd pull out of the box.

 

Honda has been making a plastic deck mower since the early 1990s .... they do perform well.

 

Good purchase LinkedXJ. I have a new Honda in the shed here at home. I gave my "old" one to our daughter and son-in-law for their new home. It was only three years old, so it should be good for another 25. Prior to the one I gave them, I had another Honda here at home that I brought up to our cabin to have a bagger up there for making compost. I love Honda mowers...never a hitch with any of them. Well worth the money.

 

Pulled out the HRX 217 that we picked up from the Home Depot rental department, maybe 5 years ago. Checked oil, sharpened the blade, gas and first pull it was purring like a kitten (tiger). It was easy to see that the people that rented it were not easy on it.

 

Plastic deck... maybe its for cutting AstroTurf ;->

 

Some of those hrx models surpass $800. They are quality. Number one most common failure part is the little grey rotating pin for folding the handle. $11 combined for all five little parts contained in that little pin.

Imo, there's not a better mulching 21" machine on the planet.

 

2yrs ago I finally replaced my Sears mower....which was a POS....
and my dad's old Ariens. The Ariens was 36yrs old.
It ran fine but was burning oil.
I paid a cool $900.
Took me a summer of mowing to learn how to use it.
Let it do the work and it takes almost no effort to use it.
It's a great mower. Should last me the rest of my life.

 

My 06 plastic deck Honda has been awesome, same with others I know that own them, it's the mower to get IMHO. And it stands up to rocks and sticks better than the tin foil decks the other guys sell.

 

I worked for a Honda OPE dealership back when they came out with the plastic deck (it's actually a "space age" polymer...they call it nexite...I seems recall it was called something different back then)
They knew they were gonna have their doubters so they made a video of a full-size pickup parked on a bare mower deck...no damage!

 

I got about 5 years or so into my Honda mower (not sure the model cost $399 pretty basic) works like new. Change oil, clean air filter, and sharpen blade once a year pull. Starts one pull every time. Love the double blade, best mulcher I’ve ever had, I never bag, even leaves on the fall.

 

Sounds very familiar and I hope you fair better.
16 years ago I bought a Honda Harmony from HD. 7 beans if I remember right. I bought it to replace a snapper my bil gave me soon after we built the house. It ran well but I wanted a walk behind after a season of pushing over an acre of lawn.
Ran well the first season and not so well the next. Third season I bought a Cub Cadet ride on. Even if the Honda ran well, I think I was done walking for hours to cut the grass. But it didn’t run well.
I sent it to get fixed a few years ago so the kids could join in, but it came back still running crappy. It’s in my cellar now.
I’m certain it was my fault not using the right fuel and not putting it up for the season.
I’m toying with tearing into it now that I’ve got some saw engine experience and YouTube on my side.

 

Consider a new carb. Should only cost $25-$40. Did that for the GX390 0n the pressure washer after I was stupid and loaned it out (I wish I would learn that lesson someday).

 

Well i did not know that these plastic decks were sure a big thing.

Pretty cool, hopefully this mower gives us many many years of good service.

 

Funny to see this thread today - I’ve been researching mowers and was thinking there are surprisingly few posts on here about them. I’ve always had someone’s cast-off mower that needs tinkering. The Mrs does a lot of the mowing and has had her fill of pull-starting mowers that don’t want to start. She deemed the walk-behind dead, and found a used Z-turn with a key start. I serviced the walk-behind yesterday, and the darned thing started on the first pull, but there was no going back, and her new-to-us mower is in our shed this evening.