Wanted: Tough petrol lawnmower

[bungeejumper]

Our faithful 20 year old Flymo 46 is nearing its end. Yesterday the wife mowed up some twigs on the lawn, just like Monty Don recommends, and one of them came right through the steel deck and left a jagged hole in the rust. After two decades, you can't say fairer than that. And the bolts under the deck are all seized, and anyway nobody seems to make them in that size and thread any more.

So yes, we need a new mower, and it needs to be petrol because our half acre of grass (in three locations) won't cope with a lot of cabling. We also need it to be quite rufty-tufty, because we have a steep and stony bank at the front of the house which would swiftly kill off anything that was too precious and perfect.

I'm looking to spend up to about £350. Mountfield? Toro? I've thought about B&Q's MacAllister, but it looks like you can't get spares for very long. Are Husqvarna any good? Any recs?

BJ

[kiloran]

I'm in a similar position. My petrol Mountfield Empress is getting a bit battered after 25 years of faultless service. The blade is in dire need of resharpening but I'm struggling to remove it, the bolt is stuck fast. I could put it in for service but that would be £70-100 so I'm thinking of treating myself to a new mower.

So many conflicting reviews of various mowers. I thought about a Hayter Spirit 41 but quite a few reviews suggest it struggles on wet grass and the 2-year guarantee is only valid with yearly servicing at a Hayter dealer at £100 a time. I'm also considering a Cobra RM40C, but I suspect I'll finish up with a Mountfield S421R.

The Hayter does have the advantage of a blade driven via a friction disk system, so if the blade hits a solid object it should prevent a bent crankshaft.

I would consider a Honda, but I want a mower with a rear roller, not so much for the stripes but because a roller is so much easier at lawn edges. The Hondas with a rear roller start at £860 which is just silly.

--kiloran

[redsturgeon]

I had a trusty old B&Q special with a perfect Briggs and Stratton engine that ran like a dream. The deck rusted through after about 15 years so I replaced it with a Hayter with a rear roller and an aluminium deck. The engine although still a B&S is not quite a sweet though.

As far as sharpening the blade, I just tip it on its side and get a big file out when it needs it...simples. It's not as if you will be slicing sushi with it!

John

[bungeejumper]

I'm in a similar position. My petrol Mountfield Empress is getting a bit battered after 25 years of faultless service. The blade is in dire need of resharpening but I'm struggling to remove it, the bolt is stuck fast. I could put it in for service but that would be £70-100 so I'm thinking of treating myself to a new mower.

So many conflicting reviews of various mowers. I thought about a Hayter Spirit 41 but quite a few reviews suggest it struggles on wet grass and the 2-year guarantee is only valid with yearly servicing at a Hayter dealer at £100 a time. I'm also considering a Cobra RM40C, but I suspect I'll finish up with a Mountfield S421R.

The Hayter does have the advantage of a blade driven via a friction disk system, so if the blade hits a solid object it should prevent a bent crankshaft.

I would consider a Honda, but I want a mower with a rear roller, not so much for the stripes but because a roller is so much easier at lawn edges. The Hondas with a rear roller start at £860 which is just silly.

--kiloran

Thanks, KR. Yeah, I looked at the Hondas a long time ago and decided that they were just too sensitive/pricey for the kind of rock-strewn terrain in our garden. I like the Mountfields, but would want to go for the bigger engines such as https://www.johnlewis.com/mountfield-s4 ... lsrc=aw.ds.

Actually the word is that this is a Honda engine, although it's labelled Mountfield - I'll look into that. I'm quite keen on the five year warranty, though. Thanks!

BJ

[bungeejumper]

As far as sharpening the blade, I just tip it on its side and get a big file out when it needs it...simples. It's not as if you will be slicing sushi with it!

Angle grinder does it for me. A quick kiss and it's ready.

BJ

[JMN2]

Stiga with Briggs and Stratton engine, it hacked away through 40cm of hay with no problems and demolished ant nests (small hills) at the same time.

[Slarti]

I could put it in for service but that would be £70-100 so I'm thinking of treating myself to a new mower.

If you can find anything worth buying for twice that, I'd be interested to hear of it.

I paid £125 for a serious service on my old Hayter Harrier with a B&S engine about 2.5 years ago and, other than a bit of vegetation extraction after advice here, it seems to be going well, unlike my neighbour's £175 bodge job from Argos which died in under 3 years.

Slarti

[tjh290633]

I had a Hayter Harrier for 22 years, after which repair became impracticable. I bought a Champion with an Italian motor, from the then Focus DIY for about £140 or so, and that lasted me 8 or 9 years or so before the deck rusted almost through and it did not want to start. Our local mower repair man had an older Champion, with a B&S Motor, which he sold me for the price of the service, £120. It had been well looked after, unlike mine, and I think it is 15 years old now, as it has 2002 printed on its label. The secret seems to be to go for a B&S motor and the local Garden Centre has some for about £300.

TJH

[Sobraon]

Just to add the OP mentions a steep bank. I have a lot of grass to cut and I had to replace the con rod twice in 20 years on a B&S powered 'ride on'. Subsequently I realised the failure had been induced because of slight oil starvation from mowing a bank with the 4 stroke B&S.

The answer - 2 mowers - a 2 stroke (allan 216 s.h from ebay) and for the flat another vote for Stiga (lovely, powered everything and even a cup holder ).

[quelquod]

I would consider a Honda, but I want a mower with a rear roller, not so much for the stripes but because a roller is so much easier at lawn edges. The Hondas with a rear roller start at £860 which is just silly.

I have a roller drive Honda. The engine is a dream, starts first time every time, even after the winter layoff, and the cutting and grass collection performance is excellent. 10 years old and seems like it will go on for ever.

It has 2 drawbacks though. The gearing means that it is rather slow when I'd sometimes prefer a rather brisker pace. The worst problem though is that on even slightly longish grass, such as after a 2 week holiday, it simply doesn't have enough traction to self-propel. The problem seems to be a combination of a rather non-grippy roller (despite the mower's considerable weight) together with a deck which is too low at the front. Not the greatest of designs. My rather ancient Mountfield Emperor has none of these problems although it isn't nearly as good at picking up the clippings.

[Dod1010]

This is like a foreign language. I will probably be looking for a new mower before long as well as my Flymo must be at least 20 years old. I have not the slightest idea what the engine is -Flymo?- but it works every time and servicing? Every two or three years I take it down to our local smiddy as we call it in Scotland and the guy changes the plug, sharpens the blade and has it back with me in about 48 hours for around £35.

I think the new machine cost me about £75 in B & Q. It has a wide cut and does about 1/3rd of an acre each week or so in the summer.

Dod

[richlist]

Surely the future is fully automatic driver less lawn mowers.

In 50 years people will look back at us walking behind machinery cutting grass every week and laugh.

There are already products available....although they are expensive.

[tjh290633]

I bought one of the original Flymo petrol movers in 1967, as it was the only way I could cut perpetually wet sloping grass in Rochdale during the monsoon. It eventually succumbed in about 1986, by which time the mower repair man told me that the holes in the con rod and piston were oval. The GRP hood was also getting decrepit and we came to the conclusion that the only part worth keeping was the handle.

That was when I switched to the Hayter Harrier, which did about 22 years. As I recall the original price was about £35, and the alternative was a Suffolk Punch, but not good in the rain on a steep bank. Swinging the Flymo on a rope is definitely the answer for a steep bank.

TJH

[bungeejumper]

Surely the future is fully automatic driver less lawn mowers. In 50 years people will look back at us walking behind machinery cutting grass every week and laugh.

The future will have come when an automatic driverless mower can spot one of the wife's overhanging delphiniums, stop its forward movement, gently lift it out of the way before mowing under it, and then let it fall back into position. Thus avoiding World War 3.

You're right that driverless mowers are already here. We watched one demonstrating its stuff at the Malvern Show. It had been programmed well enough to leave a six foot margin around anything that didn't resemble a blade of grass - but alas, the tents, overhead electric cables, ice cream wrappers and assorted garden objects were too much for its poor little antennae to process. It spent twenty minutes in OCD mode, obsessively reversing back and forth over the exact same blades of grass, until it had mown what looked like a very small 18-hole golf course in a patch of grass the size of a tennis court.

Still, it gave the dogs something to bark at.

BJ

[kiloran]

Surely the future is fully automatic driver less lawn mowers.

In 50 years people will look back at us walking behind machinery cutting grass every week and laugh.

There are already products available....although they are expensive.

But do they tip the 4-5 cubic feet of grass clippings into the compost heap when they have finished?
And they would eliminate an excuse to not take my wife shopping.

--kiloran

[richlist]

They will.

It's inconceivable that we will have driver less cars and automation in every aspect of our life but people will still spend their weekends walking behind a lawn mower spewing out unwanted gases.

Mowing the lawn is so last year.

I'm saving hard so I can afford to have someone else do it for me.....I guess there will always be someone willing to do my garden.

[bungeejumper]

It's inconceivable that we will have driver less cars and automation in every aspect of our life but people will still spend their weekends walking behind a lawn mower spewing out unwanted gases.

Don't knock it. Walking behind a lawnmower is the closest some people ever get to exercise. Still, you're probably right about how petrol engines will be overtaken by batteries before very long.

I'm saving hard so I can afford to have someone else do it for me.....

Speaking of unwanted gases, have you considered getting a few sheep? Diligent, autonomously operational, cost absolutely nothing to run, and delicious with mint sauce.

BJ

[richlist]

Sheep are smelly, noisy things that can make a mess ...... I still prefer a gardener......they are quite cheap, do a good job and can be tax deductible.

[sg31]

Surely the future is fully automatic driver less lawn mowers.

In 50 years people will look back at us walking behind machinery cutting grass every week and laugh.

There are already products available....although they are expensive.

A guy near me has about 4 acres of grass and one of these....

https://www.toolstoday.co.uk/husqvarna- ... gIVCPD_BwE

Maybe not that exact model. His grass always looks good. It mulches the clippings so they go back into the lawn. I don't know the guy well, just nodding terms but I was talking to a builder who was working on his property for several weeks and he thinks it is an amazing machine. It works day and night and handles the acreage very well. As I understand it, it learns which areas grow fastest and cuts those more often than slower growing areas. Clever little beast.

I'm having problems with cutting my grass because it is very uneven so it gets scalped in places and left too long in other parts. Apparently this machine copes well in that situation because of it's relatively small size. If I hadn't just spent a fortune on a ride on I might be tempted.

Next job is to start levelling the lawn and try to get rid of the moss.

[csearle]

The GRP hood was also getting decrepit and we came to the conclusion that the only part worth keeping was the handle.

Ha ha, ha ha, ha ha! Terry, you are my dad!

By the time he shuffled off this mortal coil he had accumulated a complete museum's worth of potentially useful bits and bobs that were still perfectly functional. Like you if some pile of junk still had one corner that was ok he'd keep that too - just in case he ever bought the same item again and that, eventually, was the very spare he was after.

It is in my genes too but I fight and resist the urge whenever my consciousness transcends it's primal urge.

Chris