Thread: Our mower died - what's people's experience with mulching mowers?

I believe that there is only one answer to this question and its HONDA
I worked in Broome for a while at a lawn mowing business and these were the only ones that cut it.
Beware you will pay

We have honda mulching mower. The mower itself is good, but the mulching bit only sort of works. I think they probably work if you keep your grass relatively short and mow it a lot.

I tend to wait until our golden retriever (dearly departed) looks like a pale sausage dog before we mow. It doesn't cut it if you do that. Luckily you can just fit a catcher.

The motors are great, but they can be a little bit smokey. You have to use a special honda oil too.

As already mentioned, a Honda (4 stroke, straight ULP great) is the only way to go, plenty of grunt for the Land Rover owner that spends more time 4WDriving than mowing stupid lawns.

Mine is a mulcher type and again as already mentioned, works fine if you keep the lawn regularly mowed.

So for me the mulcher doesn't do jack except dump lumps of cut grass on the lawn as I only mow when I am being nagged.

I too hard a Rover mower, Briggs & Stratton motor, what a crap heap.

Best regards
DarrenR

Yep buy a Honda, Father in laws had one for 23 years and it still starts first go.

The other thing is to get the one with a large (21") cutting deck. Cuts more in one pass so that means less time mowing

Originally Posted by dm_td5

Yep buy a Honda, Father in laws had one for 23 years and it still starts first go.

The other thing is to get the one with a large (21") cutting deck. Cuts more in one pass so that means less time mowing

Yep. Ours is a 19" I think and the motor is 5hp and it has more power than it needs. It could definitely do a bigger cut comfortably.

Don't know that I'd recommend them, but I have a mate who mows about 40acres with a Victa 2 stroke mulching lawnmower. Not the smallest model, not the largest either.

He's had it for about two years.

Thing about it is that he's a monster when it comes to destroying tools, this is the only thing that has lasted.

Cheers
Simon.

Being a golf course mechanic qualifys me to comment.

The Honda Buffalo 19" would be the first choice but it is 1/2 way to a maxi locker in price.
The Masports and MTD's are all the same these days although MDT has a steel base and Masport an alloy but both have B&S engine but there are two types of bores in B&S engines, a cast iron bore which wears relatively quickly and a Chrome bore which doesn't wear unless abused.
The Chrome one is rebuildable with a ball bearing for the main bearing and the cast iron normally runs a bush.
All the Victor stuff is great these days and nearly on par with Honda and a fair bit cheaper.
Talon isn.t worth looking at if your going to use it alot, but if you only have a small lawn they do the job and is what I have at home but the pull starts can fail and are hard to find parts for.
As far as the mulching mowers the go they do only work if the grass is not long and your only trimming (the one third rule, only cutting one third of the blade of grass)
As far as the mulching / catching mowers go they are a bit of a gimik as for it to be a propper mulcher it needs 2 blades one to cut and one to mulch.
Again it will only again work if just trimming and if it is long you would have to use the catcher or leave windrows.
Most of the Rover stuff that seems expensive is because of the engine and will be much the same other than that, Im not sure of serial numbers so you can see what is what but generaly if you buy it from a good mower shop and not Bunnings then it should be ok as they have to cover the warrenty.
We have only 1 push rotary mower at work as all of ours are ride on cylinder mowers or self driven cylinder mowers and that push mower is a B&S engined masport 21" and it has been faultless.
The other thing to look for is a solid bar blade or swing back blades on a disc.
The swing backs are best for fine cuts and you can run 2 blades for course grasses like Buffalo or 4 blades for finer grasses like couch or winter grasses.
If you really want to spend some money on a mower that wont let you down you could always buy a John Deere or Toro non self drive or self drive rotary mower that is a step up from the honda but about the whole price of a pair of Maxi's.

Good luck
Damo

Originally Posted by Grizzly_Adams

Heya all.

The missus was bagging me this weekend to mow the lawn so I topped up the mower and took it outside to start it. One almighty yank later and she's starting up then there's a CLUNK bang bang bang and half a bolt bounces off my shin.

Gives me a good excuse not to do the mowing but now I gotta get a new mower. Was looking at replacing our old clunker (literally now) with a mulching mower, or maybe one of the ones that can do both mulching and catching.

Does anyone here have any experience and are there any recommendations on which brand to buy? Our last experience with a Rover mower was not that good unfortunately but I'm always willing to believe we got a lemon and generally their better than that...

Will be heading out on Monday afternoon to have a look around so was interested in people's opinions before then...

Oh and if it helps we've only got a relatively small yard (though it is on a slope)....

Everybody raves about honda, I reckon they're crap, they have throw away engines, because they cost more to rebuild than to buy a new one.
I would recommend an Australian made mower called Supaswift Toughworker, has pressed metal body, so no cracking alloy rubbish, 200mm tall fat wheels for easy pushing, 20" cut(stay away from Single Bar cutters, they have no inertia to cut taller than average grass), solid disc with swingaway blades, a USA built Tecumseh (Te-cum-see) 5 hp OHV 4 stroke engine, with oil pump to Pressure feed all the vital internals, easy start motor with primer, we have had ours for 15 years without a problem, which is good considering it sits in the shed for 6-8 months of the year and it always starts, no problem, used to be under the name of Big Bob and was half the price of Honda and other brands, stay away from the small Briggs&Stratton engines, like the Honda they are throw aways, Regards Frank.