Mower hourly usage

[gogreencanada]

Can we get some feedback on how many hours you put on your mowers each season. (on average) Let us know what area of the country your from, how long your season lasts (avg.) and the brand name of your equipment. The reason I'm asking, is because I'm from Canada, and average between 400-500hrs/year, so when it comes to warranty, we get shafted bigtime. Warranty up here is the same even though the mowers sit inside for 5months of the year. I've tried to get manufacturers to base warranty on an hourly basis not just the calender year, thereby,making it fair for everyone. I mean really,.... what's the diff?

[TRANSMAN]

Technically the engine should be covered

Can we get some feedback on how many hours you put on your mowers each season. (on average) Let us know what area of the country your from, how long your season lasts (avg.) and the brand name of your equipment. The reason I'm asking, is because I'm from Canada, and average between 400-500hrs/year, so when it comes to warranty, we get shafted bigtime. Warranty up here is the same even though the mowers sit inside for 5months of the year. I've tried to get manufacturers to base warranty on an hourly basis not just the calender year, thereby,making it fair for everyone. I mean really,.... what's the diff?

I think / believe the engine should be covered for any defects for at least 1000 hrs.....

The reason being the EPA is supposed to enforce that any engine basically over 10 hp be able to run without producing excessive emissions for a period of 1000 hrs regardless of how old it is......

Now of coarse most dealers wont even know the law and will laugh at it but i did call a 1-800 number and threaten one company when a cam started going round (motor clacking away) that i was going to report them to the EPA and they instructed the place of purchase to exchange or refund the money for a friend of mine who was having this problem and had less then 100 hrs on his machine...

Actually i didnt do a smog test on it bluffed and have no idea if the rounding of the cam effected the emissions at that particular point but im sure sooner then later the thing would really started not opening a valve and it would have effected emissions in some way causing some extra pollutants

Its kinda a way of beating around the bush to get some help but it was the only thing i could think of as a last resort to save a bud from getting screwed and he did get a brand new replacement and it didnt cost the dealer it went back to the factory anyway so i dont know what the fuss was about anyway especially if the owner wants repeat business....

So the point is anything causing the engine to run improperly during the emission warranty should give you access to some help when it comes to the engine on the machine.....

There should be a metal tag / plate that tells you how many hours the engine must pass the pollution standards so you have to look ....

This is another good reason to buy everything with an hour meter on it also but most commercial equiptment comes with them so it shouldn't be a problem anyway......

I put hour meters on everything i use since Granger started selling them 25 years ago ....

Interesting thought and thread......

ill be interested in where it goes and if anyone has any input gogreencanadaguy.....:laughing:

pupsterdouble-t

[gogreencanada]

Because it is such a select market, I believe that the mowing companies think they have us over a barrel. I disagree. After working at a golf course for 20 years and now on my own for the last 10, I KNOW there are enough of us out there that we could have some input to exactly what is a reasonable warranty for mowing equipment. To me, it wouldn't be that farfetched to have a 1000 hr warranty in place. It would be all relative, because the southern folk will have used that up in 15 months or so and it would be fair to the northern people who would take about 15 "actual" mowing months as well.

[buster57]

I'd love 1000 hour warranty, but we are dreaming.

The Honda dealer would like to give commercial users 90 days. Kubota one year. The assumption is that these machines are going to get used real hard.

I may be wrong but let’s figure 100 hours/month for a WB mower. At this rate you would replace one every 3 or 4 years. From my discussions with the mechanics they all say that items like loading and unloading are the biggest cause for mechanical breakdown. After that it is the standard life expectancy of a gas engine, which is at the most 2000 hours. That's it.

All I can say is go diesel as soon as you can afford to otherwise maintain your stuff as well as you can and you should then get 1500 to 2000 hours.

[TRANSMAN]

What about 30,000 + hours buster babe?????

I'd love 1000 hour warranty, but we are dreaming.

The Honda dealer would like to give commercial users 90 days. Kubota one year. The assumption is that these machines are going to get used real hard.

I may be wrong but let’s figure 100 hours/month for a WB mower. At this rate you would replace one every 3 or 4 years. From my discussions with the mechanics they all say that items like loading and unloading are the biggest cause for mechanical breakdown. After that it is the standard life expectancy of a gas engine, which is at the most 2000 hours. That's it.

All I can say is go diesel as soon as you can afford to otherwise maintain your stuff as well as you can and you should then get 1500 to 2000 hours.

Do you think this kohler site is lien or are their just some that get lucky??????

READ ABOUT KOHLER ENGINES on the 11`th line down and tell me what you honestly think.....

Ohhh click this first!!!!!

http://opeengines.com/

24 / 7 for 5 years or 30- 40 thousand hours......

Serious question for my curiosity only is what happens to your engines when they get to the end of the life cycle that you assume there used up and shot??????

Ohhh and how many hours do you get out of them anyway because i had 3 hurricanes in a row a few years ago and put over a thousand hours on my briggs powered gen and it already had thousands on it before that.....

1st hurricane it ran 24/7 3weeks straight

2nd another 3 weeks straight

3rd the power company got slightly better and got the power on in 2 weeks but the gen ran the entire time also.....

I had just put on a new cheapy hour meter but it broke from the vibration or somthing at 978 hours but i figure in that 1 season i used it 1300 + hours powering a house for a tenant who needed it for his oxygen machine.....

I had 3 other gens all running also and the only problem i did have was on a new honda i had bought for my use (so noise wouldnt drive me buggy) that the carb plugged up on and i had to clean ....

Other then that no problems with even the new unbroken in honda getting around 1000 hrs and no smoke , knock , or working any less then they did before these storms....

I'm not sure but i might have even had a 4th storm but would have to look back at my log books......

PUPYCAT

[buster57]

30,000 or 40,000 joints before they could make that statement...

A normal depreciation table will indicate that the machine is nearing the end after 1500 hours or so. This table may be internally generated but bigger companies will have them. Their accounting departments will have and use them for sure.

A good physical (or billing) indication your machine is nearing the end is your maintenance costs will start to increase. Equally important, the resale or trade in value of the device will start to drop very fast. This is true according to my personal experience with many John Deere machines and is consistent with my discussions with territory tech managers for Exmark and Kubota. You reach this time on your machine and if you can afford to do so you should sell it or trade in on new stuff. GM and others can chime in here with some words of wisdom, but you certainly don’t want to send a crew out with a machine that is used up. That will cost you as well.

As far as your generators go, I have brigs gens that have sh1tloads of hours on them as well. Power outage in the Pacific NW? Question is; what kind of load is on the engine? On a Onan 18 horse engine powering a JD-318, 1000 hours is a lot tougher then 1000 hours on a 10 horse Brigs generator. You put 2000 hours on a Kaw on an Exmark and you probably better have another one on order. Note: I am a BIG fan of Kaw engines, they just don’t run forever, I wont either .

FWIW- For diesel engines Kubota does not even run the hour meter on Grand L units unless they are under a load. You can idel them for 1000 hours and it literally does not register. On the smaller “B” and “TLB” units the meter runs 100% of the time the engine runs.

My $1 NTD worth !

[TRANSMAN]

Roflmao... Some calm sleepy dudes there

30,000 or 40,000 joints before they could make that statement...

A normal depreciation table will indicate that the machine is nearing the end after 1500 hours or so. This table may be internally generated but bigger companies will have them. Their accounting departments will have and use them for sure.

A good physical (or billing) indication your machine is nearing the end is your maintenance costs will start to increase. Equally important, the resale or trade in value of the device will start to drop very fast. This is true according to my personal experience with many John Deere machines and is consistent with my discussions with territory tech managers for Exmark and Kubota. You reach this time on your machine and if you can afford to do so you should sell it or trade in on new stuff. GM and others can chime in here with some words of wisdom, but you certainly don’t want to send a crew out with a machine that is used up. That will cost you as well.

As far as your generators go, I have brigs gens that have sh1tloads of hours on them as well. Power outage in the Pacific NW? Question is; what kind of load is on the engine? On a Onan 18 horse engine powering a JD-318, 1000 hours is a lot tougher then 1000 hours on a 10 horse Brigs generator. You put 2000 hours on a Kaw on an Exmark and you probably better have another one on order. Note: I am a BIG fan of Kaw engines, they just don’t run forever, I wont either .

FWIW- For diesel engines Kubota does not even run the hour meter on Grand L units unless they are under a load. You can idel them for 1000 hours and it literally does not register. On the smaller “B” and “TLB” units the meter runs 100% of the time the engine runs.

My $1 NTD worth !

30 thousand joints now that was a good one......:laughing::laughing:

i still must say though that i have a lot of equiptment iv been renting out for years and they have 10 times the 1000 hr you say is a normal life cycle......

If you just ran it constantly the engine would be shot in a month and 10 days and from experience working in Manhattan building tunnels they had generators and air compressors running all 3 shifts 24 hrs a day and they didnt shut some things down for the 3 years i worked there so some chit had buko hours and i dont even want to add them up.....

My forklift i bought with a broken hour meter showing 10,000 hrs has 13 years more work hrs added and everyone in my neighborhood uses it and when i need it i have to hunt it down and that's constantly going.....

Hydraulic hoses iv replaced a few welds rebuggerred but the engine still is going strong and everyone agrees that's been useing it it must have at least 20 thou hrs on it by now being run every day going from shop to shop.....

That i shoulda charged by the hour!!!!!!

Got a chipper also that i picked up from a land clearer with 10 thousand hours and listen to this story because i think its pretty funny....

This guy George clears land for malls and developments being built and the chipper meter hits exactly 10,000 hrs and is powered by the original 300 straight ford 6 cyl......

This engine runs like a top , no oil burning , 55 pounds of oil pressure hot plenty of power and basically if it wasn't for the meter it could have been sold as being with a new engine but just because the meter hit 10,000 George insists on getting a brand new 300 industrial 6 from ford.....

This was against my advice because my motto is dont fix somthing if it ain't broke!!!!!!

Anyway he puts the brand new engine in and calls me up asking if i can junk the old one for him..... I tell him store the freakin thing "you have the room" but he insists he dont want more junk laying around so i drive down 1 hr each way and take this engine off his hands......

He starts the thing up while im there saying how good it feels being prepared and all now that he has this new engine and nothing can possibly go wrong....

Runs it 30 minutes drops the oil refills and gets ready for the next land clearing gig....

The first time out with his brand new engine it runs about 5-10 minutes and starts making some weird noises and before he can push the off button the engine seizes up tighter then a chinese p...y .:laughing:

So he calls me up i drive down and he wants me to try breaking it lose and i tell him its seized , no sense wasting time because the engine is junk , so for kicks we drop the pan real quick and the oil pickup tube is laying in the oil pan.........

Anyway now he`s disgusted , has to rent a chipper to start the job , and gives me the other one and i went through the original engine which had slight wear in the 1st front cylinder which runs the coolest and gets more acid buildup but other then that everything on that engine were withing factory tolerances........

I threw in Rings bearings and a gasket set but otherwise it could or should have at least made money for him for another 10,000 hrs easily and if i knew what it was inside wouldn't have took it down like i said if it ain't broke leave it alone but i wanted to see just because it was already out and see what 10,000 hours looked like inside somthing that was really worked hard......

Ohh and by the way not to knock diesels he ended up buying a diesel unit as the replacement and he always kids around with me that the diesel unit cant hold a candle to the old 300 gasser.......

No turbo so it stalls under the same size logs that the gasser with so- so blades would just grind up and spit out in pieces smaller then snowflakes.....

Plus when it breaks down which it has things like the injector pump cost more to replace then the engine cost on the old gasser....

Thank god it doesnt have a turbo because i dont think the engine could handle a turbo especially when it would be kicking in every time he throws in a branch more then a inch thick......:laughing:

True story if you read it .......

Ohh and on the Gen sets i had transfer boxes installed on the old ladies rental so at laest everything 120 volt could be run so it had the load of the entire house minus the central air and hot water heater unless she wanted to shower which she could with a phone call......

If she needed a shower i flipped on the hot water breaker so she could shower or whatever but otherwise i figured gas consumption would go threw the ceiling keeping hot water heated when she wasn't useing it daily anyway....

I put a small 13000 btu window unit in for her to keep the room with the oxygen machine nice and cool and gave her plenty of bootleg DVD`s to watch and kill the time during that hurricane season....

I think on the first 2 hurricanes i was the only homeowner with properties that had lights and modern conveniences within the entire state.....

PupyQuake

[buster57]

I am addressing 30 H-P or less gasoline engines. Bigger stuff is beyond me.

I had 180,000 miles on my last two Ford trucks-who knows how many hours they had on them??

As far as generators go, at $100/day+ to run them even diesel gets expensive. This is why you go nautral gas on those bad boys ASAP.

[TRANSMAN]

As no one wants to weigh in

I am addressing 30 H-P or less gasoline engines. Bigger stuff is beyond me.

I had 180,000 miles on my last two Ford trucks-who knows how many hours they had on them??

As far as generators go, at $100/day+ to run them even diesel gets expensive. This is why you go nautral gas on those bad boys ASAP.

Ill throw a few thoughts around....

You did actually put a little kawi dig in their buy not saying their superior and last forever and that took some big ones because im sure this crowd all think Kawi is the best and last forever ......

I never liked the newer kawis as from my experience with them they are built compacted too tight , run hotter then the others and end up having ignition and charging problems sooner then later...

I have an older horizontal model powering a air compressor and the pump is worn out enough that oil blows by the rings and into the water separator but the engine is still running strong and uses absolutely no oil between changes and it still compresses air fine...

This thing i got for $50 bucks from a roofer who used it 6 days a week for 10 hour days for years and it finally gave out because the valve got some shalack on it while he was laid up in the hospital and after he went back to roofing the valve stuck open , losing all compression , and he thought the engine was just done because it had so much use on it....

I freed up the valve , removed and cleaned the glue off of it , changed the oil , and put it out for rent for others to use and rented it for years making lots of money from what he was just about to throw away........

I brought that up to my new home and now use it for my personal projects when the electric units are out of range of a outlet but it works great uses a little oil in the pump and eventually ill just re-ring the pump or just keep an eye on the oil because it uses a trivial amount.....

That has a very expensive cast iron pump and when i inquired about ordering rings for it the dealer said he had never had a request for rings or anything on that pump as it was designed for a 25000 hour minimum life expectancy and asked me how many engines i went through to wear it enough to have oil blowing into the water separator and he was quite surprised when i told him it was the original kawi engine that came with the unit.....

He even said for the Minuit amount i described entering the separator i should just keep an eye on the oil and run it until it doesn't compress which it does just fine and as well as when new.......... Probably just gunk on the oil control rings.........

Anyway that definitely has way more then 1000 hrs and is another unit i had a hour meter on from harbor freight that died just before the contractor renting it pushed it near the 10,000 mark forgetting all the hours the original owner put on it laying roofs.....

I have older cool bore engines both briggs and Tecumseh's and even those got by 1000 hrs but i wont get into boring details about them.....

I figure if you got 180,000 miles out of your fords and averaged a driving speed of 30 mph figuring in the times you sit in traffic , and drive slower around town with stop and go traffic along with a 60 mph highway driving speed that your engines had approximately :

180,000 divided by an average of 30 mph = 6000 hrs engine use......

If you only jumped on the highway and drove right up to 60 or so then you would have somthing like:

180,000 / 60 mph = 3000 hrs engine use.....

Regardless i must commend you on such a accomplishment because at one time i was told that everyone knew that automotive gas engines only lasted 100,000 miles at the best , and you actually almost doubled this!!!!!!:laughing:

I have 250,000 miles on my V-6 24 valve Isuzu Rodeo and it runs as good as the brand new van i bought for the family but im sure the odometer is wrong because everyone knows gas engines blow apart at 100,000 miles , and getting 2.5 times what they say they last is impossible or i am a fraud.

Still holds 80 psi of oil pressure cruising down the road also indicating the bearings are still at manufacturers tolerances so i know this all must be impossible because they say so and everyone knows this.....

I always wondered why anyone would even buy a gasoline engine when they only last 100,000 if your lucky ,especially people like my grandfather who drove 250 miles back and forth to IBM back in the 70`s putting 70,000 miles a year on the car with the trips added going food shopping , and thought he could get 10 years from the car because he thought it would be the last car he bought before dieing and amazingly he did drive it back and forth for 10 yrs then retired and had about 700,000 thousand miles on it with nothing required except 4 new timing chains and 1 valve job, (along with water pumps and other things like belts that any motor will require) and the engine still was moving me around when my firebird got wrecked and i needed wheels to temporarily get to work which was another long back and forth trip it was shoved into service making a 120 mile round trip journey back and forth to work in good old upstate NY........

I feel for the guys who can only afford those gassers that only get 100,000 miles "if their lucky" and have to either not drive every other day or must own multiple gassers allowing each a rest period or have to swap to a new engine every year if they actually have a job where they drive by the mile every day.........:laughing:

351 Windsor : VERY GOOD MOTOR IMO!!!!!!!!!

Never saw one that didnt make 200 thousand unless overheated and run without oil at the same time......

I just wish their was others as lucky as me that could get over 100 thou on a gasser but it must be so rare that people think their halucenating and embarrassed to even say or everyone does and its no big deal worth even mentioning........

I tried gogreencanadaguy but the thread didnt seem to take this time but keep posting and keep things interesting because otherwise it gets boring reading the same threads over and over again.......

Well that's my book for the week. beddy time and i must remember to pray for steevee-oooo.....:laughing:

trannyquake

[gogreencanada]

Just got back from the Minnesota GreenExpo and had some interesting conversations with some of the mower companies represented there. At each booth we mentioned the warranty issue for lawn companies up north. Only one booth responded positively and might be prepared to step up to the plate. We got discussing the possibility of 3 year/1500 hr warranty. The company were the ones who named the hour limit. I will not name them now, but will keep you informed as things progress. Hopefully it will lead to good things.