Walk Behind - Best One?

[ar15sr]

I know this is a wide open question and eveyone would probably have a strong opinion.

From your experience, which is the "best" walk behind?

I am thinking about a 48" Hydro.

Is there any manufacturer to stay away from, or that you have had poor service and an unreliable mower from?

TIA
Bill

[mariner]

I have Lesco and had not had a problem with it. Most of the brand names are very much alike. The main thing your looking for is service/parts availablility, Commercial grade engine(Kawasaki or Kholer are the most used) and a steel deck and ease of use. They are all pretty much the same without getting too detailed. Scag/Exmark//Bobcat/Lesco are pretty much all you see in my area.

[mx495]

Ferris is the best, in my opinion. Have had several brands. I now have all Ferris. 6 Walk behinds ans a ztr. I have all 52 &61 walk behinds. The 48's are good but are front lite, seems like your always pulling front wheels off the ground. 52 is my favorite "all around" size. I'm not a big fan of 48's.

[grasschaser]

Exmark has served me well. I also have a good dealer in my town.

[McBillNLex]

Importance of Parts availibility, Quick Service And availiblity of Loaner Equipment

We have 8 ramp bed trucks on the streets, carrying 130 k worth of Exmark equipment. These crews mow everything from estates to soccer fields, churches to 3k sq ft tract houses. Recently the President of the Central Kentucky Thoroughbred Horse Farm Mangers Association invited me to share thoughts on the best equipment to buy for farm mowing.
All of us can sit down with a shelf full of catalogs and design our own mowers. I might spec Kohlers, one of you might spec Kawasaki. This carries right on through to mower decks, and hydro motors. (believe it or not if you check the pumps on a Lesco ZTR and An Exmark they are both the same) Someone in here asked about MTD equipment the other day, Half of MTD's production is painted green at their plant and sold under the lesco name.

The one variable in all of this is Parts and service. As the largest customer of Lexingtons Exmark dealer, I get drop everthing service, including pulling needed parts off of new mowers. Of course with a duty cycle like ours, we are also dropping 4k per month on parts with them.

When having problems with brand new Lazer HP 48's not restarting after dying in the field, I spent half an our with the dealerships president and chief mechanic, brainstorming over why fuses were blowing repeatedly, but only on certain types of properties. At my behest they had the factory reps calling divisions in Florida, Texas and the Southwestern part of the United States to see if folks in these areas that started cutting 6 weeks prior to us, might have solved the same problem.

These units had on bundle of wires to close to the upper travel point of the deck. The fuses were blowing because while cutting hilly terrain, a pulley on the deck had nicked the wire and would strike and short whenever it repeated it. since it was the ignition wire, the machine would run until you shut it down. At that point you discovered the blown fuse. This finally showed itself, when I went out to do a field retrieve on a saturday morning.

On monday I took it in and their head mechanic and I spent about an hour running down the now cut wire. Discovering the cut ignition wire gave us the clue we needed to modify the other three units.

My point is that joe and his staff bent over backwards to find the problem. They also started offering loaners and begging us to bring the units in on the first rainy day. When you guys are looking for equipment don't do the I only use John Deere, or Exmark or whatever. Ask your competitors, friends, and farmers about service, and parts experiences. My talk to the Farm Managers Association made the point that if I have a machine go down I can reroute crews to pick up the slack, or move one to tommorrow. If they or some of you small guys have your only machine go down your out of business. A dealer that has a loaner policy can be a godsend to a contractor that is down.
Also ask to look at them. Do they look like you can do a days work with them.

My final thought is to see if you can find a dealer that gives preferential service to commercial cutters. Your making your living from grass, it sure would be nice to know that your not sitting on your @$$ while some homeowners mower is being fixed before yours. I have used about every kind of mower you can think of. All of them did somethings well, and some not so well. About the only ones I won't own another of is a wright stander, and I am not at all fond of the JX85. Walker, Lesco, Exmark, Lawnboy, and Snapper mowers have all been used by me. The only reason we didn't talk to Lesco this time was the local service center no longer has a quality mechanic.
Good luck

bill

[ar15sr]

thanks

Thanks guys for all the good advice.

Bill, It's good to see how some of the service guys help out when the chips are down.

I'm going to go down to my local Exmark dealer and talk to him this week.


Bill

[mmlawncare]

Originally posted by grasschaser
Exmark has served me well. I also have a good dealer in my town.

Well, it looks like you have already made the right decision so I will just back you up on it! eXmark is KING!

[Jack D.]

Yes eXmark is King, however in the 48" range I will be purchasing a Hustler next.

Hustler now offers a 23hp on their 48" SuperWB's, while eXmark is stuck with the 17hp Kaw..

The extra HP will come in handy for mulching leaves etc..