Tips on buying a used riding mower?

I know this sounds stupid, but I know all of jack when it comes to lawn mowers. I know how to clean out the carb and fill the tank with gas. Beyond that I don't know anything about riding mower decks or transmissions. I am in need of a lawn tractor to mow three lawns on a regular basis. This seems to be a great time of year to cruise Craigslist for bargains. I only want to spend $300 at most. I don't need a bagger setup, just something that can cut large amounts of grass quickly to appease the local Code Enforcement officer.

Any brands to run away from? Any tried and true, just won't die brands? Any off brands that are actually rebadged name brands? Any name brands that were good but are now cheap crap?

Oh, and whatever I get will receive a hot rod makeover. I'm thinking racing stripes and a zoomie header.

Buy mine. I've got a tractor style Craftsman I'm just waiting for good weather to put on the market. My wife loves her Zero turn so much better that

1) the tractor never gets used. . . . 2) she won't let me mow!! WIN!!

Check the local small engine shops, sometimes they move abandoned stuff cheap.

I know about what you know about mowers. I had the same budget, and bought a Toro 8-32. The only reason I wanted it was that it had a rigid plastic, clamshell-style grass catcher. I can empty it over my hill without getting off the mower, and that saves me a ton of time and frustration. I love it, every mower should have this style!

Anyway, it has an 8hp Briggs and Stratton, electric start and is has oil injection so no pre-mixing oil. I put new belts on it and a new battery as a precaution. It always starts, has plenty of power and is as reliable as a tank. The guy I bought it from buys older mowers and tunes them up and re sells them. Looks like he replaced fuel lines and filter, cleaned up the carb a bit and that's about it.

I don't know mowers, but I do know that old Toro machines are pretty bulletproof.

I looked at the Rear-Engined models quite a bit as well. Hard to find with a grass-catcher, so that may help you get one cheaper since you dont need.

Cast iron front axles are a plus on a lawn tractor. Stamped steel bits can fatigue and crack.

Get the widest mower deck you can afford. I'd consider 42" an absolute minimum.

1988RedT2 wrote: Cast iron front axles are a plus on a lawn tractor. Stamped steel bits can fatigue and crack. Get the widest mower deck you can afford. I'd consider 42" an absolute minimum.

But make sure the deck width fits where you want to go.

The tractor one I have is 52" and the Zero Turn is 42". We got the smaller 42" one because the bigger one wouldn't fit between a lot of the trees. This way I have very little touch up to do with the hand mower.

While my wife won't let me on the riding mower she does "allow" me to use the hand mower every place she's scared to go or can't reach.

Been using/maintaining a John Deere 345 since 1999. 54" deck, 20 hp watercooled Kawasaki v-twin. When I had to work rough ground, I wish it had a diff lock.

Parts catalogs drawings for John Deere machines are available on line through the jdparts website. Parts seem to be available back until about dirt was invented.

Old JD machines can be picked up relatively cheap, but the one's from Home Deport aren't worth anything near what the implement dealer sold units are.

I have an early 2000's Craftsman LT1000 that I got a screaming deal from a coworker. 20hp briggs vtwin engine.

It did come with a stamped steel axle that looked like it had been bent and bent back several times, completely shot wheel bushings and spindles, so I spent about what I paid for the mower to replace all that stuff (including cast iron axle upgrade).

with liquid ballast in all the tires and wheel weights, I mow my entire steep yard with ease.

There are several other brands that are pretty much the exact same as this tractor with some different stickers and body panels, and there seemed to be a variety of engines over the years.

it seems tractor enthusiasts (mytractorforum.com) prefer kohler engines to briggs & stratton, I dont know nothing about that.

Cub Cadet FTW

I have had a cheapo 1994 Yard-man for 8 years now. It has a 42" deck for summer and a 42" snow-blower attachment (which weights as much as the tractor) for winter. It has been nothing but reliable. The only thing non-original is the engine because it finally crapped-out on me two years ago. But I was pretty neglectful. Lawn tractors are incredibly simple tools. If all you need is to cut grass in a level field, just get what ever is the cheapest, that has the biggest deck you can find.

Unless you want your neighbors to question your manhood, don't get one of these. It's called a Yard Bug. A buddy's wife decided it was just the cutest thing she had ever seen and just had to have it, he swore he was going to wear a bag over his head when using it.

I have an old MTD 38", works fine but I wish it had a grass catcher. If I see one on CL so equipped, it will probably come home to casa del Curmudgeon.

I've had a Honda Harmony riding mower for years. It was their cheap line to complete with Snapper, but they no longer make any riding mowers. The only thing I've had to fix was the pulley on the transmission and replace a few belts. Only thing I've done to the engine has been replace the plug every few years just for E36 M3s and giggles.

The Harmony mower has a Spicer Transmission. The more expensive Hondas have a real Honda trans.

My advice is to buy an older model of pretty much anything that is in good condtion (John Deere, Cub Cadet, Honda, Simplicity, Toro). No mower is maintence free BTW.

1) does it run?

2) does it move?

3) do the blades spin when you throw the proper lever?

4) do any of the bearings make any weird noises?

5) is it big enough and powerful enough? mowing a lot of lawn on a tiny mower sucks. going from a 22" Ariens rear engine rider with a 5hp Briggs to a 46" Murray with a 14HP Briggs cut the time it took to mow my 1 acre yard by about 2/3, which was well worth the $200 i paid a friend for it.

Just about anything you buy at a box store (Lowes/Depot/Sears) is a rebadged AYP. Craftsman, Deere, Husky, Cub Cadet, etc. – almost all of that stuff is made by AYP and branded for the consumer market, just in different colors. Common opinion: it all sucks. I have a craftsman that’s about 4 years old, replaced an ancient (25 year old) Murray with it – I should have kept the Murray. The craftsman generally starts every time, which is more than I could say for the Murray, but the Murray was built tougher. If I could do it again, I’d pay the local mower swami a couple hundred bucks to un-berkeley the hacked-on-over-years electrical system on the Murray and it’d still be cutting my grass. Specifically, the Craftsman has a super-crappy deck and blade spindles. The deck is too thin, so it’s easy to bend if you ever hit a rock, and the spindles tend to break pretty easy as well. I have considered a few times just welding some flat stock onto the deck in strategic places to stiffen it up, but that’s #43 on my top ten important projects list.

I am admittedly pushing my luck, though, YMMV. I really need a compact tractor for my 2 acres, but am trying to make a cheaper lawnmower work instead. Using the right tool for the job helps, but I don’t have $10k for a tractor just to keep my grass cut, so I keep breaking my mower instead. I say every year “screw it, I’m hiring this out” but haven’t managed to make that happen yet.

So you just want something cheap that works.

Test drive it like you would a junker car. Does it start well enough, run well enough, cut well enough? Good to go. If it's been warmed up before you get there, beware. They don't want you to see the cold start for a reason. Same for if they don't want you to try running around in their yard on it.

MTD makes almost all the cheap mowers in your price range. Sold under various labels. These are the generic front engine units. Fundamentally, they are all the same.

Raise the price bar to above $1k, and then we can start talking about appreciable differences.

be careful of the "automatic" if you are going to be putting any SEVERE loads on it. I had a Craftsman 18hp(Kohler power) back when I lived in the Poconos. I bought it mostly for plowing the driveway... my grass was only about 1/8 acre of 1.9 I owned. The driveway was mostly flat... cracked rock, and was about 100 feet long from the street to the garage. After about 3 seasons the transaxle could no longer take the load and seized.