With the price of good mowers today, and the ever decreasing availability of gas powered mowers, I suggest an oil change.
My mower
- Thread starter 93cruiser
- Start date
With the price of good mowers today, and the ever decreasing availability of gas powered mowers, I suggest an oil change.
Obviously it depended on the model of Toro SR. You could spend ~$300 or ~$800 on one.
Right around 1999-2000 I was shopping for one and almost pulled the plug on a Toro SR that was not self propelled, had the briggs flat head, SR aluminum deck, good wheels, etc. Again, this was not a regular recycler. It was a SR. This was at a Toro dealer and the price was $279. One with personal pace at the time was about $100 more. The fancier SRs in the 1990s with the Suzuki OHV engine (or what ever it was), E-start, etc. Those were easily $700+
Back then, instead of buying that Toro SR, I picked up a Honda single speed self propelled, with the first model year of the OHC GC engine. It's a 1999 model year. I bought it from a Honda dealer for around $340 IIRC. That mower is still alive and kicking.
I also have a Snapper Ninja mulcher commercial 21" with the disk drive, rear differential, 190cc briggs with an oil filter. I mail ordered it in 2012 for around $600. Briggs had owned Snapper by then, so it's likely not quite what they used to be. It's a heavy, steel decked beast of a mower and mulches well with the "ninja" blade. I bought it because of it's hardware quality more than it's mulching ability. Nothing mulches as well as a Toro SR IMO.
If you want the best bagging capability, you go with a Snapper Hi-Vac, mulching then you get a Toro Super Recycler. Those seem to be the best for those purposes in my experience. The Hondas with the double blades mulch pretty well also. When I was a kid we had one of those Snapper rear engine riders with the hi-vac deck and a bagger. You could suck rocks out of the ground with that thing.
I have a 2007 Super Recycler I saved from the landfill a few years ago. I got a new Briggs OHV 7.25 motor for it for $180 on eBay because the original flathead had been run w/o an air filter and was pretty much worn out. If you ever have to replace your motor on your Toro, just remember that they use a 25mm shaft diameter with a 7/16" bolt for the blade adapter (instead of the normal 7/8" and 3/8" bolt diameters).
I use, and recommend synthetic multiweight viscosity for year round use (I mulch leaves with the riding mower as well).
I just bought our 3rd lawn mower. Our first one (bought about 1979) had a B&S engine. One day after 25 years of good service it just wouldn't start and I couldn't figure out why. The ignition must have slipped out of time or something like that. It was well used and I didn't have the time to do a complete tear down so I recycled it.
I replaced it with a Craftsman with a Honda engine. It starts easily, has an easily adjustable deck height, a dead man's engine kill feature, and a grass bag that works - so we really moved up in the world. It's still going strong after 20 years. Doesn't smoke or use oil either. The blade is original and sharpened regularly. I've changed the oil annually and have replaced the spark plug a couple of times. It's now going to be parked at the top of our hill to mow the septic field. It's just too hard (and too hard on the mower) to push it up that hill every week or two.
Our 1 week old Honda mower is reputedly from the final year of Honda's gas engine mowers, a self propelled model too (our first). It cost just over $1,000 Cdn. Nice mower, kind of heavy. It should last at least 20 years. I'll be 95 by then so this should be our second last mower.
OP - With the price of new mowers and how long they last with minimal maintenance, annual oil changes are a good investment.
I replaced it with a Craftsman with a Honda engine. It starts easily, has an easily adjustable deck height, a dead man's engine kill feature, and a grass bag that works - so we really moved up in the world. It's still going strong after 20 years. Doesn't smoke or use oil either. The blade is original and sharpened regularly. I've changed the oil annually and have replaced the spark plug a couple of times. It's now going to be parked at the top of our hill to mow the septic field. It's just too hard (and too hard on the mower) to push it up that hill every week or two.
Our 1 week old Honda mower is reputedly from the final year of Honda's gas engine mowers, a self propelled model too (our first). It cost just over $1,000 Cdn. Nice mower, kind of heavy. It should last at least 20 years. I'll be 95 by then so this should be our second last mower.
OP - With the price of new mowers and how long they last with minimal maintenance, annual oil changes are a good investment.
My Toro SR3 w/o Personal Pace is celebrating it's 16th birthday, and I paid just under $400 for it. So yea, about $300 sounds about right for a 24 year old Toro. But, as pointed out, I could have easily spent $600+ for a Personal Pace with battery start, so there is a price range.