While my parents are away on a road trip, I have the task of keeping their lawn mowed. My dad has a 1 year old Toro (with Briggs 190cc) that we (my brothers and I) got him last year for father's day. After yesterday's experience, I am quite underwhelmed by the performance of the Toro.
The thing is a tank. I think much of this has to do with the iron lump that is the Briggs flathead. This is my only complaint about the Briggs.
The drive system is horrible. I have no idea why, but it will not track in a straight line. It's like the front wheels (it is front wheel propelled) are on ice and track to the left and right at random. Even my mom has commented about this.
The bag is useless. Granted, I was mowing some pretty tall and very damp grass, but it would would only be half full before the mower would stop pushing clippings up into the bag. Not wanting to spend my evening constantly emptying bags, I switched to mulching.
The mulching ability is horrible! Again, tall wet grass. Even so, I had to stop the mower every five minutes and scrape the clippings from the underside of the deck. The clippings simply weren't falling from the deck. I would stop and look under the mower to find the whole underside completely compacted with clippings. The Briggs never skipped a beat, but the whole thing sounded like it was coming apart when the clippings got too compacted. Was this a result of the high lift mulching blade trying to do do too good a job? I don't know, but I switched back to bagging for the remainder of the job.
So, that was my learning experience of the day. Honda, Briggs, or Chonda... it doesn't matter if it's bolted to a crummy deck with a junk drive system.
The thing is a tank. I think much of this has to do with the iron lump that is the Briggs flathead. This is my only complaint about the Briggs.
The drive system is horrible. I have no idea why, but it will not track in a straight line. It's like the front wheels (it is front wheel propelled) are on ice and track to the left and right at random. Even my mom has commented about this.
The bag is useless. Granted, I was mowing some pretty tall and very damp grass, but it would would only be half full before the mower would stop pushing clippings up into the bag. Not wanting to spend my evening constantly emptying bags, I switched to mulching.
The mulching ability is horrible! Again, tall wet grass. Even so, I had to stop the mower every five minutes and scrape the clippings from the underside of the deck. The clippings simply weren't falling from the deck. I would stop and look under the mower to find the whole underside completely compacted with clippings. The Briggs never skipped a beat, but the whole thing sounded like it was coming apart when the clippings got too compacted. Was this a result of the high lift mulching blade trying to do do too good a job? I don't know, but I switched back to bagging for the remainder of the job.
So, that was my learning experience of the day. Honda, Briggs, or Chonda... it doesn't matter if it's bolted to a crummy deck with a junk drive system.
Last edited:
