Gary...

If you're going to subject your mower to falling limbs, fence rails,
and mowing over roots that will get hit by as blade 3½" off the
ground, I don't know you should've bought any homeowner mower that
I've seen. I've looked at Hondas, Deere, Cub Cadet, and quite a few
others this week, and generally speaking, if you're spending under
$600 the build quality seems to be pretty much the same, and there's
plenty of plastic parts being used on all brands.

You might want to sell that Cub Cadet and spring for a $1200
commercial mower with an aluminum or magnesium deck and a direct-drive
system. If you need it to be self-propelled, other than a Skag-Sulky
type, I don't know if there's a good self-propelled commercial 21" cut
mower.

The first thing you might want to do though is walk around your
property with a double-action pruner and cut out any roots sticking
above the ground. If they are too big to cut without damaging the
tree/shrub (?) than why not do a little grading? Having roots popping
up that high in your lawn would not only look pretty ugly, but it
sounds like someone could trip and break a leg!

I was over a friend's house yesterday morning and watched him mow his
lawn with his John Deere. He has the JS63C (I believe) which is a
3-speed self-propelled with caster wheels on the front. He bought it
at the BORG for around $400 because it was the last one and they
decided not to carry Deere walk-behinds any longer. It's pretty
similar to the caster-wheeled Honda and Cub Cadet models I saw at HD
and Lowes. After wheeling the thing around myself, I found the
casters to be pretty neat around shrub beds. You do have a little
learning curve with the turns though as you really have to push the
handle sideways to use those casters to their fullest. I like a
caster mower, even though it takes up another 10" of length it seems.

FWIW, ePinions has some pretty positive reviews on the SRC621 Cub
Cadet. Didn't see one complaint about the oil drain issue though I'm
sure you're right. I guess a lot of people are just dropping them off
at the lawn shop and having them serviced, although I wondered if you
could simply cut a hole in the plastic right where the drain plug is
and make it that much easier to get at it?

Mike

On Sun, 20 Jul 2003 17:12:22 GMT, Gary wrote:

I think my doubts about the plastic baffle plate under the mower deck
are well founded: after mowing my lawn twice with this mower, I peeked
under the deck and there are already a couple of gashes in that plastic
baffle plate that penetrate completely through it. The look like they
may be caused by the plastic being bent against the tip of the blade,
possibly by contact with some of the roots that I mow over. I have my
doubts about the long term reliability of this mower due to these cheap
plastic components. I don't think it's going to last as long as the 19
years I got out of my Snapper.

Gary wrote:
Now that I've useed this mower for the first time, a few more comments
(much too early to say anything about reliability, other than to note
that this mower has more plastic parts than my old mower, including a
baffle plate under the mower deck, and the entire top cover of the
engine including the starter recoil cover - these might be easier to
break by hitting objects than the metal parts on my old mower (I get
pine cones on my lawn that could be forced into the baffle plate, and
tree limbs or my rail fence could hit the starter recoil cover).

The 6.5 HP engine is a big help, it mows through heavy grass much more
easily than my old mower (of course the new, sharp blade helps).

The speed control of the drive system has a higher top speed than my old
mower, which I like, but the speed control doesn't hold speeds as well
on hills, the mower will slow down a bit on uphills, and speed way up on
downhills, with the drive engaged. My old Snapper would maintain a
steady speed up and down hills, and I could use the drive to hold the
mower back to a safe speed going downhill, but this doesn't work with
the Cub Cadet's drive system. Also, the differential on my Snapper
seemed to handle turns a bit better than the ratchets in the wheels of
the Cub Cadet.

Gary wrote:

I just bought a SR621 yesterday. I haven't even mowed with it yet,
but now that I've got it home and looked it over more closely, I can
make the following comments (comparing it with the 19 1/2 year old
Snapper self-propelled mower it's replacing):

The one thing I've found that I'm most dissatisfied with is the
location of the oil drain plug (I've always changed oil myself). I
think I'm going to have to look into some kind of pump to pull the old
oil out through the fill tube, the plug location is that bad. There's
a space in the casting on the side of the engine for a plug, but
there's no plug there (this happens to be right behind where the speed
control cable goes through the deck, so a plug wouldn't be accessible
there anyway). The plug is on the bottom of the engine, beneath the
mower deck (as was my Snapper), but unlike the old Snapper, the Cub
Cadet has a baffle plate and the bracket for the drive pulley both in
the way of accessing the drain plug. To remove the baffle plate you
first have to remove the blade, then the baffle plate can be pivoted
back by removing three screws (to remove the plate completely you have
to remove 2 more screws but getting at these would require removing
the rear wheels). I'm not sure just pivoting the plate would allow
the mower to be turned right side up for draining oil unless I put it
up on sawhorses or something high to allow the plate to hang down with
the mower level. It would be best I think to also remove the drive
pulley bracket for better access and to avoid getting drain oil all
over the belt and pulley/bracket assembly. The manual describes the
process for removing the bracket (for changing the belt), which
includes unbolting the transmission from the rear of the deck (I think
just to get more slack in the belt). The manual actually does say to
remove the drain plug to change the oil (and simply says to remove it,
it doesn't say how to reach it), so I can't believe they made access
so difficult. Like I said, I think I'm going to have to look for some
kind of pump to pull the old oil out through the fill tube.

Cut Cadet these days is made by MTD, the same maker who makes other
cheap mowers (the've also bought out several other makers like Troy
Bilt and Bolens - just look at http://www.mtdproducts.com/ to see how
many brands they make). It's not clear how much of the quality of the
old Cub Cadets has carried over, I'm sure they've cheapened things up
at least somewhat. My brother has an old Cub Cadet made when Cub
Cadet was owned by International Harvester, and that tractor is built
like a tank.

The mower does have some nice features compared with my old mower (I
purposely avoided the SRC621 because I thought the caster wheel
brackets would snag on shrubs and things). BTW, the caster wheels can
be allowed to pivot or locked in place. Otherwise, this mower seems
better than my old Snapper about this, my old mower had parts like
throttle and spark plug cable in bad locations that would catch on
passing shrubs and tree limbs. The Cub Cadet has no throttle or choke
control at all (my old mower had both a primer bulb and a choke).
This seems to be somewhat common on newer mowers I guess. I could
control the engine speed on my old mower, but not this one.

My old mower was only 3.5 HP, and was underpowered for tall grass, so
I'm hoping that this mower will do better in that department.

My old mower had a heavier blade than this one (still had the original
blade after over 19 years, with only sharpening ever required). I
wonder if this new blade will hold up as well, including abuse from
things like roots I occcasinally clobber - the old one never bent.

When I got mine Snapper was known for its excellent disc drive system,
and from the looks of it the Cub Cadet's isn't the same quality.
Maybe OK, and maybe better than front wheel drive, and maybe it
compares OK with other mowers, but it's still not built as solid and
the speed control may not be as good as my old Snapper. Since I
haven't even mowed with the Cub Cadet yet I'm not sure what the range
of speeds is (my Snapper's highest speed wasn't quite as fast as I
would have liked). I really liked the rear wheel drive on my old
mower, and I wanted rear wheel drive in a new mower, so that had a lot
to do with my choosing this one.

What finally made me decide to replace the Snapper was a broken rear
wheel (plastic), that didn't appear to be easily replaced (I had
previously replaced both front wheels, probably they broke from having
been run into trees etc., but those were available off the shelf and
simply slipped onto the axle and were held in place by a nut, the
driven rear wheel is a special part I think). Besides, the Snapper
was getting so it burned too much oil, and I'd fixed a number of other
problems with it too, and several other plastic parts were cracked, so
I decided maybe it was time for a new one. Maybe I should have looked
for a new Snapper, I think their new mowers are still similar to mine,
but the dealer where I bought mine has gone out of business and I
didn't try to locate another.


Greg S. Ragsdale wrote:

I'm looking to purchase a new push (walk-behind) mower and I'm
thinking about the Cub Cadet SR or SRC 621. I have always had great
results w/ Cub Cadet tractors, but I've never used the walk-behinds.
How reliable over time is the kawasaki engine? Are these good mowers,
or should I be looking at something else. Currently I have a Toro
that I hate because it's not powerful enough for my thick lawn. So
I'm donating it to a friend who just bought her first house.

Any comments on the Cub Cadets? Does anyone have the model w/ the
front caster wheels? Are those better/worse than normal fixed-mount
wheels?

Any help would be appreciated.

TIA,

Greg