"Dish" wrote in message
om...
For the first time in my life, I actually look forward to cutting the
grass. We bought a house on a good-sized lot, about 1/3 of an acre,
which is about twice as large as we had at our previous house
(slightly larger house, much larger property). To mow it with a push
mower would take me 10 hours, not to even mention the physical pain,
and I was dreading cutting the grass every week.

So I looked at prices and did my research, and after using Consumer
Reports (CR), I bought a Craftsman LT1000 lawn tractor (18HP OHV
Intek, 42" deck), which was under $1,000 on sale. It had the second
least amount of repairs (after John Deere) on the CR list, and it was
also third (out of 8 companies) on another CR reliability list.

Wow. I cut all that grass in just over an hour. It honestly took me
longer to look through the manual, watch the video, and familiarize
myself with everything than it did to cut the grass!

18HP and a 42" deck seems like overkill for my property, but when I
think of the time saved, it's well worth it. My older brother has
about 1 acre, and has had a rider for over 10 years, and when I told
him what I bought he said "wow, you didn't mess around, did you?" He
may have thought I bought a little rider with 9HP and a 20" cut.

Another reason it was well worth buying a rider was that after we
moved in, we were having a lawn service cut our lawn every week, at
$38 a week! After 3 weeks of that, we RAN out and bought a rider,
especially after I figured out that we would pay them over $700 for
just this year alone! So we figure the mower will pay for itself next
summer. And, I only used a 1/2 gallon of gas to do the cutting, so it
will cost me about $1.00 a week for gas.

So does anyone else have a similiar model to mine? If so, can you
share your experiences with problems, maintenance, etc.? Maybe
knowing what the upcoming problems may be, I can try to head them off
now.

I read that using a synthetic oil would make the engine run 15 degrees
cooler. I'd like to do anything I can to keep it running well for a
long time.

Thanks!


I have one of those mowers that I use for spreading mulch on large jobs.
For cutting I use a 48" H- gravely pro. The Lt 1000 is a good mower for
what it is. Which is a cheap mower so just take extra care and maintenance.

You cant really compare the cut your going to get with the lt100 vs a mower
that your lawn care co. was using.
For one thing commercial mower have a manufactured deck not a stamped
deck. Also they are design to cut and dispersed the clippings. Not designed
for what ever is the easy and cheaps way to manufacture. You also forgot to
add in your time. The cost of a line trimmer,blower and so on.

All that said just follow the suggesting that have been made. Keep the
top side of the deck clean is just as important as the underside. You have
to keep the clippings out off the pulley/guards. I have seen the after
effects off two deck fires from that.
If it don't have it yet add on a quick oil change attachment. I would
also change the first oil change after 5-8 hours of use. I use to take the
drain oil and brush it on the under side of deck as the paint wears off to
cut done on rusting.

Good luck and just keep her good and clean..