g'day andrew,

a very good summary mate, me i've never been a toro fan, the best self
propelled i ever saw/used was the snapper 21", it had a 5 or 6 speed
variable drive with a dead mans grip to operate it so the engine stays
running while the drive disengages when you let go the lever (the toro
must be a headache each time you have to empty the catcher hey?).
again it had the 4 wheel adjusting mechanism mainly due to the design
of the mower not allowing for the single lever mechanisms of other
brands.

i also tend to get the idea that this sort of height adjusting is the
go in yankee land, and basically it is a simple long lasting system
compared to some of the local models systems. my experiences is i
always liked the bag catchers they aren't as heavy as a good plastic
catcher (by good i mean in comparison to the top of the range masport
catcher), the bag catcher should never rot it is woven nylon and i've
never seen one break up from the effects of ultra violet like the
rover and victa catchers can do.

i have a bag catcher on my greenfield shredder and i find it easy to
hose out after use, it probably all comes down to design, the snapper
bags where good that way.

that toro safety mechansim of the engine stopping is over the top
realy and as you say mowers that have that feature won't be suiting
the older gardener or those with health probs, can't see that it's
necessary as the normal mower doesn't have the feature, but then again
mower safety from the USA models is somewhat over the top, in their
efforts to try and fool-proof the machines, only way to do that is
remove the fool heh lol.

it had a fixed rev' setting!!!??? so it's either stopped or flat out
huh silly option that, you need to be able to adjust revs for the
density of the grass and adjust speed over the lawn though a variable
speed selector that gives longer engine life that way.

thanks for the comments andrew hoepfully these sort of posts will help
others along the way somehow.

len

snipped
--
happy gardening
'it works for me it could work for you,'

"in the end ya' gotta do what ya' gotta do" but consider others and the environment
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