I'm thinking of buying a petrol mower & don't really want to pay more
than £300.

Am I right in thinking that without the "roto-stop" or "auto-brake"
feature (which only seems to appear on models of £450+) then whenever
I stop to empty the grass box the engine will need re-starting?

Thanks for any advice

Paul

I'm thinking of buying a petrol mower & don't really want to pay more
than £300.

Am I right in thinking that without the "roto-stop" or "auto-brake"
feature (which only seems to appear on models of £450+) then whenever
I stop to empty the grass box the engine will need re-starting?

Thanks for any advice

Paul

Hi Paul,

Most (if not all) of the lower end petrol mowers have a 'dead man's handle'
so when you release your grip, to empty the grass box, the engine dies and
has to be restarted, it's not too much of a problem as the engine is usually
nice and warm, so shouldn't need priming again.

BTW the Hayter Spirit 41 has been awarded best buy from Which? and it's in
your price bracket at £249 -
http://www.hayter.co.uk/pages/consum...led_push.mhtml
or have a look at Honda -
http://www.honda.co.uk/garden/Garden...ers&MowerType=
or Mountfied - http://www.mountfield-online.co.uk/

HTH

Cheers

Nick
http://www.ukgardening.co.uk

On Tue, 12 Jun 2007 03:27:08 -0700, Paul wrote:

whenever I stop to empty the grass box the engine will need re-starting?

Yes but starting a hot engine is nothing more than a grasp of the starting
rope and a gentle swing of the arm, at least on my B&S it is. Even the
toggle for the rope is half way up the handle at a convenient height and
even the other half doesn't complain about it, so it *must* be easy. B-)

--
Cheers
Dave. pam is missing e-mail

"Paul" wrote in message
ps.com...
I'm thinking of buying a petrol mower & don't really want to pay more
than £300.

Am I right in thinking that without the "roto-stop" or "auto-brake"
feature (which only seems to appear on models of £450+) then whenever
I stop to empty the grass box the engine will need re-starting?
=======

Restarting the mower isn't so bad - as long as the grass box works well. The
mower I have won't fill the box more than a third full so I spend more time
stopping, removing, emptying the box, refitting and restarting ...than I do
actually cutting the grass.

See how fast you can take the bag on and off in the shop. Anything fiddly
will be a pain really quickly.

In message om, Paul
wrote
I'm thinking of buying a petrol mower & don't really want to pay more
than £300.

Am I right in thinking that without the "roto-stop" or "auto-brake"
feature (which only seems to appear on models of £450+) then whenever
I stop to empty the grass box the engine will need re-starting?


Yes it will need a restart but as the engine will be hot and you've only
left it for a minute it will be very easy to start again. On my cheap
mower just the hint of turning the hot motor with the pull cord gets it
started again.

If you are emptying the grass box you may want to stop the motor anyway
for safety reasons. With a spinning blade machine, if you let the grass
box get too full the cuttings start to build up in blade housing. That's
not somewhere I would want to go with a motor that was still spinning,
irrespective of any safety feature that the manufacturer has fitted.

--
Alan
news2006 {at} amac {dot} f2s {dot} com

"Paul" wrote in message
ps.com...
I'm thinking of buying a petrol mower & don't really want to pay more
than £300.

Am I right in thinking that without the "roto-stop" or "auto-brake"
feature (which only seems to appear on models of £450+) then whenever
I stop to empty the grass box the engine will need re-starting?

Thanks for any advice

Paul

A bit late in to the answer with this one, due to being at BBC GW NEC. But
yes you are right, 95% of all mowers have the deadmans handle stop the
engine system on them.

So yes, you will need to restart the engine each time you stop to empty the
grassbag. You're either going to have to pay more than you want to or accept
this situation.

My advice would be to either purchase a Honda IZY or Hayter Motif (which has
the Honda engine) that has the Honda engine which incorporates a
decompression system which has a cam that lifts the valves from closing on
pullover and makes the engine an easy start system, unlike lots of the
machines that say easy start and are anything but easy start.

On Sat, 16 Jun 2007 22:43:28 +0100, Road_Hog wrote:

incorporates a decompression system which has a cam that lifts the
valves from closing on pullover and makes the engine an easy start
system, unlike lots of the machines that say easy start and are anything
but easy start.

If a hot fourstroke won't start easy there is something wrong with it.

There are also mechancial start systems about. The running engine winds up
a spring, when the engine is stopped pressing a button/lever releases the
spring which turns the engine. I'm rather wary of spring based energy
storage systems, they have a tendancy to bite and bite hard if you are not
careful during maintenance operations. BTDTGTTS and only with tiny springs
let alone one with enough umph to turn an engine...

--
Cheers
Dave. pam is missing e-mail

"Road_Hog®" wrote in message
...
My advice would be to either purchase a Honda IZY or Hayter Motif (which
has
the Honda engine) that has the Honda engine which incorporates a
decompression system which has a cam that lifts the valves from closing on
pullover and makes the engine an easy start system, unlike lots of the
machines that say easy start and are anything but easy start.

I've got a Honda powered mower. Love the engine. Hate the grass collector
box and it's attachment.

I get to use other peoples' mowers from time to time, and I've picked up the naughty habit of holding the "dead man's switch" bar in the "on" position with a twist of garden wire, so that I don't have to keep re-starting the engine.

*Ducks in anticipation of hail of rocks*

I definitely spend more time emptying the collecting bag than walking up and down.... wet grass is worst, it blocks up the vent. I use a stick to poke it out (as mentioned above, not somewhere you would want to stick your hand, ugh, shudder) to extend the time between emptying runs. I would not dream of using my hand to do this - not with any sort of mower. But a stick works well, and you can then squash the wet grass across to one side in the collecting bag. You can tell by the sound when the vent is becoming blocked, so you can poke it free before the mower starts leaving a trail of slabs of wet grass. And as the stick gradually wears down (a salutary reminder never to put your hand inside the vent) you just get a longer one.

I've encountered mowers with an electric start, but never one that actually works..... the batteries all seem to lose their ability to hold a charge.

If it helps, I discovered by accident that pull-starting left-handed is easier: I think it's because if you pull across the machine rather than straight up, you get a sort of "pulley" effect, plus your arm doesn't have to go as high in the air at the end of the pull, so it's less strain on the muscles. And yes, there is the possibility of damaging the cord, but if you use the wire twist trick, you only need to pull it once.

Good luck with your market research!

Rachel