I am fed up with the cheap lawn mowers. I bought one from WalMart, last year I think, and it crapped out on me recently. I gave it a tune up (new plug, new plug wire, etc.). Once done, and I pull the cord? No dice.
This was a cheap mower, I paid only $170 USD for it.
I asked 4 other neighbors up and down my street if I could borrow their mowers, offering even to top off their tanks & clean their mowers after I use them.
To my utter surprise, they all have non-functional mowers. One neighbor paid $99 for theirs and its been broken for over a year.
Another neighbor had two cheap mowers, both are broken.
The other two have similar cheap-o Wallyworld mowers like mine, and they didnt work too.
This is too much of a coincidence. These substandard cheap-o mowers are everywhere. I know some of you guys will say "Well I have had my Wallyworld mower for over 5 years and had no problems!" But your good cheap-o does not erase the fact that 5 of us in one neighborhood have bad cheap-o mowers.
Walmart will not lift a finger to fix my mower. They want me to by ANOTHER mower! The saying is true, buy cheap, you have to buy again, and you wind up spending almost as much as if you bought a decent product in the first place. And worse, if the 2nd one breaks too, you spend MORE than if you just bought a proper product to begin with.
I just went and bought a good mower, a JS36 (I read up on it form mower testers in several magazines and also on-line) and I opted to buy this one, it cost me about $400 USD, but it comes with a 2yr warranty where the Wallyworld one does not. Walmart just had a 90day return policy. So, after trying to fix that PSO, I donated it as is.
The JS36 has more perks: self propelled, choice of bag catcher or side exhaust mulcher, one lever to control deck height for all four wheels, and most of all, 7ft-lbf torque!
http://www.lawn-moweronline.com/john...wn-mower-js36/
I'm gonna fire up that puppy tomorrow, I have complete faith in it. I have owned and used JD riding tractor mowers for over 10yrs, and those are the best. Husky make some decent ones, but I find the JDs more durable.
Also, I did the math in my head: 2 cheap-o Wallyworld mowers @ $170 a pop = $340, only $60 less than my new JS36. And having a feel for the sorry products sold in Wallyworld, if the 2nd cheap-o mower broke too, 3x cheap-o Wallyworld mowers - $510 USD!
It was clear to me, so I cut my losses after my own cheap-o broke and seeing 4 others with broken cheap-o turds also.