We came by our Craftsman 6.25 Torque Rating (190cc) 22" Deck 3 N 1 Mulch Bag Discharge Rear Bag Mower (heretofore known as “Craftsman 6.25 Torque Mower” because that is a mouthful) in a rather sideways manner. It was originally purchased for my sister to aid in her yard work woes. In that capacity, it endured a long period of disuse, resting quietly and comfortably in her garage. When our old Craftsman broke down, we asked to borrow this bigger, better mower. My sister very kindly responded that not only could we borrow it, we could keep it, as she had found someone to do her yard work and that someone had their own equipment.

The Craftsman 6.25 Torque Mower was chosen by me at our local Sears. Of course, I grabbed it because it was red, like my vacuum. No, that wasn’t really why I picked this model--I was actually looking for a rear-bagged, self propelled, wider path mower. I selected this particular mower for my sister because she had a couple of specific problems that necessitated a better mower than she had:

1. A Bad Back—my sister herniated a couple of disks while lifting at work. As a result, pushing a mower around was a painful proposition. The Craftsman 6.25 Torque Mower, while heavy (97 lb), is self-propelled via a single speed front wheel gear drive. The drive is engaged by depressing a bar that spans the width of the handle, and disengages immediately upon release of that bar. In addition, the wider cutting path appealed. Her old mower was a 19 inch, ours was a 20 inch, so the wider path makes for just a little less mowing—I know, it’s only a couple of inches wider, but those couple of inches must add up.

2. A Good Lawn—my sister’s grass grows at a pretty astounding rate, due to some pretty impressive watering. It’s very thick, very dense, and will, quite unabashedly, grow 3-4 inches a week. Her old mower (and our old 5.5 Craftsman) lugged pretty violently when attempting this lawn, and often hers would overheat more than once in a single try.

The Craftsman 6.25 Torque Mower offers the following, in detail:

• Self-propelled mode--most definitely aids in mowing over uneven or steep terrain. Heck, with a bad back, it even helps on level lawns. However, the speed of this mode does cause problems when dealing with more lush greenery because it tends to pull the mower along faster than the mower can cut and expel the grass, especially if the grass is high in moisture.

• Oversized back wheels with five height settings ranging from 1 ¼ to 3 ½ inches. At 12 inches, the rear wheels allow for greater height adjustability and increased maneuverability, with easier turns and less gouging of the sod than with shorter back wheels.

• Briggs & Stratton Engine with a 6.25 Torque Rating (190CC). I’m no pro, but I’ve always heard good things about Briggs & Stratton, and this engine can handle most of what we throw at it, though it does still struggle a bit with denser/taller grass.

• A 22 inch cutting path, which does seem to make the job go faster, though that may be nothing more than my imagination.

• A “dust blocking” rear mount cloth bag, which is designed to reduce the amount of dust coming through. I’ve only used the rear bag two or three times, so I can’t really say that this is less or more dusty than our other mower. The bag also has a larger opening than our old Craftsman, which does make for fewer jam ups and clogs, if you do choose to use the bag. The bag’s top peels back easily for dumping, sparing us the need to dig our hands deep into the opening and pull out clippings.

• Built in mulching—cuts the grass into finer pieces to be left on the lawn for great fertilizing. Be aware that mulching does decrease the mower’s ability to deal with deeper/longer grass. Mowing more frequently solves this problem. We mow once a week to about 2 ½- 3 inches and the mower does fine.

• Optional side-discharge for clippings—this is in addition to the rear discharge, which is for bagging. The bag does not mount on the side, so if you wish to bag your clippings, I recommend using the included clipping deflector in the side.

• Easy Starting—the Craftsman 6.25 Torque Mower has electronic ignition with an extended rope pull start. With a few pumps of the primer bulb, this mower usually starts on the first (or sometimes second) pull.

• Adjustable/Fold Down Handles—the handles adjust to two positions to accommodate different sized operators. In addition, the handles collapse in the middle and fold down. Craftsman refers to these as “easy storage” handles, but I think “easy” is a stretch. More like “a bit of a hassle storage” handles.

Maintenance on the Craftsman 6.25 Torque Mower has been quite easy thus far. We’ve replaced the air filter (paper type) a couple of times and drained/replaced the oil once. It runs smoothly and reliably with very little care.

While it makes perfect sense, I must say that I was surprised at how much more gas the Craftsman 6.25 Torque Mower goes through than our older Craftsman! Our old mower could get through a summer on less than two tanks of gas, while this newer mower easily clears three tanks full. More than that if we routinely use the self-propelled feature.

Now, we have had one rather major tragedy with the Craftsman 6.25 Torque Mower, one which taught us a couple of important things about repair and upkeep:

My husband was doing the “last mow of the year.” This involves mowing over a lot of leaves and such to mulch them into the lawn. At the side of the house, the even roar of uneventful mowing was fractured by a bang, a crash, the abrupt cessation of mower sounds, and a rather impolite shout from my husband. I raced around the house to find him sitting on the grass, looking rather shaken. The mower was not running, and the better portion of the left rear wheel was gone. Turns out the mower had run over “Tenacious D” (my favorite D-shaped, 8 inch long metal sprinkler), which had been hiding in the leaves. Rear tire aside, the blade itself was missing a fair-sized chunk, and was a bit wobbly. This was the event that taught us about Sears’ new policies concerning repair under maintenance agreements. When they refused to repair it, we did it ourselves. The rear wheel was easy to order and easy to replace, and the blade was no effort at all—just loosened the bolt, pulled the blade, put the new one on, and re-tightened the bolt. Voila!

Now, I do have a few complaints about the Craftsman 6.25 Torque Mower:

• The self-propel feature actually rips up the grass if you’re moving slower than the wheels are turning, i.e., those wheels keep spinning /digging into the ground whether you’re keeping up or not. This, unfortunately, undoes any turf-preserving benefit to having oversized rear wheels. Also, the operator must be careful to disengage the drive or lift the front end when turning or else the same turf-shredding problems result.

• The mulching feature does not work well in dense or very moisture-rich grass. Instead of fine chopping and discharging, the mower fine chops then CLOGS, making it necessary to pause and tilt up the front of the mower, allowing the blades to fling the clumps of finely-cut grass in a circle around it. This usually makes some raking or vigorous grass-kicking necessary.

• Not Available in California—this is my biggest complaint. No, I don’t live in California, but the Craftsman 6.25 Torque Mower isn’t available in California because it does not meet California emissions standards. And that bothers me, makes me wish I’d gotten myself a cleaner-running mower.

The Craftsman 6.25 Torque Mower comes with a limited two year manufacturer’s warrantee. When they say limited, they mean “we won’t change your oil, or filters, and we certainly won’t cover any 'Tenacious D' sprinkler disasters.” Fair enough. They will cover mechanical or physical failures not due to operator error. Running over sprinklers is considered operator error. Again, fair enough.

In all, I recommend the Craftsman 6.25 Torque Mower for folks with yards like ours—not completely tame, but also not so wild that it requires a heavy-duty mower. This is a solid mower, it’s a good mower, but it’s not by any stretch a heavy-duty mower. It mulches well in most situations, is easy to maneuver around our trees and shrubs, and runs well with few problems.


Recommended: Yes