Big Step Up!
Written: Jun 25 '02 (Updated Jun 25 '02)
|
Product Rating:
|
|
|
Pros: Built Tough, Great Power
Cons: I spend more time on mower then I did on snowmobile.
The Bottom Line: It's rugged, and it will get the job done.
|
|
|
| maico28's Full Review: John Deere Lawn Tractor |
I never really concidered lawn maintence with much vigor when I was young. To me it was a pain in the but job that kept me from my friends. My Dad on the other hand seamed to like it, really enjoyed it. Dad's gone and I am the age he was then and I am experiencing the same Tim Taylor-ish need to work the lawn that my Dad used to have. First I started with a $150.00 push mower and quickly found that was to small for my 1 1/2 acre yard. Then I moved up to a $2400.00
Craftsman 18hp rider. After 5 years of use and alot of maintence to keep it going, it gave up and needed replacing.
Then along came John Deere.
Mowing with the Lx277 is a pure pleasure. It was Expensive compared to my last mower, but there is no comparison in quality. This rig is built HEAVY DUTY. Not so overbuilt that it makes it heavy, but very rugged. I do most of my own maintenece on my equipment so I become very familiar with them. The Lx277 was well thought out during design. It is very easy to work on and maintain. Minimal tools are needed and nuts/bolts/screws are easy to get at if need be.
The 17HP motor has power to spare. It starts quickly and runs nice and even. The hydrostatic transmission with cruise control is easy to use and make adjustments while mowing. Just set the cruise control at a good mowing speed, grab your coffee or cold beverage from the included cup holder and go for a nice relaxing mow.
In this day of super quiet running lawn equipment, the Deere is a little loud. My neihbors are far enough away that the noise does not bother them, but it might be a concern for someone in a heavily populated neihborhood.
The muffler is well placed so not to blow dust up for the driver to be contantly running through. Also there is no noticable smell of exhaust fumes to deal with. The oil drain and filter are easy to get at and oil changes are virtually mess free. Again alot of thought went into this during design faze.
I like the 42" mower deck that came with the Deere, and purchased the rear bagger with it. I did not get the power shute bagger. I wish I did and will probably get it in the future. The basic bagger that relies on the blades to propell the shavings into the bags clogs easily and often. The shute is held on with bungee like cords and is a real pain to remove/install. The mower deck itself is well constructed and kept very simple. Very easy to adjust as needed. The adjustment instructions are on the deck next to any adjustable parts so that you dont have to keep refering to a manual.
The seat, steering wheel, and footboard layout works for people of pratically any stature. The seat is easily adjusted for short/tall or well rounded riders. This well planned ergo design allows the rider to pass their feet through the mower for easy on/off eggress. No more mounting the mower cowboy style. The machine tracks nice and straight without much driver input. Steering is effortless.
New for 2002, John Deere for safty reasons, have installed a safty cutoff to the mower pto clutch, so that anytime the tracter is put into reverse while the mower is engaged it will automatically shut off the mower blades. The salesman I dealt with told me that safty feature was added because the hydrostatic mowers can switch from forword to reverse so quickly that many children and pets have in the past been severly injured or killed by following along behind an unexpecting driver.
I looked at a few other brands during my search for a new mower. I looked at Simplicity, Huskvarna, and Kubota. The Husky was an exact duplicate as my 5 year old Craftsman, only with different color scheme and stickers. Both the Kubota and the Simplicity were about $1500.00 more at a dealer that was asking more for the mowers than the posted MSRP
Recommended:
Yes
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
maico28
|
|
Reviews written: 2
Trusted by: 0 members
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.