Whether you own a new ride-on lawnmower or a used one, sooner or later you will need to start thinking about what you need to do to keep your mower maintained in top condition. Of course, you can always just take your mower down to your garage and have it looked at. But then, you’ll never know how good a job they are doing. It’s always a good idea to learn a little yourself about all the expensive things you own that might need repair. You’ll save money in the long run that way. Let’s run down all the basic lawnmower parts, and see how you might need to maintain them.
It’s easy to learn about your lawnmower parts because in effect, a lawnmower is just a smaller version of your car. And surely, you are quite familiar with how things go there.
At the centre of it all, the engine is the most important part of your lawnmower. Of course, this isn’t V6 or anything like that. You have a basic two cylinder set up, and it usually puts out something like 10 or 20 horsepower. The doesn’t sound a lot, but it’s more than enough to attack blades of grass. If you have a really small ride on system, that could have nothing more complicated than a single cylinder engine. You’ll make your engine last longer if you buy an engine size that’s a good fit for your lawn.
Your engine spins the cutting blades in the cutting deck. Now there are two kinds of cutting actions that you’ll see. The most basic cutting actions use rotary blades. These just spin away and tear up any grass that it comes across. These aren’t such a sophisticated system. The other, more sophisticated way of course is the flailing method. This is where the system uses a kitchen knife like method – pressing all vegetation that comes by right up against sharp blade.
And then finally, there’s the safety system – the brakes and the engine cut-off that makes sure that when there’s no one actually there, the more doesn’t just move around on its own.
Whatever lawnmower parts you should ever need to replace, make sure that they aren’t covered under warranty first. You don’t want to mess with anything that could be covered for free.
There’s a large market out there for used lawnmower parts. While these can certainly save you money, they could also mean quite a lot of hassle is those parts aren’t exactly the right kind or in the best shape. Particularly with the cheaper parts, buying second had can quickly become a false economy.
In general, going unbranded – with generic lawnmower parts – isn’t a good idea either. Not only can you void your warranty this way, you can never be sure that they are a perfect fit. They can end up throwing the whole system off balance.
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