If battery powered lawn mowers are not your thing, consider buying an ICE version sooner versus later. Honda has left the market leaving MTD and Toro to pick up the slack.
The era of purchasing a residential mower and it lasting with minimal care for 20 years is ending leaving you locked into more frequent purchase cycles with changing battery chemistries and unique battery form factors. Open up those wallets boys.
Can confirm. I use(d) two roadside gas push mowers for mowing brush in addition to yard for years until the decks started rusting through, replacing a few fuel-related parts on each, and while replacing parts on small engines is less fun than replacing parts on cars, the $200 (clearance) Craftsman V60 mower I bought for my wife four years ago now has a bricked battery courtesy of me mulching some leaves last week, which is the most demanding task it's done in that time mainly spent trimming a strip of 2" tall grass around each obstacle in the yard down to 1.5".
I am now voiding the warranty on a $99 Cub Cadet battery to get it to fit, but even before then, I had found that buying more lightweight factory blades instead of universal gas blades just really wasn't an option, and I picked up a pair for a different mower that were 1" smaller. Since it's been used so delicately and I can sharpen, I think those three blades should last whatever life it has left, but MTD/SBD/whatever Inc. is now moving to an "S-shaped" spindle specifically just to screw you - as if playing games with the plastic tab on the battery wasn't enough.
$50/yr, 16 gallons / 32 weeks in gas is my good faith estimate for this particular use - so I may have saved some money over those 4 years, but again, this mower is treated as delicately as possible, because my wife doesn't like pull cords, and the whole thing will end up in a landfill sooner rather than later. I can't imagine getting a spot welder for 0.2" tabs to rebuild battery packs as a wise decision, even if I had some faith in the circuit boards. I'm currently waiting on a $30 RC charger just to see if I can charge the one 20V series that's out of balance, but the voltage/cell math doesn't work in my favor.
Meanwhile, assuming the supply of roadside mowers in my area has quickly dropped off with gentrification and my lack of roaming the roadsides in a pickup truck, I saw this a while back, and if I was still using cheap mowers to clear brush, I'd be tempted by the sub-$200 collection:
Anyhow, while my specific problem is with whatever multinational corporation owned the Craftsman brand name at whatever point in time and decided to predestine their new line of blade-and-razor products for the landfill, is there a different multinational corporation that is going to forget about "inflation" being the solution to their "profit recession" for the last two years and start making something that you can actually service and keep running ... or are the landfills not full enough yet? I suppose I will wind up with whatever 80V Greenworks seasonal sale bundle a few more years from now, but I have zero faith. We haven't even started putting DRM chips into batteries yet.
I bought one of these last year and ended up selling it due to cut quality issues. The mower had a tendency on thicker grass to leave a clump and dump trail line of grass forcing me to do a second pass on the yard. I tried a few different blades on the mower with out a solution to my concern. That being said this is a good price and worth buying of you have thinner grass or just want to try electric. I think the super recycler would alleviate the clump as you can force the blade to spin at a higher speed vs this model self regulates toward keeping the rpm's low to save battery life
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Our community has rated this post as helpful. If you agree, why not thank connordog
12-03-2023 at 06:58 AM.
If battery powered lawn mowers are not your thing, consider buying an ICE version sooner versus later. Honda has left the market leaving MTD and Toro to pick up the slack.
The era of purchasing a residential mower and it lasting with minimal care for 20 years is ending leaving you locked into more frequent purchase cycles with changing battery chemistries and unique battery form factors. Open up those wallets boys.
If battery powered lawn mowers are not your thing, consider buying an ICE version sooner versus later. Honda has left the market leaving MTD and Toro to pick up the slack.
The era of purchasing a residential mower and it lasting with minimal care for 20 years is ending leaving you locked into more frequent purchase cycles with changing battery chemistries and unique battery form factors. Open up those wallets boys.
Can confirm. I use(d) two roadside gas push mowers for mowing brush in addition to yard for years until the decks started rusting through, replacing a few fuel-related parts on each, and while replacing parts on small engines is less fun than replacing parts on cars, the $200 (clearance) Craftsman V60 mower I bought for my wife four years ago now has a bricked battery courtesy of me mulching some leaves last week, which is the most demanding task it's done in that time mainly spent trimming a strip of 2" tall grass around each obstacle in the yard down to 1.5".
I am now voiding the warranty on a $99 Cub Cadet battery to get it to fit, but even before then, I had found that buying more lightweight factory blades instead of universal gas blades just really wasn't an option, and I picked up a pair for a different mower that were 1" smaller. Since it's been used so delicately and I can sharpen, I think those three blades should last whatever life it has left, but MTD/SBD/whatever Inc. is now moving to an "S-shaped" spindle specifically just to screw you - as if playing games with the plastic tab on the battery wasn't enough.
$50/yr, 16 gallons / 32 weeks in gas is my good faith estimate for this particular use - so I may have saved some money over those 4 years, but again, this mower is treated as delicately as possible, because my wife doesn't like pull cords, and the whole thing will end up in a landfill sooner rather than later. I can't imagine getting a spot welder for 0.2" tabs to rebuild battery packs as a wise decision, even if I had some faith in the circuit boards. I'm currently waiting on a $30 RC charger just to see if I can charge the one 20V series that's out of balance, but the voltage/cell math doesn't work in my favor.
Meanwhile, assuming the supply of roadside mowers in my area has quickly dropped off with gentrification and my lack of roaming the roadsides in a pickup truck, I saw this a while back, and if I was still using cheap mowers to clear brush, I'd be tempted by the sub-$200 collection:
Anyhow, while my specific problem is with whatever multinational corporation owned the Craftsman brand name at whatever point in time and decided to predestine their new line of blade-and-razor products for the landfill, is there a different multinational corporation that is going to forget about "inflation" being the solution to their "profit recession" for the last two years and start making something that you can actually service and keep running ... or are the landfills not full enough yet? I suppose I will wind up with whatever 80V Greenworks seasonal sale bundle a few more years from now, but I have zero faith. We haven't even started putting DRM chips into batteries yet.
I bought one of these last year and ended up selling it due to cut quality issues. The mower had a tendency on thicker grass to leave a clump and dump trail line of grass forcing me to do a second pass on the yard. I tried a few different blades on the mower with out a solution to my concern. That being said this is a good price and worth buying of you have thinner grass or just want to try electric. I think the super recycler would alleviate the clump as you can force the blade to spin at a higher speed vs this model self regulates toward keeping the rpm's low to save battery life
Toro makes a great product. My son has this mower, a blower, and the powered snowblower. All work great, do a great job for the past three years and I don't forsee any future issues. I (grouchy old man) have ICE, but when we downsize probably getting rid of tyem and going Toro
Can confirm. I use(d) two roadside gas push mowers for mowing brush in addition to yard for years until the decks started rusting through, replacing a few fuel-related parts on each, and while replacing parts on small engines is less fun than replacing parts on cars, the $200 (clearance) Craftsman V60 mower I bought for my wife four years ago now has a bricked battery courtesy of me mulching some leaves last week, which is the most demanding task it's done in that time mainly spent trimming a strip of 2" tall grass around each obstacle in the yard down to 1.5".
I am now voiding the warranty on a $99 Cub Cadet battery to get it to fit, but even before then, I had found that buying more lightweight factory blades instead of universal gas blades just really wasn't an option, and I picked up a pair for a different mower that were 1" smaller. Since it's been used so delicately and I can sharpen, I think those three blades should last whatever life it has left, but MTD/SBD/whatever Inc. is now moving to an "S-shaped" spindle specifically just to screw you - as if playing games with the plastic tab on the battery wasn't enough.
$50/yr, 16 gallons / 32 weeks in gas is my good faith estimate for this particular use - so I may have saved some money over those 4 years, but again, this mower is treated as delicately as possible, because my wife doesn't like pull cords, and the whole thing will end up in a landfill sooner rather than later. I can't imagine getting a spot welder for 0.2" tabs to rebuild battery packs as a wise decision, even if I had some faith in the circuit boards. I'm currently waiting on a $30 RC charger just to see if I can charge the one 20V series that's out of balance, but the voltage/cell math doesn't work in my favor.
Meanwhile, assuming the supply of roadside mowers in my area has quickly dropped off with gentrification and my lack of roaming the roadsides in a pickup truck, I saw this a while back, and if I was still using cheap mowers to clear brush, I'd be tempted by the sub-$200 collection:
Anyhow, while my specific problem is with whatever multinational corporation owned the Craftsman brand name at whatever point in time and decided to predestine their new line of blade-and-razor products for the landfill, is there a different multinational corporation that is going to forget about "inflation" being the solution to their "profit recession" for the last two years and start making something that you can actually service and keep running ... or are the landfills not full enough yet? I suppose I will wind up with whatever 80V Greenworks seasonal sale bundle a few more years from now, but I have zero faith. We haven't even started putting DRM chips into batteries yet.
Comparing Craftsman electric to Toro is silly. Toro products are top of the line, Craftsman somewhere below Ryobi
If battery powered lawn mowers are not your thing, consider buying an ICE version sooner versus later. Honda has left the market leaving MTD and Toro to pick up the slack.
The era of purchasing a residential mower and it lasting with minimal care for 20 years is ending leaving you locked into more frequent purchase cycles with changing battery chemistries and unique battery form factors. Open up those wallets boys.
They have a finite amount of charge cycles, and then they degrade. Most long term analyses still find that electric is no more expensive than gas even factoring in battery expense. It's just more cost up front. The cheaper fuel and maintenance of electric is supposed to pay it back after about 7 or 8 years. Time will tell if this is accurate. I like both and wish there would reamin an option for both.
I owned the gas version and loved it. Retired it after 10 years because it needed a new rear transfer gear. After first trying a cheap ryobi 40v battery mower I bought this for around $600 thinking it would be a quality unit that would last me another 10 years, but it had a lot of problems that led to me returning it. As referenced above the cut was terrible and it was awful at bagging. Despite the recycler front vent advertising, it had terrible lift and would never leave a clean, evenly cut lawn. The other major issue was the personal pace would almost never disengage. My prior personal pace was awesome and always worked seamlessly, but this one felt like I was constantly fighting it to get it to disengage to be able to back up.
Ultimately I returned it and bought an Ego dual blade and am shocked with how nearly perfect it is. If I had payed $360 for my Toro I might have felt differently, but it will still leave you with a crap cut regardless of how little you pay.
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The era of purchasing a residential mower and it lasting with minimal care for 20 years is ending leaving you locked into more frequent purchase cycles with changing battery chemistries and unique battery form factors. Open up those wallets boys.
I am now voiding the warranty on a $99 Cub Cadet battery to get it to fit, but even before then, I had found that buying more lightweight factory blades instead of universal gas blades just really wasn't an option, and I picked up a pair for a different mower that were 1" smaller. Since it's been used so delicately and I can sharpen, I think those three blades should last whatever life it has left, but MTD/SBD/whatever Inc. is now moving to an "S-shaped" spindle specifically just to screw you - as if playing games with the plastic tab on the battery wasn't enough.
$50/yr, 16 gallons / 32 weeks in gas is my good faith estimate for this particular use - so I may have saved some money over those 4 years, but again, this mower is treated as delicately as possible, because my wife doesn't like pull cords, and the whole thing will end up in a landfill sooner rather than later. I can't imagine getting a spot welder for 0.2" tabs to rebuild battery packs as a wise decision, even if I had some faith in the circuit boards. I'm currently waiting on a $30 RC charger just to see if I can charge the one 20V series that's out of balance, but the voltage/cell math doesn't work in my favor.
Meanwhile, assuming the supply of roadside mowers in my area has quickly dropped off with gentrification and my lack of roaming the roadsides in a pickup truck, I saw this a while back, and if I was still using cheap mowers to clear brush, I'd be tempted by the sub-$200 collection:
https://joesfactoryoutl
Anyhow, while my specific problem is with whatever multinational corporation owned the Craftsman brand name at whatever point in time and decided to predestine their new line of blade-and-razor products for the landfill, is there a different multinational corporation that is going to forget about "inflation" being the solution to their "profit recession" for the last two years and start making something that you can actually service and keep running ... or are the landfills not full enough yet? I suppose I will wind up with whatever 80V Greenworks seasonal sale bundle a few more years from now, but I have zero faith. We haven't even started putting DRM chips into batteries yet.
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https://www.masssave.co
Our community has rated this post as helpful. If you agree, why not thank connordog
The era of purchasing a residential mower and it lasting with minimal care for 20 years is ending leaving you locked into more frequent purchase cycles with changing battery chemistries and unique battery form factors. Open up those wallets boys.
https://www.masssave.co
Yeah I tried that for several electric tools. Never gotten a penny
The era of purchasing a residential mower and it lasting with minimal care for 20 years is ending leaving you locked into more frequent purchase cycles with changing battery chemistries and unique battery form factors. Open up those wallets boys.
I am now voiding the warranty on a $99 Cub Cadet battery to get it to fit, but even before then, I had found that buying more lightweight factory blades instead of universal gas blades just really wasn't an option, and I picked up a pair for a different mower that were 1" smaller. Since it's been used so delicately and I can sharpen, I think those three blades should last whatever life it has left, but MTD/SBD/whatever Inc. is now moving to an "S-shaped" spindle specifically just to screw you - as if playing games with the plastic tab on the battery wasn't enough.
$50/yr, 16 gallons / 32 weeks in gas is my good faith estimate for this particular use - so I may have saved some money over those 4 years, but again, this mower is treated as delicately as possible, because my wife doesn't like pull cords, and the whole thing will end up in a landfill sooner rather than later. I can't imagine getting a spot welder for 0.2" tabs to rebuild battery packs as a wise decision, even if I had some faith in the circuit boards. I'm currently waiting on a $30 RC charger just to see if I can charge the one 20V series that's out of balance, but the voltage/cell math doesn't work in my favor.
Meanwhile, assuming the supply of roadside mowers in my area has quickly dropped off with gentrification and my lack of roaming the roadsides in a pickup truck, I saw this a while back, and if I was still using cheap mowers to clear brush, I'd be tempted by the sub-$200 collection:
https://joesfactoryoutl
Anyhow, while my specific problem is with whatever multinational corporation owned the Craftsman brand name at whatever point in time and decided to predestine their new line of blade-and-razor products for the landfill, is there a different multinational corporation that is going to forget about "inflation" being the solution to their "profit recession" for the last two years and start making something that you can actually service and keep running ... or are the landfills not full enough yet? I suppose I will wind up with whatever 80V Greenworks seasonal sale bundle a few more years from now, but I have zero faith. We haven't even started putting DRM chips into batteries yet.
Sign up for a Slickdeals account to remove this ad.
I am now voiding the warranty on a $99 Cub Cadet battery to get it to fit, but even before then, I had found that buying more lightweight factory blades instead of universal gas blades just really wasn't an option, and I picked up a pair for a different mower that were 1" smaller. Since it's been used so delicately and I can sharpen, I think those three blades should last whatever life it has left, but MTD/SBD/whatever Inc. is now moving to an "S-shaped" spindle specifically just to screw you - as if playing games with the plastic tab on the battery wasn't enough.
$50/yr, 16 gallons / 32 weeks in gas is my good faith estimate for this particular use - so I may have saved some money over those 4 years, but again, this mower is treated as delicately as possible, because my wife doesn't like pull cords, and the whole thing will end up in a landfill sooner rather than later. I can't imagine getting a spot welder for 0.2" tabs to rebuild battery packs as a wise decision, even if I had some faith in the circuit boards. I'm currently waiting on a $30 RC charger just to see if I can charge the one 20V series that's out of balance, but the voltage/cell math doesn't work in my favor.
Meanwhile, assuming the supply of roadside mowers in my area has quickly dropped off with gentrification and my lack of roaming the roadsides in a pickup truck, I saw this a while back, and if I was still using cheap mowers to clear brush, I'd be tempted by the sub-$200 collection:
https://joesfactoryoutlet.com/col...n-mowers-1 [joesfactoryoutlet.com]
Anyhow, while my specific problem is with whatever multinational corporation owned the Craftsman brand name at whatever point in time and decided to predestine their new line of blade-and-razor products for the landfill, is there a different multinational corporation that is going to forget about "inflation" being the solution to their "profit recession" for the last two years and start making something that you can actually service and keep running ... or are the landfills not full enough yet? I suppose I will wind up with whatever 80V Greenworks seasonal sale bundle a few more years from now, but I have zero faith. We haven't even started putting DRM chips into batteries yet.
The era of purchasing a residential mower and it lasting with minimal care for 20 years is ending leaving you locked into more frequent purchase cycles with changing battery chemistries and unique battery form factors. Open up those wallets boys.
Batteries don't last?
Ultimately I returned it and bought an Ego dual blade and am shocked with how nearly perfect it is. If I had payed $360 for my Toro I might have felt differently, but it will still leave you with a crap cut regardless of how little you pay.