Quick report.
It did not work out of the box. But I did get it going in the end.
Now a slightly longer story.
It was brought here to the Hemlocks by a company called ABF, and dropped in the side yard for driver reasons. That had later implications.
It came in a crate which was a pain in the tail to open up (like I had to use a crow bar). And then it could not get it out of the crate without me using the new Polaris Ranger to snatch it out, which I did do. And the battery to start it was empty, so I have to charge it, and hope it holds a charge. In the meantime I just jump started it. The location was too far for me to charge it by extension cord, so I just used the Polaris to jump start it. Later I hope to drive it over to the barn area and use the charger there during the night. The catch is the safey switch which cuts off the engine when I get up to unhook the jump start Polaris Ranger. More to come.
The rest of it seems to work OK, but I have yet to mow with it. I did test the PTO, and the throttle and choke, and all seemed to work OK. It also has a safety switch so when I get off of the seat it shuts down like my old lawn mower. I will work on that, later.
Last, it came with a 46" mowing deck with mulching blades, which is what I want anyway (though I would prefer a wider mowing deck). And I can set the mowing height from high to low rather easily, so that is good to me, too. Since right now this place is a small jungle, mowing high makes sense.
And one more last. This machine is just different enough from my old John Deere riding lawn mower to where it did help to read the directions, which I did. A new John Deere riding lawn mower was going to cost me like $6K, and this one cost me $2K, and I think I can get parts OK, so only time will tell.
I'm charging it now...I hope. I'll know tomorrow. Plus I have circumvented the safey switch by trial and error. The second try worked just fine. I had to do this to keep the engine running while I unhooked my jump charging vehicle. All this was just to get the lawn mower to the barn to charge the battery. Of course there was a Plan B, which was to leave the lawn mower out in the overnight thunderstorms while I removed the battery to the barn to charge seperately.
The big trade off is cost vs. maintenance, and only time will tell.
I'm already planning my "capital" budget, like another riding lawn mower circa 2016.
And I do enjoy the AWD (all wheel drive), but I agree with others the driving is a bit "heavy", like it takes two hands when going slow. But in the same vein, it turns on a dime, which I think I will enjoy learning how to do well in this rural place on the Cumberland Plateau in east Tennessee.
August 2, 2011 update.
I have mowed with it, again mowing high, and all worked fine. I really appreciate the 23 HP compared to my earlier John Deere with 19 HP in this 3 to 4 acre "lawn". Now chances are the extra HP will use more gas, but this engine does run on regular gas, and has an oil filter, to boot. The directions say to change the oil and filter after the first 5 hours of use, which I will do.
