SRS -

1. This mower was purchased in 2001 with a one year warranty.

2. In 2005 the mower manufacturer offered "of his own free will" to repair it, as settlement of a "customer satisfaction issue." That I had been unable to use for nearly two of the four years I'd had it wouldn't ordinarily be cause for extending the warranty. There's no "lemon law" for lawnmowers, although Kansas does have a "merchantability statute" I might have attempted to invoke.

3. The mower manufacturer dumped the responsibility for the "warranty repair" on the engine manufacturer, who - aside from being somewhat surprised - apparently had to have a lot of meetings to determine how to settle things up.

4. The local guys (authorized repair agents) were kept just about as uninformed as I was.

The only reason all of this happened is that I had, incidentally, filed a report with the US Consumer Product Safety Commission, simply reporting that I had experienced numerous cases of ignition of mowing debris (clippings) and in two cases the mower had effectively destroyed itself by going up in flames. I'm apparently the only one who's reported this to the CPSC, but there are several "personal gripes" about mower fires on the web. They're a little difficult to find, because few of the reporting people have any very clear idea about what really happened, so the descriptions are vague and quite variable.

Corollary information: There is only ONE mower manufacturer who makes ALL of the commonly available brands of mowers in the mass-market-home-user category, and there is NO SIGNIFICANT DIFFERENCE in the construction used in any of the available models, with respect to the ignition hazard. This manufacturer uses 3 different brands of engines, but they are all installed in essentially the same configuration, making it relatively insignificant which mower you choose. For twice the price, I could have a Deere, which is built to exactly the same layout with respect to this problem, but may not be made by the other guys.

The only way to get a "better" mower would be to move up to an "industrial ZTR mower" or something similar (at about 4 to 6 times the price) or to a full blown tractor (at about 8x the price or more), either of which would be grossly unsuited to the area I have to mow. It has to be considered also that an "industrial mower" or a "full blown tractor" presents other hazards of operation I'd rather not need to contend with. Been there, done that.

I believe there are fairly simple mods I can make to this mower to make it significantly safer; but of course I've had almost half a year to lose my enthusiasm.

My real complaint isn't with the mower. I could have, and would have, repaired it myself. It's that a repair was promised, it should have taken less than a week, and for four months I had NO CONTACT FROM THE PEOPLE WHO HAD MY MOWER, and NO INFORMATION about when or whether they intended to do something. They were obviously concerned with solving their problem, whatever they perceived it to be, and had NO INTEREST in my problem. Customer DIS-service at its finest.

The failure to start more than once when I finally got it back was just another anticlimax. I know (very sure) which specific part is involved, but don't know yet whether the part itself is defective or is just misinstalled/misrigged.

I've confirmed that I got a brand new battery in the deal, and I think it's mostly a new engine core. The starter/generator is new, and would have cost me about $200. From my previous replacement I know that there was about $300 worth of wire harness to be replaced. They didn't check the tires, and they were a little low after sitting for four months, but they run fine at zero pressure and they had about 3 psi (6-10 psi is spec).

John