Struggling to find a good professional mower, and would like some recs please.

I am struggling to find a good professional mower that covers both rougher graveyard type ground and also medium sizes customer lawns.

I started off with a Cobra mower thanks to a rec on here- and to be fair for a small, fairly cheap roller mower it actually performs very well, gives a good cut and it nice and lightweight.

However it is a tad flimsy, with a small deck and doesnt like uneven terrain.

I then went for a Hayter 48 pro, which I thought would be a more robust reliable option, only to find it was anything but.

Within a week two small parts ( the drive button, and the filter cap) had pinged off and soon after the handle tighteners had vibrated off and shattered under the blades.

After about 6 months the drive went, followed by the blades at about 12 months. I had it fixed, only for it to malfunction again a month later.

Whether this is just the 48 pro I dont know but it has massively put me off of Hayter.

Therefore I wanted to ask what people would recommend for a robust professional mower again. Are Kabuta any good?

Thanks,

Rob

Have never found that one size fits all mower Rob .

I started with a Toro recycler personal pace mower its over 7 years old , As my only mower it cut all lawns but never left the best finish on fine lawns so i bought a viking and this has being a very good mower on fine lawns , leaves a nice stripe , hard to beat in wet conditions , they are made by Stihl and i believe now available under the stihl brand .

The Toro recyler comes into its own on rough long grass , mulches superbly or collects but not good on long wet grass but good on long dry grass . A trick i use is to blow wet grass beforehand with a blower , works like a big hairdryer .

Both mowers have never required a part other than service parts both still use the same original blade .

Replies

Peter sellers July 6, 2021 at 12:33pm

Rob, Ideally you need two mowers one for domestic lawns and another for rough work, appreciate that might be unaffordable though. We have an old wheeled Honda Pro which we pensioned off to do rough work, it's 14 years old and has stood up to countless abuse and apart from replacement blades has not let us down, it was used for both rough work and lawns until recently, so probably would be the best dual purpose mower.. The 21 inch Kubota is basically a re-badged Honda, however both Kubota and John Deere have pulled out of the pedestrian mower market recently so you may by able to find a discounted wheeled 21 inch Kubota, I certainly would not buy a roller mower to use on graveyards etc.p
- Rob > Peter sellers July 6, 2021 at 2:10pm
  
  Thanks for the reply. What would be the ideal mower for rough uneven ground such as a graveyards? As you suggest, striping isnt a necessity , but durablility and power/drive is. A mulcher would be handy too.
  
  What would be best in this regard?
  
  Thanks.
Shaun Pollard July 6, 2021 at 4:50pm

Hi Rob, I've got a Honda HRH536 HX Pro wheeled mower. It's solid, strong and well built. It's heavy but robust. I use it over some really rough areas and it copes well. I've got a mulching kit too which works really well. I've had it for three years and so far no problems. It withstands going up and down the ramps into the back of my van. Nothing has fallen off and nothing failed. It may be a contender for you.
- PRO
  
  John F > Shaun Pollard July 6, 2021 at 6:02pm
  
  PRO
  
  Have never found that one size fits all mower Rob .
  
  I started with a Toro recycler personal pace mower its over 7 years old , As my only mower it cut all lawns but never left the best finish on fine lawns so i bought a viking and this has being a very good mower on fine lawns , leaves a nice stripe , hard to beat in wet conditions , they are made by Stihl and i believe now available under the stihl brand .
  
  The Toro recyler comes into its own on rough long grass , mulches superbly or collects but not good on long wet grass but good on long dry grass . A trick i use is to blow wet grass beforehand with a blower , works like a big hairdryer .
  
  Both mowers have never required a part other than service parts both still use the same original blade .
Keith July 8, 2021 at 9:23pm

Best of luck in finding something..as has been said ideally you need two mowers...I have three ..one of which I use on a graveyard and other rough jobs I don't think they do them now..it's a Toro with a Kawasaki engine 180bhp...I was lucky in picking it up second hand for £350 about five years ago...had to get the carb changed and a few other incidentals...using it as a mulching mower has been great ...starting to look myself for its replacement, so that I'm prepared for its demise

Ps

It's the older version of the toro 22280 ..done me proud...but at its current price ..ouch
- Sean Clarke > Keith July 9, 2021 at 7:47am
  
  180bhp? That's a large tractor, not a mower 🤣
  - Keith > Sean Clarke July 9, 2021 at 10:18am
    
    Oops :)
    - PRO
      
      John F > Keith July 9, 2021 at 2:54pm
      
      I think my Toro is the kawasaki engine Keith , its bullet proof .
      
      Without it i wouldn't have had a suitable mower to knock down some long grass which has turned into a good opportunity but its on its last legs and the dealer has closed down .
      
      I notice B&Q are selling Toro's but i dont know anything about these machines they look the part , they might have a briggs engine i havn;t really kept upto speed with the latest mowers these days , i keep getting drawn to Stihl whenever i think of buying a new mower .
PRO

mark thomas July 9, 2021 at 5:52pm

Etesia pro 46 pht s3
Andrew July 10, 2021 at 10:16am

As it happens I've just bought a kubota 21" pro 4 wheeled from a family firm in Cumbria.This type of mower is certainly v.rugged.2 speed/shaft driven/blade brake clutch etc,etc.The downside is the weight-60+ kilos.The firm is pigneys of appleby.They now have 1 left costing £840 or £900 delivered.They usually retail around the £1,300 mark and up,so its more than a decent deal.lawnflite/danarm/cobra/do pretty much the identical same model.All of them are really solid commercial machines.