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Ralph Mowery Ralph Mowery is offline
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Default Lawn tractor transmissions


"Harry K" wrote in message
...
On Mar 29, 4:44 pm, Blattus Slafaly ? ? ? ?
wrote:
Jim wrote:
Looking to purchase a consumer grade lawn tractor. My 18 year old Sears
(Murry) riding mower has manually selected gears. Many of the new
machines boast hydrostatic transmissions. Are these really any better?
Are they as durable as regular gears?


Of course they are better, that's why they invented them. Instead of a
set number of gears there is an unlimited range between the slowest and
fastest ratio. Usually the more you press the faster you go. The reverse
pedal usually does the same thing only in reverse. But you do have to
keep your foot on it unless you have one on the column. With real gears
you can move your feet around because they are not busy. It could be a
cost issue. They still make gear shifts on low end models.

--
Blattus Slafaly ? ? ?


The higher cost ones in the company line will probably have "cruise
control" option. John Deere does. I didn't go for it but I find no
problem mowing my 2 acre area without it.

Harry K

The cruse control on my Deere is just a hold down for the drive peddle. I
have not found it very useful to do my yard. The front is about 100 x 200
feet.

One thing I have not seen mentioned is that you usually run the motor wide
open on the hydrostatic transmissions and control the speed of the mower
with the foot peddle. This lets the blades spin up to full speed all the
time. I had a mower with the fixed gears and it seemed that one gear was
always too slow of a mower speed and the next faster gear required slowing
the motor to keep the speed down.