Lawnboy Z340HLX

[sparkkky]

Looking at a Z-turn 42" with a Honda GXV 530cc motor for $2750.00. Motor alone has me leaning that way and it is made by Toro and has a large cast iron front end, but the deck looks so so. Would this be a good deal?

 

[Bird]

I would expect that to be a very good deal.

 

[Fordlords]

Toro was taker #1 when Honda decided to get out of making their own lawn tractors and being an exclusive engine supplier to other manufacturers much in the way Kawasaki did many moons ago. I can easily vouch for the Honda GX series engine in that machine, they are a sweet engine. I'm not experienced with ZTR's, yet know Toro has a great reputation for solid equipment. Keep up your research, and let us know your decision.
-Fordlords-

 

[sparkkky]

The only part that I don't like is the 13 gauge deck. Is 13GA thick enough or should I steer clear of this one?

 

[epic6500sr]

I was very devout to lawnboy, I loved them, uptil my last one. I purchased 4 at the same time, all push mowers, all traditional lawnboy design, all SUPPOSED to be good mowers. But, such wasn't the case. Two of the four had the Honda's which yes are and still are and always will be amazing engines. The other two had the traditional lawnboy 2-cycle engines, the engines were horrible, I took them into the shop each about 7 times, and after all that Toro still wouldn't stand behind there product and replace it, now maybe its just me but to have a lawnmower in the shop 7 times, within 1.5 years sound acceptable? I didn't think so, so I traded off all four lawnboys to my dealer and bought snappers. Now, as far as toro homeowner ZTR's stay away, I have a friend who is a Toro dealer, and has won many Toro awards as far as sales and service and satisfaction, and he quit carrying them because they were always junk, and he thinks they always will be. As for the commericial ZTR's they are pretty decent, far superior design to homeowner products, but you definately pay the price. So all in all, I would personally ever buy a Toro made homeowner ZTR, commercial thats different, but I would stay away from the homeowner stuff. Thats just me, good luck

 

[Bird]

Alex, many years ago, 1969 to be exact, I bought a Toro lawnmower with a Tecumseh engine. A dealer and I did keep it running a couple of years, then he told it wasn't worth fixing anymore. So I bought a used 2-cycle lawnboy. He thought it was either one or two years old. I gave it to a son-in-law when I retired in 1989 and became a full time RVer. A co-worker used his lawnboy for 25 years that I know of; don't know about after that. But those were made when lawnboy was owned and built by Outboard Marine Corporation (OMC). Then when my daughter bought a mobile home from an individual about five and a half years ago, she got the seller to include a year old lawnboy, but this one has a Tecumseh engine. No way I would have bought a lawnboy with a Tecumseh engine, but so far it's just running just fine and my grandson uses it all the time. And now my own Toro Timecutter 14-38Z ZTR is two and half years old and still like new, so we'll see.

 

[Fordlords]

I made good money back during high school off those old OMC 2 cycle Lawn Boys. They were very easy to find and get for free in the junk piles behind many mower shops in the 1980's as most dealers did not want to take them apart with the needle bearings falling all over the place and recommeded owners to just replace the mower with a new one. Resurrecting those engines involved little more than decarbonizing the cylinder jug, putting on a new lower seal, and installing a new plug, and most of the models had aluminum decks. For about $10 invested I re-sold them for $100-125.

I see the new Lawn Boy's are a green Toro, with the two cycle engine and offset front wheel long gone. MTD builds some of Toro's smaller LT's for them, not sure about the ZTR's if they are all Toro or not.

-Fordlords-