White Outdoor LT 542H Review

[nathan8804]

I just bought a new White LT 542H model after trying to get feedback on this model. I guess not many people own a White. The 542 is basically a Cub Cadet with a few less features and for less money. It comes with an 18.5 twin cylinder Tecumseh engine and hydrostatic tranny. 42inch blade cut and 1.5 gallon fuel tank. I was impressed with the power and easy starting of the engine along with it's manual choke. The 542 does not have a deck wash system installed however, it does have a bolt in the same place where the quick fittings go and it can be added for $20. Unit also has mulching blades installed but one must buy the plastic plug for deck $20. I liked the easy step through design, good steering wheel (for base model), and comfortable seat. Overall, design is nice but graphics leave something to be desired unit also has amp meter. Now the cons: NO hour meter, 1.5 gallon tank the twin likes gas, amp meter hard to read, no gas pedals only brake one must add/remove power using hand lever kind of tricky at first, biggest downer is no cast iron front end. I have a easy lawn but I do plan on mowing weeds/brush until I can afford a shredder for my JD compact 4010. The old man that sold me this unit claims that he has seen White's bet to **** and back without the cast iron front end and never had a problem. One thing that reassured me about the front end is that I bolts in place so it can be changed out. The old man also said that the bolt pattern is the same in both the cast iron front end as the non-cast front end. So in theory you can convert it if you ever chose to I'm not sure how true this is but given they are made on an assembly line the frames should be standard across the line. In all I could have bought Cub for $300 more that included cast iron, deck wash, and hour meter but with a single cylinder engine. I gave up those few things for the following: 1) twin engine 2) Tecumseh easy starting as opposed to Briggs hard starting and 3) same overall quality as Cub.
Now I know that most of you like the Briggs product and I myself am a JD person however, after doing much research I found the complaint most people had with their JD riding mowers were starting problems. In addition, from personal experience with several Briggs motors in the past I will swear up and down that Briggs has some design/engineering problem that makes them hard to start. Now I know that restarting is not a problem I am taking about that first start to get the mower going. I hope to update in the future as to how the mower is doing and I plan on putting a hour meter to track usage.
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[GerardC]

I've never had a problem with my B&S 16.5 OHV engine on my MTD in the 5 years I've owned it. Starts EVERY time when I turn the key.

Anyways, congrats on your new purchase. You should get many years of useful use out of it. Post a photo if you can.

 

[HeadyStylee]

The engine is great(the one thing on the mower that White Outdoors didn't design), but the overall design is piss poor at best, it's like Cub Cadet decided to cut out the engineers to save some money on the design. They made it difficult to operate, you have to turn the key to a special reverse setting to cut in reverse so as not to harm the PTO, so it's almost impossible to do anything fluently and efficiently. Its difficult to work on(which I need to do far too often, despite regular maintenance), the deck gets hung up on roots and things no matter what height setting, and one of the blades is **** near impossible to get off because the drive bolt-thru-spindle design leaves little room to work with tools, which often means stripped or gouged nuts as a result. I've had nothing but problems since I bought this mower, and I don't think it has cut evenly once since I've had it. I will never buy another White Outdoors brand mower.