How is it??

notjustair

Well-known Member
How is it that every riding mower now needs 25
horsepower? When I was a kid we had an old rider
with a seven horse Briggs on it. I'm sure it was
probably 38 inch deck and three speed gear drive. I
never once remember mowing anything that made it
bog down or stall. When we mowed the solo trench
it was all pigweed over your head. She soldiered
right through.

I have a 1980 zero turn with a 60 inch deck. It has
two hydros and only has a 16 horse flat head
Kohler. It isn't overworked. Are the horsepower
ratings that inflated? It almost seems like we are in
the muscle car mentality of the 70's with these new
junk mowers.

I'll keep my old rear engine Snapper, two stroke
Lawnboy, and Marty J with no safety features.
 
NJA. I was wondering the same thing. My 21 year old 12.5 horse Murray is a lot tougher "horse" than our 20 HP Craftsman mower. gm
 

As you suggest most of the mowers don't actually use/need the horse power. My take is that horse power sells mowers, if one has 25 HP, another one has 20 HP and they are priced similar, people tend to buy the 25 HP model. The difference between engine cost to the manufacturer has to be small so they peddle HP.

Most consumers don't understand HP or how much is needed, simply that more has to be better.
 
Heck no - I have two! I bought a 40 inch with a 16 horse and got a 60 inch 18 horse for parts. I actually used the 60 inch for a while but that Briggs twin put out so much heat it was torture to run it for long. I just put the 60 inch deck from it on the other machine and made one good mower. Those things are indestructible.
 
HP sells thats for certain I think the small engine manufacturers pretty well cooled it with inflated ratings after the lawsuit. A few things come to mind. Put that old rider in high gear and see how she pulls the deck cutting 3" of growth and remember you still are not even close to the speed to a commercial Zturn. Maybe you dont go that fast but the commercial guys do and it takes HP. Other thing is blade speed, those old riders dont even come close and it takes a lot of power to cut and throw clippings at the speed a good zturn deck is running.
 
Working on them makes me see several observations:
Your 1980 model was pretty much immune from EPA regulations at the time. It probably has an adjustable carburetor and runs the fuel mix much richer than the EPA allows now that we are at Tier 4 emissions. This allows the engine to run much cooler too and gives some power reserve the newer engines just plain don't have. The engines now produce enough hp that they don't have to lug like the old ones did and this keeps the EPA happy.(We hope.)

The other thing as has been noted is travel speed. It takes HP to make speed. We now have commercial mowers that will travel over 8 MPH-when cutting. (As if you could even sit in the seat and cut grass that fast in most yards.) Husqvarna has a model that would do 18mph, in travel mode. Dixie Chopper, Bobcat and others have fast claims too.
 
I just came in from mowing,it has been seven days and the twenty five horse diesel,60 cut, had the snot run out of it. 30HP would be better.
 
New engines have no torque, therefore no lugging power. FIL has "16"Hp Kohler Command on an '03 Simplicity. It is not near the engine the 16 Briggs is on my 40 year old Wards/Gilson is.
 

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