Buying Used Riding Lawn Mowers

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A riding lawnmower can be such a cool thing to have. It can make you feel like you've really arrived. It's all wonderful, except for one thing – these things do tend to be expensive at about $1500 when bought new. That's where used riding lawnmowers come in.

Used riding lawnmowers can be a great idea. Not only do you save a lot of money, you can usually find enough of a product range on offer that you can get exactly what you need. But you do need to know what to look for. While lawnmowers tend to be durable things, they only tend to be that if they are taken care of the right way – just the way these things are with cars.

Now unless you really do wish to put in a lot of effort into buying used, you're probably going to be better off using your money to buy a good, new walk-behind mower. You could have much better peace of mind this way. Used riding lawnmowers are notoriously difficult to judge for quality. You could buy something that looks perfectly great that's only couple of years old, and the hydrofoil could fail in a matter of months. What would you do then?

If you do still feel that a riding lawnmower is what you really need, here's what you need to think about.

Even on a new riding mower, switching the machine from one mode to another – from side discharge to bagging mode for instance – can be quite difficult. On a used machine that isn't all that smooth, it could be even more so. On most new riding machines these days, a bagging kit can come pretty expensive. You want to make sure that the machine you buy is easy to switch modes on, and that it does come with the kit you need, included.

It's always a good idea to shop around. Rather than go to some mechanic who's selling refurbished ones, it might be an idea to look for private sellers. When you cut out the middleman, you to end up lowering your price. Of course, as with used cars, buying from an individual seller does come with its own set of risks as well.

Wherever you do decide to buy your machine, be sure that it comes with some kind of guarantee. In fact, it would be a good idea if you're buying from private seller, to ask to rent the machine for a month. That should give you a real feel for the machine.