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Made in America ain't cheap, but it is worth it if you can afford it.

i'll have to watch the video later, but frankly, i have not much in confidence in American made anything these days. the workers demand more money due to high costs of living. quality control still (to me) sucks for many American made products.

this is not to say products under the same name are better when shipped from over seas.....but lets face it, the cost of buying American made is like what, double, triple, what the ones form other countries cost..???

thank God i do not have any lawn to mow, i had all my grass dug up and blacktop laid down, to provide more parking area, for when i sell my house, as parking here in a city is zero to none.....so that will make my home "more attractive" to buyers, over a lush green lawn.

i dunno, but if a foreign made lawn mower can do the job for a few years, with normal maintenance to the machine, i think that outshines buying a very expensive machine any day.

not an anti-American person....just saying...why spend more..???
 
My Cub Cadet XT2 42" rider is still doing its job. The deck is, of course, junk but I do the maintenance on it and the mower. Just finished replacing the PTO engaging arm on the deck, wire wheeled down the rust spots on the deck, sprayed them with rust converter and put a quick spray of Rustoleum Enamel Black on it for now. I have bought bearings for the pulleys and blade spindles. The bearings on the blade spindles are cheaper than buying the spindle for $120 a pop. Just need to drill and tap a bleeder and zerk fitting to grease them so they last longer. I will probably tear down the K46 this winter and put a rebuild kit in it and fill it with a high quality full synthetic oil, as well as drill it for a drain plug. I use synthetic oil for the Kohler motor, and cross referenced the plugs with Autolite Double Platinum plugs for reliabilty/longevity. While some may say I am babying a "disposable" mower, we bought this from Cub Cadet in 2018 and it is still doing its job with no complaints, even with the hill it has to go up in the back yard. We are only on a 1/2 acre lot, so I can't justify spending the big bucks on a garden tractor or a zero turn.
 
Onewolf426 said:
My Cub Cadet XT2 42" rider is still doing its job. The deck is, of course, junk but I do the maintenance on it and the mower. Just finished replacing the PTO engaging arm on the deck, wire wheeled down the rust spots on the deck, sprayed them with rust converter and put a quick spray of Rustoleum Enamel Black on it for now. I have bought bearings for the pulleys and blade spindles. The bearings on the blade spindles are cheaper than buying the spindle for $120 a pop. Just need to drill and tap a bleeder and zerk fitting to grease them so they last longer. I will probably tear down the K46 this winter and put a rebuild kit in it and fill it with a high quality full synthetic oil, as well as drill it for a drain plug. I use synthetic oil for the Kohler motor, and cross referenced the plugs with Autolite Double Platinum plugs for reliabilty/longevity. While some may say I am babying a "disposable" mower, we bought this from Cub Cadet in 2018 and it is still doing its job with no complaints, even with the hill it has to go up in the back yard. We are only on a 1/2 acre lot, so I can't justify spending the big bucks on a garden tractor or a zero turn.
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maintaining is #1 priority. older units that were built better than todays products used "better" materials....i too use synthetic oil (Mobil 1) for my OLD snow equipment. this fall (maybe sooner) i might have to change the pulleys on 2 of my stage 1 throwers. but i suspect the parts prices to be nearly as high as a new machine.... (sarcastically speaking) being the way things are with prices.

i too cannot justify nearly $2,000 for a new snow thrower or blower, for my age, and the fact that my 2 sons, and 3 sons-in-law have equipment to haul over here to help me.

take care of what you have now, and let the manufacturers suck wind thru a rubber hose.
 
LDB said:
Very interesting video. Not sure who made it since it promotes all 3 brands. I would absolutely buy one if I were in the market. Maybe one of each if I was flush. I am going to support our nation and our people and their jobs whenever possible just as I hope others will do for me.
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propaganda video most likely..i still ain't viewed it yet myself.......

thing too is, if an American product (long standing trade name) is built in another country...is it still an American product..?? of course it is.

so we still are supporting an American made product, but maybe of a better quality....than American built..????

that would still be in question however.
 
I have two zero turns, and have a lot of experience with another. The two zero turns I own are a Bad Boy and a Cub Cadet. The Bad Boy blows away the Cub Cadet any day. Never had an issue with my Bad Boy. They are just built much tougher. The problem with the Cub Cadet is the deck, which has already been mentioned. It is junk. The rest of the mower is ok, but with my current deck sitting broken and unusable, that kind of makes the rest of the mower useless. A new deck (which is still junk) is over a thousand dollars. My Cub Cadet is gathering dust in my garage. Some day I will pick up a new deck for it. Then use that mower for my front yard, which isn't as rough as my bigger back yard. I'll save the back yard for the tougher Bad Boy. The Ex Mark is another mower that I know well, but have not owned. When I worked for the Park Service at the Padre Island National Seashore, Ex Marks are what they used. Commercial grade, strong, and very well built. They took a beating and never failed.
 
Besides normal maintenance, blades are the only thing I've changed out on the Bad Boy. The mower lift and the cordless impact are life savers!
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I have an eXmark commercial zero turn that I paid $5500 for and it has just a little over a hundred hours on it and I have replaced the PTO switch 3 times. Once under warranty and 2 times I had to pay for it. And put it in myself. A set of blades went from $15 each to $50 each. And it has 3 blades. Another Made In America product.
 
Old_Me said:
that's not bad...one time, for the age....

but todays American made "stuff" still generally sucks for quality and durability.....and of course, pricing to repair, just on the parts alone,
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That’s an awfully wide brush you’re using there.
Garbage is made everywhere. Plenty of US Companies out there that have the right team on board, believe in what they do, and overall just do the right thing. It’s easier now than ever ( instant feedback and tech) to know exactly how to figure who they are.
 
I really think you guys are minimizing an opportunity to contribute American money to empowering a Communist country with a quarter of the world's population. They NEED us (well, while we still can borrow money, anyway.)

Those poor Communist subjects are suffering under the power of their dictatorship. We need to share their misery with them- they're treated like slaves just so we can save our money by investing in Walmart and avoiding that high-priced stuff American workers made before we put those workers on Unemployment and Welfare..

Of course, then we'll complain about those many unemployed homeless Americans being a drain on our finances and use it as justification to ignore more American workers. How's that working for us ? What's the trend ? When is it too late to stop it ?

Yeah, abandon America. What has your country done for you that China can't do ? Might as we pass on the new American patriotism to the grandkids- heckLL, they don't even know what D-Day is, so let's prepare them for the future we're leading them to- and teach them Mandarin.

Sorry, guys. I'm not ashamed to be American. I'm just ashamed of America. And I'm kind of sad MY generation has come to teaching our kids and America to become the weathiest third-world country to go bankrupt.

WAIT ! You mean we're borrowing money from China to finance our sky-rocketing American debt. We sent American dollars to China and are NOW paying interest on it to borrow it back ??? And they're building the world's largest military with OUR money ?

And we're worried about lawn mowers ?

I know i'm not gonna make any friends here, but giving up because we don't have much life left feels like abandoning our grandkids.

Koombaya, America. Our big multi-national companies are asking for our support. They need more of our money.
 
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