The Briggs engine will last as long as you need it to with proper maintenance. In my experience, the Briggs Quantum style engine is year after year a great starting, most forgiving mower engine. And yes, I service both regularly (KAw on JD)Kaw is a nice engine as well. I've owned the Toro super recycler and you will find them very capable on slopes and mulching. I haven't mowed or even really worked on a newer Snapper. There just aren't that many where I live.

Honda HRX w/hydrostatic drive. Hands down.

The Honda is very nice but rather pricey. You did not say whether you primarily bag or mulch. If bagging, I suggest the Snapper. The Toro is one of the best mulchers on the market.

Thanks for the replies everyone.

I would like to use the multiching feature more but it just did not work very well on the Craftsman so I ended up bagging.

I would probably multch most of the time and when I HAD to mow and it was wet, I would bag.

My concerns with the Honda is the Xenoy deck and I have heard that if you have problems with the transmission on the unit it will cost about 280 to fix it since it is one unit.

How would the HRX engine compare to the Kawi and the B&S Intek on hills?

I've owned a Honda HRX w/hydrostatic drive for two years. It's hands down the best mulching mower that I have owned, including an older Toro SR. Here are some pics of my lawn.

The first one is in the summer after mulching. The second one is in the Fall after mulching leaves.(you can see leaves that fell before the pic was taken).

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Do you feel that your Sears died as a result of lubrication problems from mowing your hill? Oil pumps obviously are located in the bottom of the sump , but if the hill is too severe you can still "lose sump" and starve the engine from lubrication. Two stroke is the only way out with a steep hill. BTW, the Intek Pro that this Toro uses has a rotax style pump with pressure lube. It's a tough engine.

Like my yard,

That is a very nice looking yard and what i am after.

Tomplum,

I do not think the hill did in the mower. I have been in this house for almost 4 years. The Craftsman slowly got worse and worse till last year it had too many issues to fix. I gave it to a friend that likes to wrench. He used it for a parts mower.

I bought the Craftsman lawn mower and weed whacker when i bought my first house which had a small yard and had no money so i bought the 'cheapest' ones.

My weed whacker also died last year but I had to replace it due to the 2nd hill that is at the very end of my lot that i mow with the weed whacker only due to how steep it is. At my old house I would not even go through a whole tank of gas with the weed whacker in a year but I would go thru 2/3 of tank if i didn't mow the back hill on a regular basis. The thing went from barely used to getting worked 'hard' due to the thick weeds and grass when it was used on the back hill.

I replaced the weed whacker with an Echo SRM210 with the i-force kit for my wife since she could never get the old Craftsman started and this one is a breeze. Being 6'4" and the Echo being a straight shafted weed whacker I do not have to bend over like the curve shafted Craftsman. The Echo powers through the back yard hill with easy due to better engine and thicker string, it takes less than half the time since it does not get bogged down and uses thicker string that lasts longer. I could not be happier with it.

I am looking for a similar expience here. Something that does the job very well and will last me. Echo just upped the residential warrenty to 5 years too just a bit ago. Music to my ears.

I think I will check the Honda HRX out and put it on my short list.

Tomplum writes "The Intek Pro that this Toro uses has a rotax style pump with pressure lube." My impression was that the Pro did not have pressure lube but instead used a pump to move oil through a small oil filter. Does anyone know for sure?

Concerning the Xenoy deck, I've only had one Honda with the plastic deck, but it was used exclusively by eight renters in rental units and survived all usage.

The long and the short of it becomes this: a consumer can't hardly walk up to the shelf and decide if he or she should pick a red can opener or a blue one. Everything we buy is so feature intensive. Think about the last car you bought. Mowers are much the same. You can compare engines, deck construction, how the wheels are attached, what bearings they have in them until your eyes spin. Honda builds a wonderful mower. Actually Honda did more for the american mower industry than just about anyone. Think back, you had basic "L HEad" aluminum bore for 4 cycle engines. Which I may add, if used under proper conditions and maintained as they should- would last plus 1000 hours. (From Briggs service school years ago) Obviously, the average WPM doesn't. Honda changed the world with the overhead valve engine later to introduce the OHC engines that the competion put off as a "cheaper engine". The OHC engine lasted and performed well. I mention this because any of the mower engines that you are considering are great performing, easy starting engines with superb track records. What the variable is and valid concern seems to be is lubrication. From a track record of the Sears you had, I wonder if that should be as big of issue. Who can really say which is best for you and your cutting environment? Technically, I can point out many things. Operationally, sometimes they make a differance- sometimes they don't. The heaviest aluminum deck, the most sleek plastic housing as well as steel decks all can and do fail when conditions are right.
If you were my brother asking for guidance, I would tell you to go with what feels good to you. After all, you will be spending lots of time with the your mower. Big things for me are how solid things remain after they have been in use foor a while. Visit the back end of the dealership- put your hand on a machine ask to run an older unit. ARe things cracked, wheels wobble? Consider how the drive control may be an asset to you and your environment. A big part of this is the selling /servicing dealer and what they offer you as a consumer now and in the years to come. I'm sorry if this seems like a rant on my part. I have been in the buisness a long time. I have also built relationships with real people like you and gotten to know the equipment well. I can share with you very cool things I've learned on QOC (Quality of cut) both in school and in the field. But that is another rant. I wish you luck on your descision. Your Echo purchase shows you care about the quality of your tools. I believe more people should research this type of investment like yourself, by talking to folks who have 1st hand experience, rather than be swayed by the new feature or buzzword that actually turns out making the purchace a less than positive one.

My dealer has been very good. They where the ones that recommended me to the Echo SRM210. They also handle the maintenence on my two stroke snow blower, still runs great after 7 years.

I originally went in to compare the Toro 20070 and the 20057. After talking about it with him, he brought up the Snapper unit that he uses personally, for 12 years now, with a similar size yard. I remembered the rave reviews out there for the Kawi engine on its torque and fully pressurized pump. He also was honest that it does not mulch as well as the Toro and left stragglers but still ran very well. He stated both should take care of my yard with no issue.

I should have asked what is the best total cost of ownership of the mowers. While I like owning the best, it is no good for me to own the best if it costs 3 times as much to own the second best.

My experience with the Briggs Quantum, on two machines I owned and one I rented, is that they were uniformly hard starting and all of them burned oil. I would never buy another new piece of equipment with a Briggs Quantum engine. You couldn't run fast enough to give me one.

I typically run my mower 8-10 hours on a weekend, so one year for me might be 10-20 years for someone with a small city lawn. My current mower is a cheap Yard Machines model from Costco, with the cheapest of all Honda engines, the GCV160. After two full seasons, it still starts on the first pull and holds it's oil between changes.

I had a Toro once and it was a high quality machine. I would have bought another if they still offered the Suzuki 2-stroke that mine had. But when I'm shopping for a new piece of equipment, when I see Briggs on the spec sheet, I say, "next!"

Maybe Toro has some kind of deal with Briggs that gives them better materials or quality control than the Quantums that appear on other mowers. But Briggs probably wouldn't appreciate it if Toro promoted their mowers by saying, Hey, this isn't the same piece of crap engine as other Briggs Quantums."

McConoughey; you're right - the Intek Pro oil pump mainly pushes oil through the filter and up to the top bearing - there is no hydrostatic oil pressure in the engine. Still a great benefit to longevity, but no particular help on hills.
I have had no trouble cutting my 40 degree ditch banks for the last 14 years with any of several 4-cycle mowers; a 1989 Homelite/Jacobsen with B&S 3.5 HP, a Honda HRB216TDA with 5.5 HP GCV 160 and a Lawn-Boy 10684 with 6.5 HP Tecumseh. The Homelite was given away (still running)and the Honda was sold because it could only cut up to 3".

See post: "Sears lawnmower engine blew up". That guy got 22 years out of his CRAFTSMAN and wants to repair it, oh, yes you purchased a CRAPSMAN, forgot.

basicly i have tried to kill my toro recycler and i can't. review the online service statistics and you'll find that toro and honda are tied at the top of the list, so to make it even all honda has to do is knock 35-40% off of their price. i have a basic fwd toro 20016 which on my new unkempt yard has been stopped dead by rocks/tree trunks at least 20 times. i think that if it were any other brand at least the pins on the crankshaft would have broken. this is my first toro mower, i will never ever buy anything else again. i feel like everyone else who paid 270.00$ or more got ripped off. i grew up in a snapper household and can personally vouch that they cut lawns absolutely beautifully! but as far as bang for the buck goes as well as the chances of you spending money on maintenance...get the toro.

Guys,

I think I found what I want. I have been stuck on the Snapper due to the FJ180V engine but the Toro seems to be better at cutting.

Toro has a new line of mowers, the PT21 line. I could not find much but I found the one I want, the 22164. This one has the Kawi FJ180V engine and does not cost more than 1000.

I could not find anything on the main Toro site but could find information about the 22164 on their Solution Center.

I plan on calling my dealer tomorrow about it.

That oughta do it. . .
I remember 7-8 years ago when they built a consumer model with the Kaw as well- and marketed the 10 year GTS warranty.

I had been in the market for a new lawn mower to replace my very old Snapper. My prime requirement was to have a machine with a good vacuum characteristic. Most agreed a Snapper Hi-Vac would be the best for this requirement. I went with the Snapper P216019KWV and am very satisfied. The only thing I miss is the blade clutch. However, it starts and restarts easily, so it is not a big deal. The only time I miss the blade clutch is when I have a full bag of grass and want to run it back to the garage under power to dump the grass without the blade turning. It has lots of power with the Kawasaki engine. Charles Ranheim