I purchased a JS40 from Lowes, and gave it a workout last weekend. Being that I mulch 90% of the time, I installed a Snapper Ninja mulching blade after reading that the standard JD blade bagged well but didn't mulch well. The blade tore through my lawn, whereas my Snapper 5hp HiVac would have stalled repeatedly. The swivel-wheel took a bit to get accustomed to, and performed well on the flats. When I tackled the hill, locking the left wheel aided in keeping the mower straight. Prolonged mowing of a hill can become tiresome as the mower tends to wander on hills with only one wheel locked in the straight position. I switched out to the bagging option, and gave my yard a finish cut. The mower performed well with the Ninja blade and the rear bagging accessory. Good suction of grass clippings and dried mulch from previous cuts. Two items stand out in my mind that are inconveniences - adjusting the wheel height was a PITA, I'm sure with time, the spring steel will permit easier adjustments. And the spring loaded hinged cover over the discharge chute is a PITA when reattaching the bag. I'm sure the cover can be removed to resemble a Snapper. All in all, the JS40 performed to my expectations for a $450 mower. As for Lowes warranty, I've never needed to use them for warranty service, however I did opt for the 4 year extended warranty through John Deere. Time will tell....

i would run mobil 1 15-50 in it if you want max life. i have 4 of these snappers with this engine in my commercial lawn service. i got the first one back in 89 and it was used. its still running! this is commercial servive we are talking about. only repair has been to replace the throttle shaft in the carb. oil changed only once per season too. its indistructable! no 2 i got used in 91 -runs like new still. no 3 i got last year on ebay-nos still in box! date on box was 1995! this one may out live me as i am 51. no 4 just got last week. 6.5 hp and is the best running one i have ever seen. these were sold on mostly comm. models but some 4 hp models were put on premium home models. if yours has bbc -its one of these models. no bbc on the comm models. theese engines also made in 2 cycle too. every bit as good as the 4 cycle. best lawn mower engine ever made bar none. i have a honda bought new in 91 that has had mobil 1 since new and still runs perfect. recommend this in your wis/robin 15w -50. 10-w 30 is too light for a lawn mower. 10w 40 would be acceptable if not in a hot climate

That is an older flathead Robin engine. The "85" is just part of the model #, not the year. That may be about right, though. You can look on the deck behind the engine and find a silver tag with the model and serial number of the Snapper deck (as opposed to just the engine) and then look that up the Snapper site to find exactly what you have. You will also find the owner and parts manuals there. Go to www.snapper.com and click "literature." If you have the bag on and the chute is not plugged, the mower should always bag the grass. Your chute just got plugged. This can happen, especially with wet grass. If bagging is your - ahem - bag, then you might want to see what kind of blade you have under there and get the one with the "winglets" that bolt on to provide extra lift. That seems to prevent a lot of clogs by increasing the force through the chute. As for the drive speed lever: no, it should stay in the speed you select. The little bumps on the lever's panel are there to hold in gear, but there should be a spring behing that panel to hold it - maybe that's missing? Or else the adjustment slider down near the driven pulley's bracket is loose, allowing the driven pully to wander on the drive wheel (turntable). The tubing protruding from the side - do you mean from the side of the engine? Maybe that's the oil dipstick tube. I hope you actually have a dipstick in it! Otherwise, I'm having trouble thinking of what it would be. These are good machines that are very serviceable and still are produced new today with few changes (the engines have changed, of course). Especially if you are bagging, there is no reason it won't be productive for you.

Another year has passed and two cycle Lawn Boy mowers continue to increase in value and are sought after by many for restoration and use. To all the people who posted here 14 years ago how are your four strokes doing? Are they worth as much as a two cycle Lawn Boy? As I previously mentioned, one of the most important factors that brought the two cycle Lawn Boys strongly into the 21st century was the improvements made in two cycle oil. Today’s oils are nearly smokeless , produce soft carbon, and give excellent lubrication at a 50:1 mix ratio. Lawn Boy manuals printed in the 1970s said to check the ports every 50 hours of operation and warn about the danger of carbon particles breaking loose and scoring the piston. They also say to remove, clean and gap the spark plug every 25 hours. We have to assume these maintenance intervals were based on using Lawn Boy oil at a 32:1 ratio. At the time these manuals were written, Lawn Boy Engineers might have had a hard time believing that one day their mowers would go 300 plus hours on the same CJ-14 spark plug without removing it once, and only need port checking and cleaning at 100 hr. intervals with no worry of hard carbon scoring. They might have been even more surprised to learn this would be possible using a 50:1 mix ratio. Oil has changed so much since then that it could now be said that using the old Lawn Boy oil today would be the last thing you would want for your two cycle Lawn Boy.