I just got a Cub Cadet CC550SP and it is a great mower. My yard looks much better after one cut. The suction on this mower is outstanding when using the bag. It's amazingly quiet and its the easiest thing to start. Starts on first pull EVERY TIME! Did not or would not ever buy from the big box stores. I did some comparison shopping and even though the models had same numbers the mowers had small differences. First being the wheels. Home depots mowers had these narrow hard plastic wheels and the one I got had 2" wide heavy duty wheels. At box store your new mower is sure to have loose bolts on it somewhere. At the store I bought mine, DEWYNNS in San Antonio Texas, they set up my new mower serviced it and step by step showed me all the features. Try finding someone at a box store who could even find where the lawnmowers are. In closing, don't rush out to lowest or home depot to try and save money. I spent the same amount of money at a store that just sells lawn equipment and the service was outstanding. I've bought a couple pieces of lawn equipment there and will only go there in the future.

The three mowers you are looking at are probably equal in quality. All are light duty. The Husqvarna is equipped with ball bearing wheels. This would probably be easier to push than the troybilt and craftsman. The Kohler engine is actually a Chinese design that has some good features including a cast iron sleeve and double ball bearings on the crankshaft. On the negative side, the engine is designed with several layers of trim that make access the the engine more difficult and perhaps heavier. I worked on several of these for "will not start" conditions related to last year's fuel. When testing, I found the engine seemed to be under powered for a 21" Ariens mower. Consider this carefully, as the engine has only 149CC - a very small engine. None of the kohler dealers in my area carried any parts for the push mower engine. The other mowers have the regular plastic wheels without the ball bearings. This will probably require more effort to push. The engine on both is the 190cc Briggs quantum series with ready start. This engine has good power and is easy to start. Parts like carburetor kits are usually stocked at dealers and the parts are cheap. On the negative side, the automatic choke sometimes gets confused - resulting in a will not start condition. The condition goes away if the mower sits for a while - or the home owner can manually open the choke to start (provided he knows how to do this).

My first thought is that your primer button isn't working right. Try a very short burst of carb cleaner spray into the carb with the air filter OFF. If it starts right up, you have primer problems. It's been my experience that the Tecumseh carbs mounted on the left side of the engine can be a problem for cold start gas supply. You can remove the bowl nut and nothing comes out. Gently bang the front wheels and the flow starts. Weird problem. Next time it won't start, loosen the bowl nut and see if gas comes out, more gas than just what's in the bowl, I mean.

You may be able to find service manual at the Toro parts look up site. It wouldn't be the first time that an axle needed to be loosened to get a PTO clutch off. Darn compact frames anyways....