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Well, purchased a new Ariens 46" 20 hp riding mower back which was manufactured in march of 2015 and bought in the late summer of 2015. Mower has auto transmission. Cut fine in 2015, put it away for the winter and left it in neutral. Few days ago went to get it going and it started up and ran fine, but had a little trouble getting the mower in 'gear'. This mower has what they call a free wheel control lever, it allows the transmission to be put in neutral to push or put in gear to operate and move. I got the mower back in gear by reaching underneath where the lever is attached to the transmission and moved it manually. Lubed up the area, now goes in and out of gear like it use to.

Problem is, the mower wont move now ether direction, but motor and blades operate fine as well as getting in and out of neutral. The mower utilizes a pedal to move forward or back. Things I have noticed and worth mentioning.

1. area has been cleaned of all grass clippings.
2. pedal lever seems to operate on the transmission just fine. nothing binding etc.
3 free wheel lever ( long stiff metal bar ) operates freely with some resistance ( I believe as it should)
4. this mower has a cut in reverse feature that in order to use, the ignition key is turned to a particular position. this still works, if I push the pedal without the key being in the correct position, the motor will cut out. ( like it is suppose to.)
5. everything seems to operate, except the pedals allowing the mower to move.

Any help would be appreciated.

I suspect that you have air in the system and will need to do the bleed procedure. It should be in your owners manuals but consist of jacking up the back wheels, put the lever in bypass mode, start the mower and then go through the forward and reverse directions several times. Then take it out of bypass and do the same thing going forward and backwards, After that you should be about to let the jack down and then it should move normally.

If that doesn't fix it then post back and we will try to give more assistance.

Thanks or responding.
By bleed, I imagine you you mean 'purge'. That is the term used in the manual. That involves moving the mower back and forth a little by putting it in gear and going in reverse and forward.
I do not know what you mean by 'bypass' please explain.

Thanks.

That little wire that you called wheel control is the bypass lever, put it in position to push mower and follow rest of ILENGINE instructions.

Had the back wheels off the ground wile I had the mower in neutral and in gear, both while moving the pedals to go forward and back.

Nothing different.

Its new take it in for warranty.

Thanks guys for your input, apparently when one goes to depress the pedal, a belt was coming loose. Some part that keeps this from happening broke.
Under warranty and the grass is getting a little long.

Thanks again

This is probably too late to help, & as others have stated, There is a manual bypass release on Most all Hydrostatic Transmission driven units. If in Bypass position, the drive will not operate [ again, I'm probably too late for this posting.] As always, default to the manual under " Towing or pushing" .More often than not, It's a black round plastic knob, which when pulled out, releases the Hydro unit. They're 99% ,under the unit,attached to the transaxle/ I only recently joined this site, & I'm sure you're up & running by now. Best wishes. keith/keith r./ sgtrudz