Spending 5 to 10 thousand dollars would make sense for someone who is in the lawn mowing business, but the average homeowner who just mows his own property a dozen or so times a year, should be able to find a decent mower for a fraction of that amount. Things like what I found could be corrected at the factory for pennies...just spot weld a nut to the bottom of the idler pulley mount...for example. But then, so many items made today seem to have a "planned obsolescence" built into them, such that they only last half as long as they would were they built properly. I guess that is how the global economies keep on growing.
Did you drive round and round and buy the cheapest possible house ?
If you have a property of a size that needs a ride on mower to cut the grass then you can afford to pay a fair & reasonable price for the mower.
Quality mower companies will even offer very cheap finance to smooth out the initial cost.
If not then plant a garden ( which is cheaper & a lot better for the planet) or downsize into a property you can afford to maintain.
Realistically just how many hours do you think goes into making a mower ?
That cheap & easy spot weld, requires another station in the production line + another set of templates to make sure it is in the right place then another quality control step to make sure it is welded properly plus adds another potential warranty liability, where as a nut coming loose is the customers responsibility.
So go backwards.
The retailer makes some where between 30% mark up for a dealer and 100% mark up for big box stores.
Transporting them from the factory to the shop also is born by the factory and you don't get many ride on on a big truck.
All of the materials used to make the mower plus the wages of the employees has to be met by the manufacturer almost a full year before they are sold cause mowers are a seasonal item and they have to be in the shops before the season starts. Just how much do you think that costs ? Got the interest on $ 12,000,000 in your back pocket ?
Then there are massive warehouses full of parts for last years mower, the year before that, the year before that and so on many back as far as 10 to 20 years.
This costs a fortune which is one reason why cheap Chinese mowers are so cheap.
So just how much profit do you think is in selling you a $ 1500 ride on for the company that makes it ?
I would hazard a guess that they are making a loss at that price but the loss they make s less than the interest on the money they borrowed to make it in the first place.
If you look at the names on well made mower that are 10+ year old and still going strong, you will notice that the company that made them is gone, the name might still be around but the company that made good quality reasonable priced mowers went bankrupt because most of the people when faced with a decision between good quality with a long service life and cheap junk that will be lucky to stay together till warranty expires they mostly bought the latter.
Go round to the breakers yards and look at the names on the mowers, most currently in production
So a $ 5000 mower that has a 10 year service life is $ 500 /year, a lot less than what it would cost you to get the grass cut
If it has a 20 year service life then we are talking $ 250 a year and that is less than most would spend on beer of coffee.
The mower I use most is a 1966 Rover Rancher II with 30" up front slasher.
It cost $ 695 back in 1966 a house on a 1/4 acre was $ 18,000 a locally made car was $ 2,100
Because $ 695 was a fair & reasonable price in 1966 the factory could afford to make it properly and stay in business and this mower will last forever.
It uses standard belts standard bearings and all flat sections heavy steel bodywork, so it does not look "sexy" but then again it was not bought to go in the bedroom.
So working on % costs, a mower of equivalent quality should be around the same 30% of the price of a reasonable quality car or 4% the price of a house on a 1/4 acre ( now $ 750,000)
Or you can go the other way
The mean annual full time adult male wage down here in 1966 was around $ 5000 / year so that mower cost about 14% of a years wages
Now days the same figure is $ 56,000 so I would expect to pay around $ 8000 for a mower of equivalent quality, which is a little less but not far off the mark for a good one.
If you are just chasing profit then making a small volume of items with a large profit margin beats making a large volume at a small margin every day of the week, provided you can sell them all.
Husqvarna announced last week they are exiting the tractor mower market and the low end walk behind market.
Now they own the factory so can make them cheaper than any one else so why did they go ? You can bet your booty it was not because they are making too much profit by downgrading the product.