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Since the first day I bought my Ariens Edge 52 used. I have been starting it standing beside it. I was told by the pawn shop to make sure the parking brake was engaged and the PTO button was pushed in. That is all he told me. So when I got it home just like my bike that I own I started it standing beside it and let it warm up before I jumped on it then I release the parking brake and proceeded to drive onto the lawn. I was told from some people on some YouTube videos that no zero turn mowers should start unless you are sitting on the seat as a safety precaution and that someone must have tampered with my wiring switch? Now there is another guy named Tom that has a Bad Boy 42 inch Rambler and he says he can start his standing beside it also as long as all the safeties are engaged just like mine. So I took a picture of the wiring under my seat. Here it is........

Well the uTubers are wrong. The seat on your mower only controls the Magneto kill once you release the brake and Controls the PTO grounding so if you not on the seat the PTO will not engage and the engine will die if you release the brake and you are not on the seat.

There are some mowers that will only crank if there is some one in the seat & they are a PIA to service
Never had it happen with a ZTR but have had it happen on a couple of tractor style mowers
From memory they all had that idiot key-less ignition another thing that is a PIA .

bertsmobile1 said:

There are some mowers that will only crank if there is some one in the seat & they are a PIA to service
Never had it happen with a ZTR but have had it happen on a couple of tractor style mowers
From memory they all had that idiot key-less ignition another thing that is a PIA .

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So will all Ariens zero turns start without having to sit in the seat, even the newest ones?

All depends what the OEM did on that particular model.

And Bert I have had a few ZTRs that you had to be on the seat to start them here.

Star, which brands did you have to be on the seat?

Rivets said:

Star, which brands did you have to be on the seat?

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My experience has been Scag and Kubota require a warm body in the seat. And was just working on a old Simplicity rider yesterday that required seat use to crank

I can’t remember ever having to be on the seat for Kubota or Simplicity, but at my age I’ve forgotten more than I know.

Rivets said:

I can’t remember ever having to be on the seat for Kubota or Simplicity, but at my age I’ve forgotten more than I know.

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Very true. I have forgotten a lot too just because it is rarely needed any more. Sometimes it takes days to work my way through all the cobwebs of my mind to find things.

Well now days I do not bother to try & remember
I have a set of jumpers for seat switches so SOP is to pull the seat & plug in the jumper
I always use the shop keys when working on a mower and those keys have a big tag "Remove seat jumper " on them but I have still sent the odd one back with jumper in place .