Sorry to rain on your parade but unless World Lawn has done a lot of work on their quality in the past few years I will never touch one again .
Finally in frustration I told the two customers who owned them I will no longer service them as in my opinion the mower was not only poorly made but also dangerous to use.
The blades appear to be plain high carbon steel & regularly fractured in a brittle mode so go flying out the side of the mower.
All of the spindle pulleys detached from their bosses and many of the welds cracked
The welding that you can see from the top is beautiful
The welds that I saw underneath are all very sub standard
Finally the total lack of any unique parts made them more trouble than they were worth
And their line of pretend Honda walk behinds are even worse .
We call them "mudguards ( fenders to some )" pretty on the top-shit underneath
They remind me of the junk we get when some one takes a quality product to a third world country and request them to make "one that looks exactly like this as cheap as possible.
I did the inital services on both of them
All of the filters were not genuine Kawakasi but bad factory seconds from one of the Chinese knock off companies which made be doubt if the engine was in fact genuine and not a counterfeit
By the time I dumped them both of the hydros were leaking on one and the top seal was leaking on another
FWIW they were a Cobra & a Viper and both were on large ex-pasture properties of 10 & 30 acres
If you do a search on the web about World Lawn on mower forums and consummer complaint forums you will see they had a very bad reputation
Cheap in every sense of the word and in my opinion deliberatley deceptive as well .
The F525 I own runs and mows perfectly. It has about 780 hours on it. The 1 real negative of it, is it is quite slow...top forward speed around 4-5 mph. That also has a Kawasaki engine on it, but it is a 1 cylinder, which is often frowned upon by mower/ engine mechanics for these heavy mowers.Sorry to rain on your parade but unless World Lawn has done a lot of work on their quality in the past few years I will never touch one again .
Finally in frustration I told the two customers who owned them I will no longer service them as in my opinion the mower was not only poorly made but also dangerous to use.
The blades appear to be plain high carbon steel & regularly fractured in a brittle mode so go flying out the side of the mower.
All of the spindle pulleys detached from their bosses and many of the welds cracked
The welding that you can see from the top is beautiful
The welds that I saw underneath are all very sub standard
Finally the total lack of any unique parts made them more trouble than they were worth
And their line of pretend Honda walk behinds are even worse .
We call them "mudguards ( fenders to some )" pretty on the top-shit underneath
They remind me of the junk we get when some one takes a quality product to a third world country and request them to "make one that looks exactly like this as cheap as possible".
I did the inital services on both of them
All of the filters were not genuine Kawakasi but bad factory seconds from one of the Chinese knock off companies which made me doubt if the engine was in fact genuine and not a counterfeit
I tried to check with my Kawakasi distributor and the reply "we can not verify imported engines " was not very encouraging .
By the time I dumped them both of the hydros were leaking on one and the top seal was leaking on another
FWIW they were a Cobra & a Viper and both were on large ex-pasture properties of 10 & 30 acres
If you do a search on the web about World Lawn on mower forums and consummer complaint forums you will see they had a very bad reputation
Cheap in every sense of the word and in my opinion deliberatley deceptive as well so the really stingly cheap skates rave about how much they saved comparred to quality mowers like JD & Toro .
There is a reason why they named the models after snakes because they are Snake Oil
Your money would have been far better spent on repairing that JD F525 in the background .
When I went to the importer to get a full set of spindle bearings, firstly he did not have a full set and secondly he said "the bearings are junk and you have to pull the seals wash the bearings & put better grease in there "
That is a FR series Kawasaki engine, which is their residential version, good engine. World Lawn has very sporadic and sparse dealer support, parts availability can be difficult in some cases, cheaper overall quality, and many shops will NOT work on them. In a stock market sense, it is a no buy.I have all of the specs here
The history goes like this
The original factory , Encore was run so badly it went broke
So a bunch of the managers hot footed it to China with a brief case of design drawings in the hope of resurecting it using a knock down Chinese mower that was reassembled in the USA so could be sold as "made in the USA"
And this is exactly what happened , the old factory site had not been sold so they leased it but because they did not have the money to buy the old brand names from the liquidators they used World Lawn which is part of the name of the manufacturing company in China ,(Jiangsu World Plant-Protecting Machinery Co., Ltd ) which in itself is part of the massive "World" group which was owned by the " people " which is cover for the Chinese Communist Party
Because they were not good managers, and the product was trash it flopped big time so the Chinese company took control , relaunched the Encore brand .
The truth of what exactly happened will eventually come out but the history seems to change every few days
Encore say they never stopped manufacture so they can claim a long heritage ( since 1988 ) but their distribution network down here closed in 2011 and did not reappear till 2019 so from 2011 to 2019 we had stand alone World Lawn mowers down here and rebadged World Lawns locally branded . In 2019 there was a promo that Encore brand was going to relaunch in Australia but to date no dealers have been announced .
One of my wholesalers sells rebadged Encores under their Bushranger brand but that is the only presence I am aware of.
Now the local US dealers will have a better understanding than I do from Australia
As for the materials
you can get strong parts by using high quality alloy steel and make them thin or use low grade low strength steel & make them thicker
Think of the difference between High Speed Tool Steel tap & dies which are expensive , last forever & are resistant to fracture compared to high carbon steel ones that are 1/3 the price, go blunt quickly and break easily .
So that is the difference
People who do not understand materials technology associate thickness with quality because they are used to things getting thinner & cheaper till they fall apart the day you unwrap them
But when it come to things like flat plate thicker is always cheaper stock that welds poorly fatigues quickly but does not wear out your tooling because it is soft & weak so to get the same strength you need to increase the section thickness which makes using thick low grade plate a lot lot cheaper , particularly if it is
Down here 2 local brands, Parklander & Rover both sold rebadged World Lawn ZTR's and both dropped them in a couple of years and went to MTD .
That speaks a lot about the quality & durability of the World Lawn products .
Wholesale prices of the World Lawn were in fact cheaper than the wholesale prices of MTD which are the cheapest USA product by a long way in every sense of the word .
Now that the company is bereft of the original managers who may have been milking it for all that they could the quality may have increased
Do the welds under my deck , seem to be on par with the welds you had seen or does it look like my welds are a improvement over the welds you had seen a few years ago ?No other mower maker puts in brace plates there .
The important thing is you are now in an eyes wide open state so you know to check it carefully and often
Down here the Stihl national franchise used to carry them nation wide but they dropped them after a couple of years
AFAIK there are no Australian distributors for them at the moment but I do not go dealer shopping so some of the lesser franchase chains may be carrying them
Then again Australia is a small market , JD & Toro have most of the commercial sector and very few of us see the need for 15 acres of mowed grass as seems to be the want in the USA
So the market for big mowers is very small with 42" being by far the most common deck size .
We have a lot of golf courses ( several companies do golfing tours- holidays for Japanese golfers ) down here and used fairway mowers seem to fill the broad acre home owner market .
Seem on parDo the welds under my deck , seem to be on par with the welds you had seen or does it look like my welds are a improvement over the welds you had seen a few years ago ?
For the money you’re talking about spending you should be able to get a pretty decent mowerHeres some photos .
I read thru the entire thread and hope the mower works out for you.Can anyone identify what these 2 pieces are and where they go ? I found them laying on the top of my worldlawn mower deck. They are about 1.5 inchs in length and 1 of them is threaded ...it looks as though the 2 pieces would bolt together { 1 bolt on each end } around something.
Until reading this post, I have never heard of worldmower. Just hearing the word sounds cheap. I used to work on alot of riders and zero turn mowers. I have a JD 1435 diesel 72 inch deck, 4 wheel drive. It's almost like driving a car. It Appears to be very well made. People get what they pay for. They buy something cheap make and wind up spending more money on it than it's worth. I had an old woods zero turn that I traded in and paid a couple grand to get the JD. The left hydro pump on the woods was going out and I didn't want to mess with it. The JD 1435 is a much better mower.Sorry to rain on your parade but unless World Lawn has done a lot of work on their quality in the past few years I will never touch one again .
Finally in frustration I told the two customers who owned them I will no longer service them as in my opinion the mower was not only poorly made but also dangerous to use.
The blades appear to be plain high carbon steel & regularly fractured in a brittle mode so go flying out the side of the mower.
All of the spindle pulleys detached from their bosses and many of the welds cracked
The welding that you can see from the top is beautiful
The welds that I saw underneath are all very sub standard
Finally the total lack of any unique parts made them more trouble than they were worth
And their line of pretend Honda walk behinds are even worse .
We call them "mudguards ( fenders to some )" pretty on the top-shit underneath
They remind me of the junk we get when some one takes a quality product to a third world country and request them to "make one that looks exactly like this as cheap as possible".
I did the inital services on both of them
All of the filters were not genuine Kawakasi but bad factory seconds from one of the Chinese knock off companies which made me doubt if the engine was in fact genuine and not a counterfeit
I tried to check with my Kawakasi distributor and the reply "we can not verify imported engines " was not very encouraging .
By the time I dumped them both of the hydros were leaking on one and the top seal was leaking on another
FWIW they were a Cobra & a Viper and both were on large ex-pasture properties of 10 & 30 acres
If you do a search on the web about World Lawn on mower forums and consummer complaint forums you will see they had a very bad reputation
Cheap in every sense of the word and in my opinion deliberatley deceptive as well so the really stingly cheap skates rave about how much they saved comparred to quality mowers like JD & Toro .
There is a reason why they named the models after snakes because they are Snake Oil
Your money would have been far better spent on repairing that JD F525 in the background .
When I went to the importer to get a full set of spindle bearings, firstly he did not have a full set and secondly he said "the bearings are junk and you have to pull the seals wash the bearings & put better grease in there "
Parts availability for some of these cheap made mowers is and can be a problem. Word to the ignorant, when they buy cheap, they think they are saving money but in the long run they will wind up spending more on it than it's worth.I read thru the entire thread and hope the mower works out for you.
What tends to happen with the off brand stuff is when you need parts 5+ years in the future they will not be available or extremely hard to find. So the mower you saved thousands of dollars on with the purchase price is no longer useable. When this happens is when you realize the savings disappeared.
You mentioned “commercial parts” a couple times in your posts. Go look at a real commercial ZT mower and then look at the World mower. “Commercial” has become a marketing buzzword to lure people in and has lost its true meaning. Trust me that mower would have an extremely short life if it were used commercially.
I still believe in the old adage “you get what you pay for”…….not always, but if you do your homework you will. There is a big difference when designing and manufacturing a product to be reliable and durable vs low cost. If you do your homework you can clearly see the difference.
This is just my opinion but just hearing the name worldmower sounds cheap. I hope you don't regret buying it when it needs repairs. It's like buying a foreign car, you can buy them cheap but you will pay up for the parts. Good luck.I appreciate the history on the company. I admit I took a calculated gamble . I called several local service centers for this brand...I think there were 4 places....1 of the places told me they quit servicing this companys mowers , mainly because they had too many issues with the motor which was not the kawasaki engines. I told that servcie center that the 2022 I was purchasing had the Kawasaki engine, which he replied " you should be fine then " The other 3 service centers, which are all within 1 hour of my house, told me they still sell these mowers, and service them and they can get the parts when needed. They also told me that they have not seen many issues / returns ...but 1 service center did tell me they had a mower brought back because it was constantly throwing off the deck belt , so they had to take all the pulleys off the deck and install new ones.
I had 2 main choices...I was gonna purchase a used TORO TITAN MAX 60 inch cut for $2800 that had 325 hours and was a 2012 model or take a chance on this Worldlawn 2022 mower that was practically brand new with 18 hours for $4250 and supposedly used many commerical parts.
Only time will tell when it comes to the longevity of my Worldlawn mower. Since im using it in a residential setting , maybe I will get lucky and not have any major issues and get 10 + years of good service from it. If and when it has its 1st significant breakdown/ issue, I will definitely post about it.
One thing is certain, the mower has very thick metal on the build/ deck/ pulleys, etc....but I agree that it could be thick, weak, cheap metal. I wont be mowing over rocks, sticks , etc so maybe it will hold up better then a situation where it is being used commercially everyday in less then ideal mowing situations.
Im gonna try and take a look under the deck and see what the welds look like.
With the possible negatives , does it not seem that the 23 hp Kawasaki engine and the servicable hydro drives on this Diamondback mower , are solid components used in many commercial mowers that sell for much higher price points ?
I find it hard to believe, that this Worldlawn is not of significant better quality then the myriad of zero turns sold at the big box stores in the $2000 -$4000 price ranges. I do admit, that it is usually not a great sign, that this specific brand still seems to be a relatively unknown brand by most people nor does it seem that many people own this brand ..
My initial amateur inspection of the mower , impressed me along with knowing it is basically a new mower that sells for around $5900 out the door and I got it for $4250, but I am in no way a top notch mechanic nor am I deeply educated in zero turn mowers so its possible I may regret this purchase once the mower has seen some significant use.
I fully agree, the brand name is awful.This is just my opinion but just hearing the name worldmower sounds cheap. I hope you don't regret buying it when it needs repairs. It's like buying a foreign car, you can buy them cheap but you will pay up for the parts. Good luck.
Can anyone identify what these 2 pieces are and where they go ? I found them laying on the top of my worldlawn mower deck. They are about 1.5 inchs in length and 1 of them is threaded ...it looks as though the 2 pieces would bolt together { 1 bolt on each end } around something.
OP only wanted to know what fell off the mower, not a lecture. I love this site, but it sucks listening to people get berated over simple stuff. Not everyone is a mechanic, and some of the people looking for help here may be the person one of us go to for one of our needs. Just have some compassion for others, guys.This is just my opinion but just hearing the name worldmower sounds cheap. I hope you don't regret buying it when it needs repairs. It's like buying a foreign car, you can buy them cheap but you will pay up for the parts. Good luck.
Cheap is cheap. You get what you pay for.OP only wanted to know what fell off the mower, not a lecture. I love this site, but it sucks listening to people get berated over simple stuff. Not everyone is a mechanic, and some of the people looking for help here may be the person one of us go to for one of our needs. Just have some compassion for others, guys.
I dont consider $4250 cheap...LOL....most money Ive ever spent on a riding mower.Cheap is cheap. You get what you pay for.
That may be true, but why does everyone who asks for help get a lecture if they don't know what info to give, or make some other mistake? Trust me, I've seen some of the idiots who have been annoying, but the OP on this thread doesn't deserve the lecture. Save the meanness for those who earn it like that Tandolfi guy last week.Cheap is cheap. You get what you pay for.
I agree. I suggest not hosing off the mower as a cleaning technique. Water getting in the poorly sealed bearings destroys them pretty quickly. I learned about this on my Kubota ZT. Bought it used for $2,500 with 40 hrs on it 5 yrs ago. Hasn’t been trouble free but parts are available and so fix everything myself. Being a common brand parts like wheel bearings are available in updgades stainless steel with a better seal than the OE ones.I dont consider $4250 cheap...LOL....most money Ive ever spent on a riding mower.
Funny story...yesterday my neighbor was mowing his yard with his $6000 kubota zero turn and his deck belt broke. He came over to my house and asked me if he could finish his 2 acre yard with my mower and of course I said , yes.I agree. I suggest not hosing off the mower as a cleaning technique. Water getting in the poorly sealed bearings destroys them pretty quickly. I learned about this on my Kubota ZT. Bought it used for $2,500 with 40 hrs on it 5 yrs ago. Hasn’t been trouble free but parts are available and so fix everything myself. Being a common brand parts like wheel bearings are available in updgades stainless steel with a better seal than the OE ones.
Hope your mower works out for you.
Depending on the model Kubota, they had a recall on the belt tensioner. Mine ate a belt so that’s how I learned about the fix.Funny story...yesterday my neighbor was mowing his yard with his $6000 kubota zero turn and his deck belt broke. He came over to my house and asked me if he could finish his 2 acre yard with my mower and of course I said , yes.
I never use a hose on my mower....I always blow it off with a blower. He hosed the whole lawnmower down after he used it and brought it back over to me. I told him that if he ever has to use my mower again, to never hose it off with water.
I never even liked the push mowers that have the hose attachment to connect ahose to wash the underside of the decks.
It's recommended for all oil changes. If you look around there are other oils containing zinc that are designed for use in motorcycles which should work as good as the Kawasaki branded oil so long as they have similar zinc content. Depending on how much dust you kick up you might consider getting a Donaldson style 2 stage air filter, there's a number of places on the internet where you can get one. These are typically found on the commercial Kawasaki twins and can be easily adapted to work on residential mowers. They provide a significant improvement in air filtration and due to the size they aren't restrictive to the point that you'd need to re-tune the engine. I put one on my Big Box store Cub Cadet XT1 50 which has a 23 HP Kawasaki FR691 because of all the dust that gets kicked up here in Oklahoma. It's about 4 years old now with no issues mowing an acre about every 4-7 days with normal maintenance. Pulled and checked spindles recently, still plenty of grease in the sealed bearings, no zerks. The spindles are MTD with chinesium bearings. Will replace them with Timkens if they ever go bad.Any opinions on the 20-50 w kawasaki oil that has the zinc additive ? Is it worth the extra money to use it for every oil change or only use it for initial break in period, or dont use it at all ?
Looks like the clamp collar for the brake from 48-52-60-DIAMONDBACK-PARTS-MANUAL-REV-DATE-201909.pdf page 29, item number 25. You can search and download the file.Can anyone identify what these 2 pieces are and where they go ? I found them laying on the top of my worldlawn mower deck. They are about 1.5 inchs in length and 1 of them is threaded ...it looks as though the 2 pieces would bolt together { 1 bolt on each end } around something.
Ty...I put it back on the horizontal parking brake bar. I actually did not see why it was even needed to be there in the 1st place.Looks like the clamp collar for the brake from 48-52-60-DIAMONDBACK-PARTS-MANUAL-REV-DATE-201909.pdf page 29, item number 25. You can search and download the file.
Are there other recommendations for cooler climates? Seems a bit heavy for a lawn mower.It's recommended for all oil changes. If you look around there are other oils containing zinc that are designed for use in motorcycles which should work as good as the Kawasaki branded oil so long as they have similar zinc content. Depending on how much dust you kick up you might consider getting a Donaldson style 2 stage air filter, there's a number of places on the internet where you can get one. These are typically found on the commercial Kawasaki twins and can be easily adapted to work on residential mowers. They provide a significant improvement in air filtration and due to the size they aren't restrictive to the point that you'd need to re-tune the engine. I put one on my Big Box store Cub Cadet XT1 50 which has a 23 HP Kawasaki FR691 because of all the dust that gets kicked up here in Oklahoma. It's about 4 years old now with no issues mowing an acre about every 4-7 days with normal maintenance. Pulled and checked spindles recently, still plenty of grease in the sealed bearings, no zerks. The spindles are MTD with chinesium bearings. Will replace them with Timkens if they ever go bad.
Hey Bert, thanks for the facts on oil. I was beginning to question my use of straight 30 weight in my Cub Cadet 782. It uses a little every other mow, ( approx 3HR) but I will continue what I was doing... But isn't 20w50 a bit heavy for a mower? I'm really curious as to why they would recommend that weight oil.Zinc content is irrelevent for mower engines unless your engine is doing 8000+ rpm and you have fitted high strength valve springs.
What is good for the goose is not necessarily good for the gander
Almost any oil will be fine for a mower engine particularly when it gets replaced annually at the end of each season ( not the beginning of the new one )
Mower oils are the best but not if left in there for too long .
Air cooled engine oils are the second best
The diesel oils
then car oils
But any of them are better than not enough oil or dirty oil
I always find it amusing that people will argue so passionately about things they have little real understanding of .
Oil
Oil filters
Fuel Stabilizers
Climate change
conservation
election results
And with this pear I am out of this thread
Hope NavyNancy does well with his mower
Absolutely makes sense , but I seldom see 20w50 recommendations on new equipment. Must be that particular engine runs hotter? Or larger tolerances?Simple as this
When the temperature rises the oil thins
If it gets thin enough more will bypass the rings and be burned in the engine and the seal between the cylinder & the rings will be compromised
If you have ever boiled a car engine , let it get stone cold, refill the engine & crank it then you would have noticed it spun very quickly for a few minutes till the oil got back into the cylinder to create the seal with the piston rings .