I went ahead and bought a WORLDLAWN DIAMONDBACK 52 INCH ZERO TURN.

[NavyNancy]

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.

 

[NavyNancy]

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 ?

 

[NavyNancy]

I just took some photos of the welds underneath the deck and I fully agree those welds do not look as good/ proffesional as the welds on top of the deck. I have to wonder if the welds under the deck are done by a human because the weld beads are sometimes so irregular and the welds on top of the deck are done by a machine because they look so clean/strong and proffesional ?

I doubt this will be of any real negative impact for my residential mowing needs, and I wonder if the proffesional weld beads on the top of the deck are strong enough to support some of the amateurish looking welds underneath . The blotchy small weld bead in the 3rd photo is the worst one I saw under the deck. I will keep an eye on the deck and if I notice any breaks/fractures I can always reweld it myself, but this should not be something the consumer should have to do/ worry about IMHO. Heres some photos.

In the 6th photo, you can also see where the spindles mount, it is heavily reinforced with thicker/ extra steel on the bottom and I assume it is reinforced like this on the top because the company calls this " triple reifnorced area" .

 

[bertsmobile1]

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 .

 

[NavyNancy]

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 .

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 ?

 

[bertsmobile1]

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 ?

Seem on par
Always a worry when you see pristine welds on the top and total crap underneath
It makes you wonder what else was done for show
Keep us in mind
All of the pulleys on both mowers detached
The replacements were rubbish so I did proper welds on them and when doing this one warped so I rewelded he best of the broken ones .
Like I said, I got sick of repairing them particularly with the customers in my ear crowing about how much money they saved so eventually just told them NO.
I would really like you to have a good run with yours but even if you do please come back and add to this thread at least each season
Finding honest appraisals of any mower is hard and even more so for Lawn World and I for one will be interested in your experiances .

 

[NavyNancy]

I can assure you that if and when I catastrophic unexpected issue arises, I will mention it on this thread because I also feel it would be nice to have more info/ honest user reviews on this particular brand.

 

[barny57]

Heres some photos .

For the money you’re talking about spending you should be able to get a pretty decent mower

 

[TobyU]

Some people aren't here are just like me, they have a whole lot to say..
Unfortunately, and sometimes fortunately, most of it is true though.
One thing about the Chinese stuff, I know people love to bash cheap Chinese parts and engines etc but it's not that they can't make good quality stuff it's basically that no one ever asks them to!
These companies, and the bean counters are trying to save money or maximize profit so they have a design or a plan or they want something whatever and they throw it out there to see who the lowest bidder is and guess who almost always comes in as the lowest bidder? Somebody in china. That's going to change pretty soon I think as there's already some things coming in from India..
This is what happened with Mexico a couple of decades ago.

Back to your new mower though, congratulations. It's always awesome to get a nice new piece of equipment like that. I'm sure you will do fine over the next 10 years with this but you'll probably have a needed repair here or there but I don't really think that's any different any piece of equipment you would buy.

It all kinds of depends on how, and how much you use it.

Like spindles in a mower. Most people will hit something and damage a spindle far before they will actually wear one out even when they are permanently sealed ones with no grease fittings.
Now, a lot of times people do hit things and damage or shorten the life of the spindle and the bearings it just doesn't happen right after they hit something so they don't really realize that that harsh use or even what would be considered abuse even though accidental is what caused it.

It's not really that it wore out in 4 years but rather it was beat up pretty hard multiple times and that took its longer lifespan down to 3 to 4 years.

Personally, I think everybody should learn to work on things like this if they're going to own them.
If you're going to pay somebody every time something breaks then why not just take out the middleman and just pay someone to cut your lawn!

It's super expensive to take you more or have it picked up and go to a shop every time and they often do more than you really have to do at that period of time.
Like when you have one spindle which is often the left side one that you trim around things go bad and they will recommend replacing all three or two if it's a smaller one, when you could get years out of the other ones. I just do the one that needs to be done.
Also, for so many mowers you can buy a complete spindle assembly for under 15 or 20 bucks shipped to your door but when you take it to a shop they're not buying those and they're paying much bigger money for them so you will be paying 70- $100 plus for each one.
This is not a case where the shop is actually ripping you off. It's simply that they are getting ripped off too because they are not sourcing better prices for the supplies.

And I don't want to hear anything about the quality of these eBay and Amazon spindles etc because they seem to be no worse than the quality of an MTD let's say that you buy from a dealer or from Lowe's or Home Depot.
All of that is residential lower grade stuff and it's all made in China or at least all has Chinese bearings in it and none of them are anything better than slightly beyond mediocre.

20w50 is a common oil for hydros as is the 15w50 full synthetic Mobil 1 which I believe is the same stuff or at least recommended for a lot of the exmark hydros or maybe the same as their own exmark hydro fluid.
While in warm conditions 20w50 should be fine and the Kawasaki owners manual probably says it's okay just like the old Japanese motorcycles even the high performance ones up throughout the mid-90s that were very high in sport bikes could be run on anything from straight 30 straight 40, 10w30, 10w40, 15 w 40, 20 w 50 and a couple of other ones you only find in Europe.
So in reality they're pretty forgiving and it's usually better to air on the side of thick versus thin.
I don't really see a need for 20w50 though even though I used to use it in all my race car engines and my street strip play cars I used to build.
I don't like 10w40 though as even in the day it just had too much of a spread and it doesn't age well or last long and since it's not popular they don't really put any effort into making good quality refined versions of it today and I'm not a fan of multigrades on lawn mowers because you just don't need it at least not for my use.
I like a plain old SAE 30 weight or an HD 30. I can't really make any proven or long tested decisions on whether a diesel 30 could possibly better than an HD or standard automotive 30 but in reality I don't think there's going to be any difference.
I also think 15W40 is great oil for small engines and that's mostly diesel oil.
I've also used straight 40 in lots of my engines specifically Valvoline VR1 racing oil which has a very high zinc content so I've used that in 30 and 40 weights and even 50 and the 20w50 when I have something that's old and using oil or need some extra thickness or compression because that's about the only brand I can easily find a straight 50 and I think they even have a straight 60 available.
It's easier than gooping it up with 5 or 6 oz of blue STP. Lol

Overall though I would recommend to read your manual on the engine and hopefully it tells you they recommend an oil change in the first let's say 2 to 10 hours. I know that's becoming a thing in the past but I really think you should always get that initial oil out after a short period of time because only when an engine is new will you ever see, or should you ever see, that gray metallic Sheen to the oil because all the medical particles inside from it polishing everything in.

I don't like leaving that in there.
So sometime in the first five or six hours I like to do an oil and filter change..

I don't use OEM filters for anything!
Let's be honest, they are lawn mowers... Low performance little turds in reality.
That also makes most of them very forgiving.
Just remember I don't believe you'll find one single mower manufacturer that makes their own oil filters.
Now I wouldn't put an orange fram on a lawn mower or a bicycle if they had oil filters for their chain. Lol..
And I don't think you can do any better than wix and all these arguments about bypass and micron ratings are pretty moot at least in my opinion.
Remember these engines lasted for decades without ever having an oil filter.
So if I really like a piece of equipment I'll go with wix. Otherwise, I will go with the house brand from O'Reilly Auto Parts which I believe has changed manufacturers in the past 8 or 10 years at least once but the quality seems good and consistent and with my commercial account there I get them for about $2.49 to $3.29 so it's hard to beat the price.
I guess I could buy bulk online but I don't think I could get any brand whatsoever other than generic fleet ones approaching that price.

I'm also not really a fan of full synthetic oil in lawn mower engines because I just really don't think they need it or benefit from it that much and it can tend to leak and disappear a little faster but regardless keep an eye on your oil all the time..

The best practice is to never start or crank an engine until you check the oil level. Not just because it could be low but sometimes it could be high. You wouldn't believe how many older ones have a leaky needle and seat and have what's called fuel migration or case old dilution and end up a quart to a half gallon of gas in the oil.
This makes it thin and runny to where it doesn't protect worth of crap and raises your level on the dipstick and inch or so above the full Mark so you have to carefully look at it and make sure it's not high because it's harder to see and smell it to make sure it doesn't smell like gas.

Use a leaf blower or a blowgun with an air compressor to blow all the grass and stuff and keep the hydros clean so they will cool properly and keep the crap off the top of the deck and blow around and under the shroud and heads on the engine to keep that stuff out of there and every so many hours or every so many years whatever you deem appropriate, take the shroud off the engine and make sure there is no build up on either one of the head cooling fans because this causes a lot of damage especially slip valve guides and popped valve seats which can be so bad, just like I had one happen two years ago on a Kawasaki where the head was wiped out and couldn't even be fixed without a new head.

Had the machine have been properly serviced and all the greasy grime from 8 to 10 years and the 1400 hours on the machine, this would have been caught and he would have never slipped a valve guide.

 

[davis2]

Where are you located? 20w50 seems kind of heavy for the engine oil...