Down here World Lawn was brouht in by the Stihl franchiseor
It looks like it was a blackmail deal to gain access to Honda Power products as they principally sold the Honda self propelled knock offs.
They stopped imporing them when they got a Honda distribution agreement.
A couple of the Stihl dealers took over the distribution so there must be some money in the deal.
I have 6 of these in my repair run and they are what we call mudguards "shinny on the top sh*t underneath" absolute garbage but the owners who think they got a $ 2000 mower for $ 600 naturally love them and don't seem to notice they are always replacing chassis parts.
Don't know if the B &S dollied up to look like a Honda from 20' away are real or Chineese coppies but they seem to be OK.
Drive cables have no adjustments , gearboxes are not secured and break away clutches give up the ghost and can not be serviced.
I had 2 Cobras in my service run, I have dropped one customer and am about to drop the other.
The mowers LOOK good buy are very badly made, All external welds were beautiful, all internal welds were garbage.
The spindles run on 6200 series bearings that are not up to the task and collapse followed by tearing up the spindle pulleys.
Blades are badly made and seem to either brittle fracture or bend and in one case flattened out in use so much they started to strike each other.
In 320 hours over 2 years one customer has replaced the following
7 blades
3 spindle pulleys
6 spindle bearings
And this is in addition to regular service replacement parts.
He loves his Cobra and keeps telling me how he got an $18,000 equivalent mower for $ 8,000 so is happy as a pig in mud.
I can not find a serial number on the Kawakasi engine which was fitted with Stens filters when he got it from the dealer so I have doubts that it is genuine as I pay $ 3345 for genuine FX's wholesale.
The customer I dropped simply would not pay for his services ans seemed to think because he paid $ 8000 for the mower he should only pay $ 200 for a full service including parts.
His Cobra seems to be much better made that the other but then again he is only mowing 2 cleared acres of well manicured lawns.
So like a lot of junk that comes out of China there appears to be no quality control.
Some seem to be good while othere are rolling piles of scrap metal.
No parts back up and the distributor actually claimed the spindle problem was beause of insufficiant low grade grease in the sealed bearings & I should pop the seals and put more better grease in there.
And these are the bearings he supplies to customers.
So if you are a gambleing type of a person and have a lazy $ 10,000 you are willing to part with go ahead and try your luck.