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Today I had the misfortune of being called out to help a customer fix a mower I have never worked on before.
Now I must confess that I did not go out with the open & objective mind that I should have when looking at a new piece of equipment.
Firstly the "I can't get the parts I have bought to fit " syndrome usually ends up in tears & me looking either uncooperative or greedy when I try to recover th actual time spent in rectifying the owners "fixes"
And secondly because I have suffered a few previous encounters with the same makers cheap & nasty Honda Self propelled look alikes .
Previously the original seller did not want to know about it & referred me to the previous repairer who also was not interested in supplying parts and was in fact unable to even find the correct part given the model & serial numbers.
They eventually directed me to the current importers who wanted to see the part so they could match it. Not the sort of thing that creates great faith in the brand.

Any way, this is what I was confronted with on a machine ( 60" Cobra ) that has done 56 hours, I repeat this is a supposed commercial mower with 56 hours on the clock over the 16 months the owner has had the machine.



The front spindle pulley had failed by the boss detatching from the pulley flange.
If you look closely at the first picture you will note that it is a TIG weld with a massive under cut.
This picture has the boss upside down so it would not be visible when inspecting the machine without using a mirror.
Compare that weld to the one in the second picture where you can see the nice ( and it is good even if the end pool was not properly filled ) fillet on the top of the pulley where it is visible to the mug purchaser.
All 3 pulleys were welded exactly the same as was the replacement. How much is 6" of filler rod worth and if that is what the pulleys are like I can only imagine what the welds are like under and inside where they can not be seen without partial disassembly.
I could not get a good picture with the I phone but the flange of the pulley looks very thin. Thinner than any commercial mower spindle pulley I have ever come across and I would guess it is just under the minimum thickness required for a pulley of this size ( about 9" ) should it have been made from good quality USA or Aust steel but I suspect it was fabricated from slightly under specification Chineese pretend steel.
Bad thing is the fracture surface was too damaged for any proper determination ( I used to be a metallurgist ) but there was no apparent necking and the fracture face was just far enough away to almost rule out a transitional failure at the tip of the heat affected zone of the weld unless it was welded in an open yard in sub zero temperatures without any pre heat.

The owner could not remove the boss from the spindle shaft and I had to pop a bearing separator under it and apply way too much force to get it off suggesting it was a either a light press fit or poor machining tolerances .
The spindle is mounted from the underside of the deck thus the pulley has to be fitted in situ so it will be interesting to have a look at the spindle bearings.
The World agent tod him to "remove the pin & it will come off easily " which is interesting because there is no pin and the key is not accessible with the boss on the shaft.
The owner thinks he got a steal particularly as the replacement spindle ( warrantee was not honoured ) only cost him $ 27.00 where as the pulley for his old Dane was $ 75 and his neighbour paid $ 65 for spindle pulleys on the Dixie.

the good thing is I can see me making a LOT of money out of this machine because the other two spindle pulleys will most likely suffer the same fate in the near future.
In 56 hours the plstic thumb screw heads had detached from the spindle cover screws so it will be a spanner job to refit the belt every time it jumps off.

Now according to the bumph on the Aust web site If you fell like a good laugh, read it
This machine is fitted with a REAL Kawakasi V twin but a cursory glance noticed a Stens filter was fitted which has not been changed since new, SO Kawakasi is apparently suplying new motors with afermarket Stens oil filters fitted now days , never seen that before, but I could be wrong, however the retail price of all the supposed brand name components adds up to nearly 1/2 the retail cost of the machine so some thing there smells a bit funny. particularly as there is no Hydro Gear identity tags to be seen any where on the machine & the last time I fitted a repacement Hydro gear pump it came with 5 tags and instructions where to put them.

Since my last encounter with WORLD LAWN Rubbish the USA agent has put up a really good web site. Seems there s a lot more money available for web presence than there is for QC. Home - Worldlawn Power Equipment, Inc.Worldlawn Power Equipment, Inc.
The Australian distributor has done the usual Aussie thing, a slick looking web site with no actual content. The Truth About The Mower Industry: Worldlawn Australia

I haven't come across any Chinese mowers yet, but I have there motorcycles, ATVs. A lot of poor fitting plastic junk and can't find parts.

Some serious cheap junk.
That company buys Exmark's old blue prints for mower designs.

And of course the web site flys the Stars & Stripes in a true patriotic was proudly announcing it is a All American Company taking the fight to the big boys ( obviously protecting the consumer ) .
They waffle on about Their engineers making it sound like the mowers are designed & manufactured in the USA , they even modified the Chineese trade marks a little and found a name that Google does not directly link to the Chineese suppliers Jiangsu World Plant-Protecting Machinery Co., Ltd.--About WORLD--WORLD Group.
The whole problem is the machines look good. This one had heavy steel plate every where and looke like tou could take it to a war zone but it died doing a 5 acre paddock of pasture grasses on a big residential block.

The Honda knock off also look good, on the outside, thick alloy castings, heavy chrome plated handles, but pull off the covers and it is plasticine cable anchors and recycled beer can levers locating pins that would be hard pressed to hold back a fart let alone a mower and of course the B & S fited was one of the all cowl and no motor series.

A dealer nearby gets about a tractor trailer load each year and sells them all. They are well liked here. Farmers buy them along with car wash owners, landlords, property developers and one doctor I know. They have good engines on them here and Hydro Gear pumps. They have a good finance program. A good distributor not far away that handles many other brands and lots of parts. I have no iron in this fire but they are just not all that bad in this area.

If I put up a sign by the front gate reading
60" commercial grade Zero Turn mower $ 8000,

I would have the police up my rear in in 15 minutes flat because all of the trucks turning right into the yard would have the traffic blocked all day.
The next nearest 60" Z turn mower is $ 12,000 and down here a good one will set you back closer to $ 20,000 with most being in the $15,000 to $ 30,000 range.

Now the one I worked on could have been a monday morning Saki special but Parklander & Rover are now made by the same mob and they are land fill pretending to be ride on mowers as well.

Nice to see he sells a lot, but how happy are the customers 3 years down the track ?
As for good quality Kawakasi engines & Hydro Gear drives, Kawakasi do not list World Plant as one of their customers.
Want to know how many counterfit Honda engines I come across every year ?
Oft fitted to fake Onga or Davey pumps and even worse fitted to fake fire fighting pumps.
Now I might be a little over suspicious but I am yet to see a real Kawakasi that did not ship with an oil filter & air filter labled "genuine kawakasi" followed by a part number.
Even the Chineese made B & S and Kohler engines arrive with company branded air & oil fitters including the ones fitted to the Sanli crap which I now refuse to even look at let alone try to fix.

bertsmobile1 said:

If I put up a sign by the front gate reading
60" commercial grade Zero Turn mower $ 8000,

I would have the police up my rear in in 15 minutes flat because all of the trucks turning right into the yard would have the traffic blocked all day.
The next nearest 60" Z turn mower is $ 12,000 and down here a good one will set you back closer to $ 20,000 with most being in the $15,000 to $ 30,000 range.

Now the one I worked on could have been a monday morning Saki special but Parklander & Rover are now made by the same mob and they are land fill pretending to be ride on mowers as well.

Nice to see he sells a lot, but how happy are the customers 3 years down the track ?
As for good quality Kawakasi engines & Hydro Gear drives, Kawakasi do not list World Plant as one of their customers.
Want to know how many counterfit Honda engines I come across every year ?
Oft fitted to fake Onga or Davey pumps and even worse fitted to fake fire fighting pumps.
Now I might be a little over suspicious but I am yet to see a real Kawakasi that did not ship with an oil filter & air filter labled "genuine kawakasi" followed by a part number.
Even the Chineese made B & S and Kohler engines arrive with company branded air & oil fitters including the ones fitted to the Sanli crap which I now refuse to even look at let alone try to fix.

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The Cobras I have seen have the fx series Kawi engines and hydro gear drives. You can go on the thread of every mower manufacturer on this site and see low hour mowers with some sort of issue. I Will admit that I don't have any experience operating a world lawn mower, but I would like to see feed back from several who actually own or have many hours operating one. Anytime a machine is used there will be a breakdown eventually. Sometimes there will be a lemon come off the line from every manufacturer. I can see an issue with getting parts though. I believe lack of product support was one of the causes for the downfall of encore mowers in the first place. The main reason I would be afraid to look at a world lawn mower would be lack of dealer support in my area. I have seen a couple mowers around here, but the only dealer is west of Jonesboro AR. That is over 120 miles. Too far to travel for parts.

Shughes717 said:

The Cobras I have seen have the fx series Kawi engines and hydro gear drives. You can go on the thread of every mower manufacturer on this site and see low hour mowers with some sort of issue. I Will admit that I don't have any experience operating a world lawn mower, but I would like to see feed back from several who actually own or have many hours operating one. Anytime a machine is used there will be a breakdown eventually. Sometimes there will be a lemon come off the line from every manufacturer. I can see an issue with getting parts though. I believe lack of product support was one of the causes for the downfall of encore mowers in the first place. The main reason I would be afraid to look at a world lawn mower would be lack of dealer support in my area. I have seen a couple mowers around here, but the only dealer is west of Jonesboro AR. That is over 120 miles. Too far to travel for parts.

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I think you're right about dealer support, it just depends on where your at or what part of the country you are in. I've got one dealers within 25 miles of me and four other within 30 so there's plenty of support around. Like you say they come with the Kawasaki and Kohler EFI engines and either Hydro-gear drives or pumps and Parker wheel motors so you can't do much better than that. There are businesses around that are using them here and they seem to be having good luck with them and like you say I don't care what you buy because eventually there will be repairs.

Before I'd call them a pile of cheap Chinese Junk or genuine fox in the hen house Id check the spec sheets and I think you'll you'll find them, World lawn and Encore both to be a pretty well built mower.

"Before I'd call them a pile of cheap Chinese Junk or genuine fox in the hen house Id check the spec sheets and I think you'll you'll find them, World lawn and Encore both to be a pretty well built mower." :cool2:

Fragger said:

"Before I'd call them a pile of cheap Chinese Junk or genuine fox in the hen house Id check the spec sheets and I think you'll you'll find them, World lawn and Encore both to be a pretty well built mower." :cool2:

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No surprise with that because the management of World lawn are all the wrong managers from a closed down US manufacturer who either sent one to China and said "make one just like this" or sent across the drawings borrowed from the factory so an almost exact copy could be made.
A boron steel blade looks identical to a high carbon steel blade.
One holds a good edge and will bend under high impact while the other will hold a good edge and break when subject to a high impact.
Guess which one is on the World Lawn ?
If you get under a USA built mower you will see the welds underneath are the same as the welds on top.
Go to your World lawn dealer and look under it.
Nice welds on top where you can see them, chicken sheet tack welds underneath where you can not see them.
Pulleys are the same.

AS a repair technician I only get called in when one breaks so my views can be biased as I only see the really bad ones but I was interested to see what others thought of them.
All of the ones I serviced supposedly had never been serviced and supposedly had original engines but they were all wearing Stens oil filters not Kawakasi ones, never seen that on a Toro fitted with a Kawakasi.
So had me wondering if the engines we see here are real or fakes or built in China under contract .

Maybe to save money they just buy Kaw long blocks and dress them out themselves with aftermarket parts. :laughing:

....Wow, just noticed the start date of this thread.....

I started it just after went to service ( repair ) one where the left blade had broken , in a clean text book brittle fracture.
The blade then took out the middle and right side again brittle fractures.
I sent one of the blades to our consumer affairs and to an old professor and the prof confirmed it was plain high carbon steel with bad ( no ) heat treatment.
He then followed up to try & have a safety recall but nothing came of it.

Shortly after I got called back as the left pulley spindle had ripped off the boss.
Checked the other 2 and they were on the way out with bad cracking so all 3 were replaced along with the left spindle housing and all spindle bearings.
When I got the bearings from the importer he told me the bearings are sheet house & I need to pop the seals & put extra grease in there.
He was right because within a year all the replacement bearings had failed so I replaced them with std bearings from my usual supplier.
The new spindle housing did not fit properly as the holes did not line up.
When invoicing I always put the engine number on the invoice as this makes it easier for me in the future bit try as I could I could not find one on any of the engines fitted to these mowers.
Now the WL we get in Oz is fully made in China where as in the USA they arrive as a knock down kit and get final assembly in the USA so they can call them "Made in USA "

I started the thread to see if these were abnormal or not but there was not much response.
I had already stopped servicing the WL walk behind mowers after two owners refused to pay for the repairs which ( quite truely ) were almost the cost of a new one.
The B & S engines ( dressed up to look like Hondas ) were kept but the chassis were smashed up for scrap after the regulation 1 year.
When I tried to replace one of the control cables, the importers told me to bring in the broken one so they could match it and then it took better than 3 months to get the cable.

So that was it WL mowers are another brand on my do not touch list.
One of the customers was very abusive when told I would not come repair his mower but they are not worth the agro and the last time I drove past his farm he had a Toro sitting where the Cobra was.
Oddly enough two other companies rebrand World Lawn products & their mowers seem to be quite fine although the owners never get them serviced, just repaired & all I have put on them was belts & blades.
They buy the parts & I fit them for a fitting fee.

This was a good post for me. I haven't come across any WL products yet, but will now know what to expect if I do.

I haven't come across any broken blades yet, either, just a bunch of bent ones, and ones that have been worn away to nearly nothing. The sand out here will do that, and there aren't too many lush lawns here. People use mowers almost as much for weed maintenance here.

zman111666 said:

This was a good post for me. I haven't come across any WL products yet, but will now know what to expect if I do.

I haven't come across any broken blades yet, either, just a bunch of bent ones, and ones that have been worn away to nearly nothing. The sand out here will do that, and there aren't too many lush lawns here. People use mowers almost as much for weed maintenance here.

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If you have really sandy soil and do not usually mow weeds with 1/2" thick stems you should be using a drum or reel mower.
By virtue of the scissor action that cuts the grass/ weeds they do not need to pump a lot of air so they do not stir up the sand very much.
Rent one & give it a try you will be amazed at the difference.
Down side is they need a bit more maintenance than a rotary.

Oh, i don't use 'em, just fix the ones they bring me. All the green I need on my acre is my grapes. Well, and the veggie garden... Wine makes me happier than grass. Took the deck off my mower and just use it to haul a little trailer around or drag a harrow rake, and a front plow to push the dirt around.

But since you brought up reels, what's your method for sharpening the little push ones? I been using a drill in reverse on the shaft with valve lapping compound. Seems to work real well.

zman111666 said:

Oh, i don't use 'em, just fix the ones they bring me. All the green I need on my acre is my grapes. Well, and the veggie garden... Wine makes me happier than grass. Took the deck off my mower and just use it to haul a little trailer around or drag a harrow rake, and a front plow to push the dirt around.

But since you brought up reels, what's your method for sharpening the little push ones? I been using a drill in reverse on the shaft with valve lapping compound. Seems to work real well.

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Oooh I like your thinking and of course you are talking table grapes and not that deamon drink kind :laughing:
Drill sounds good .
I don't do many but when I do I use an old buggered belt around my lathe chuck and lapping paste by the bucket load.

I have been using the Chinese bearings now for several years at a fraction of the cost. I have been having very good luck with them so far. Just rebuilt the front differential on my own ATV with them in which I feel very comfortable in doing so seeing its a major job. The old OEM bearing were made in Russia so I just wonder if they are any better.