Amen to that!
Scotland's mowing season ended about a month ago, so I tipped out most of the fuel from the tank, and to get the last out, I fired it up and let it run until it died.
I didn't clean off the deck, because I looked, but there was barely any grass there.
As I've said before, I think the polypropylene deck must be too shiny for grass to stick to, plus the fact I rarely mow after it has rained.
Keep your equipment well maintained, and it'll last you.
I do occasional mower repairs for people I know, and you would be surprised at the amount of times I've seen oil related problems/failures.
Take this - Today a friend of the family dropped by with his mower and asked me to check it out, as it was running really rough on high throttle and not at all on idle.
Well, I pulled out the dipstick, and there was nothing on it, so I took the drain plug out, and even a spider couldn't drown in the depth of the drained oil.
I filled it up to the MAX mark with fresh oil, and as soon as I started it up blue smoke started puffing out of the exhaust, and although it would now idle, it was very rough, and stalled after 5-6 seconds of idling.
I then drained the oil again, and what do you know, the oil level had increase since I filled it.
Basically, his two year old 7HP Briggs & Stratton Self Propelled walk behind mower was pretty much written off, unless you fancy mowing in a stream of blue smoke...
He did admit that he didn't check the oil level the last two times he mowed, and did see a damp patch on his shed floor after taking the mower out yesterday.
Anyway, the moral of that long, long story, was basically - Check your oil EVERY TIME! It will probably be fine, but do you really want to take the chance of starting your mower up and a few minutes later it either seizing up or loosing compression ?
I wouldn't...
