Transcription
So we're in Orlando, Florida, and we want to do a deep dive of push mowers, self-propel mowers, 21-inch, battery, gas. To do that, we're going to go into Lowe's, we're going to go into Depot, we're going to go into Tractor Supply, and we're going to look at what everybody has on the shelf. And then we're going to go into some mower shops and see what they have. Let's go.
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So we're in my neighborhood Lowe's. Come here all the time, and they got a lot of brands. Honestly, they got Toro, they have John Deere tractors, they have EGO, they have Craftsman, they also have Husqvarna. But as you can see, they kind of lead with EGO. EGO's very front and center. It's got the biggest display in here. And then they encap this aisle with these three mowers: $8.99, $9.99, $1.99. These are battery mowers. I'm sure they're very good, they're just quite expensive. If you have a small yard and you're in the push mower market, you probably didn't walk into the store with $1.99 on your mind, right? I'm really interested in gas because gas is going away in the big box stores. As you see here, we get another display of EGO mowers, and they actually get down to $449. This is probably something with a small battery in it, though. And then you have Toro's lineup of battery mowers. Now, Toro also makes a five-year warranty model called a Super Recycler. That's the deck's aluminum and it's all black, but they don't have any of them here. These are very competitively priced with EGO, and they're using the same frame as their gas mowers. So your local dealer is going to have parts for these. Not nearly as many EGO dealers, and not nearly as many parts availability for them. And then you have Cobalt, and this is Lowe's brand, and it looks like the price point is quite a bit less. You could definitely see people coming in and buying this $299 model. It's a 16-inch cut. It's going to take you a long time with this. We've, we've, we've seen a turn up over the last few years. I've seen a lot of people switch from gas to battery and then switch back to gas in only a couple years' time. And from most of the people I've talked to, they've said their battery started to to decline, so they could no longer mow their entire yard in one session, and they just grew fed up with that. So then you have the Skil brand. I believe it is a battery. Yeah, I honestly don't have a lot of faith in this. This is probably something just manufactured in China with the Skil name put on it. What seems to be the problem? It's a piece of China work for two seconds, going to cut off. I feel like a lot of people mistake this brand for Steel, which is not. So they probably get a little free ride off of that. Then you have Craftsman. It looks like these slot, this the smaller batteries here, 20-volt batteries. It says 50 minutes of runtime. I doubt it. And then we get to the gas mower section. It's at the very end of the aisle, and we have 2146 Fod. This is a 150cc, but it does give you the Smart Stow feature. There is also a model available has the larger 163cc. I'm sure we'll find it later. This is the same as this, and this. Then you have the 140cc. This is the smallest engine. It's rear-wheel drive. It doesn't have Personal Pace. It just has one of the lowest price points you can get with Toro in a self-propelled. And then we have this little Craftsman here. It also has the little baby 140cc engine, and this is a push mower for $369. I mean, to go self-propelled for $30 more dollars is kind of a no-brainer for me. A push mower is no fun. And then down below, this is overstock, and these are the same models in overstock here. And that's it. So if you want a gas-powered push mower and you go to Lowe's, this is what you're going to be looking at. Okay, that's everything there is to see here. Uh, the next closest place is Tractor Supply. Let's go there.
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Tractor Supply now carries Toro, Bad Boy, Cub Cadet, and Troy-Bilt. So out here, here is all the riders. There's one 30-inch Toro. We're going to go inside and look at their push mowers.
All right, so we're inside Tractor Supply, and this is their mower selection. It's pretty good. They have two line units. So they have a a Viper. I don't know, this is a a knockoff engine. And then this is a DR with a Briggs. See the price point, $429 and $579. I would definitely go DR. There you'll just have more part support from them. Okay, so this is the push Toro. So this is really the least expensive gas Toro you can buy, and it's push-powered, it's not self-propelled. And this is the push Troy-Bilt. Both of them with the 140cc Briggs engine. It'll cut grass, but it is neither of them are very much of a machine. They're the same price. You probably have a lot more Toro dealers in your area. So when it comes to warranty and parts, the Toro is going to win in that $360, $69 battle. And then you have your self-propel options. So both of these are front-wheel drive, $459 and $429. So you got the 163 engine on both, which is good. This one has a three-year warranty versus a two-year. And then you have two Toro models. This is a 21462. This is a mower that we stock at our stores. It has the bigger 163 engine, just like the Troy-Bilt. It does not Smart Stow, but it's kind of a trade-off. Do you need Smart Stow, or do you want a little more horsepower? And then the most expensive mower here is the Toro with all-wheel drive and the 163cc engine. This is the 21472. Honestly, there's some good options here. If you have a small yard and you don't expect the mower to last 20 years, I would say Toro or Troy-Bilt will both be good options. The Toro is going to be the better supported option. And then they have a couple little mowers up front here. They have a Greenworks. It's pretty new to the market. They're Chinese brand. They produce battery and electric equipment. I really don't know anything about this mower. And then this the Yard Force 125cc engine. It's a push mower. This is something that's very cheap, but who knows, it probably will hold up well. But $269, that's all there is here. Let's go to Home Depot.
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All right, we're here at Home Depot in Claremont, and they are leading out strong with Ryobi battery power mowers starting at $650, coming all the way down to $299. Now, this is a tiny, tiny little mower. Think you'd be better off with a string trimmer. We have a Honda sighting. Honda no longer makes gas-powered 21-inch mowers, which is really sad. Honda now makes the same frame in a battery option all the way through their lineup, the plastic decks and the commercial battery. So then we have a Milwaukee mower. I know a lot of you have Milwaukee hand tools, so that's kind of cool. But you see the price of this beauty. She's expensive. What's this? Oh, protection plan, $245. Holy crap. Uh, then we have DeWalt. A lot of you have DeWalt power tools, probably have DeWalt batteries. 220 volts are going in these, up to 100 minutes runtime. I'm skeptical. But if any of you guys have any personal experience with some of these machines and their actual run times being accurate, I'd love to know. Let us know that in the comment section down below. Then you have Makita. So Milwaukee, DeWalt, Makita, those are three really popular battery uh hand tool companies, and all of their mowers, they're competitively priced. We're really, we're really after the gas mower, which in the big box store is a dying breed. Both of these look a little dusty. What we have here is a DeWalt walk mower, which definitely somebody else built this for DeWalt, and that means part support for these is going to be almost nothing. Like if you break this wheel, run over it with your car, forget about it. You ain't getting a wheel. Hey, you can't drive with no wheels. $499. This is self-propelled. This is rear-wheel drive. $3.99. This is a smaller engine. It's also rear-wheel drive. If you notice that handle is the exact same as Troy-Bilt. I'm sure that this is a product that Troy-Bilt MTD builds. And then you have Murray. Which Murray, I thought they were done and gone, but they still exist. You're awful. Mmm. See, look, you got 125cc, 140cc. It's everybody's like racing to the bottom to get that $300 price point that we were used to five or six years ago. But everything's inflated. So the only way to keep that price is to really carve some value off of the machine. So these are tiny, baby, very light-duty, small wheels, really shallow deck machines. I honestly would say these two, this is a push, and then this is self-propelled and rear-wheel drive. This is not a terrible option, but probably something be really hard to get support for. So Home Depot is listed as a Toro dealer. We didn't see any Toros in the building. A lady we spoke to told us that they were in the clearance section. I'm not sure where the clearance section is, but we we weren't able to find any Toros at Depot today. Okay, that's really the bulk of the big box. We're going to also check out Walmart just because I haven't looked at what they have in a while. Let's go.
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One thing that spurred this video is I kept hearing rumors from customers that, hey, you guys are the only ones we have gas mowers. Like, none of the big box stores have gas mowers, which is not true. We're finding gas mowers everywhere we go, but very small selection. They're definitely a dying breed, definitely shrinking. So we're in Walmart, and Walmart has the Greenworks line. That's kind of cool. They look nice. The thing about battery tools is, right out of the box, they all work great. It's just a matter of how long they hold up. This is the Hart brand. I've seen them advertise this is like their brand of like hand tools. They also have somebody building them. This battery mower. Then there's the HyperTough. If you notice, they all kind of look the same. $247 though, that's a really low price. It must include a battery, I guess. They also make a walk-power push mower, and it is $247, but tiny little engine, tiny little wheels, no self-propel. Take it for what it is. And then you have a couple Troy-Bilts here, self-propel and push. Uh, both with 163 engines, which is nice. The push model with the really. Sure you get me two of this? This one? Yes. Thank you very, very much. Thank you. Yes, ma'am. He's a good man. Savannah, a good man. All right, from Troy-Bilt, they have a very basic little engine push mower, and it's $296. And then they have a front-wheel drive with a 163 engine for $358. And then there is a rear-wheel drive 163cc option, self-propelled for $446. That's all there is here. Let's go to another shop.
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All right, we are here at Ace Hardware. This is Ace Hardware in Hamlin. It's a beautiful store. They have a nice little Steel section, and they stock a pretty fair array of Steel mowers, battery and gas. Steel gas is a new thing, I think. Steel realized that so many people were getting out of gas that there was a big opportunity here. Problem is that they are expensive. All of the Steel gas mowers have Kohler engines. These are aluminum deck. These more expensive ones, kind of cool, makes them really nice and light. They have a single arm up to the handle. I don't know if I like that or not, but it definitely stands out. It looks different. Um, this handle also folds forward with a release lever. There you have throttle control and an on-off there. This one here would also have a blade clutch, which is a really like premium feature. And then your Ace Hardwares have Toro. They're carrying a limited selection as well. This model, a 150cc front-wheel drive, and this is a model that we actually haven't seen yet at any of the other Toro dealers because Toro is pretty much at everywhere we went except Home Depot and Walmart. Uh, this is a front-wheel drive model that has Smart Stow and 150cc for $469. I'm a big fan of rear-wheel drive. I don't see any rear-wheel drive Toros here. All right guys, that's Ace. They have a real beautiful display. They have Steel, they have Toro. Check them out. We're going back home.
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So now that we've been all around town and we've seen some good, some bad mower displays, we thought it was only fair that we brought you to our shop and showed you what we think is the best of all of them. And ours is still quite small. You know, Toro has a huge array of 21-inch options, but we have a lot in our warehouse. In our showroom, we display eight mowers typically. Toro makes a Recycler and a Super Recycler. This was a mower that we didn't see at any of the other Toro dealers that we went to today, but this is Toro's premium machine. This is a five-year warranty with an aluminum deck. Has a better transmission, has a better cutting system underneath the deck. At $479, this is rear-wheel drive with a 163 engine. For us, this is like the base model. And then this is the same mower in electric start. So if you need electric start, it's too hard to pull the rope, this is the same thing, electric start. And then in the Super Recyclers, this is the base model Super Recycler. This does feature Smart Stow, so that you can store it vertically. Personal Pace, rear-wheel drive, five-year warranty. And then if you want a bigger engine and you want electric start, this is where you go. This is a 190cc engine with electric start. Of course, you have the Toro 30s. They make the TimeMaster and the TurfMaster. We've talked about those on our other videos. Check those out. This one's about 21s, and we didn't see hardly any of these today. We did see a Scag commercial. This is a Toro commercial. This is definitely the top shelf, heavy-duty 21-inch on the market. This is a Kawasaki engine with an oil filter, has a one-gallon fuel tank, has a really nice air filter, has a three-speed transmission, really thick cables, really thick deck, really heavy-duty wheels, double bearings. This one doesn't have a price tag on it, but it's $18.99, uh, with a blade clutch. So one point that I've made a few times throughout this video and throughout my day is that if you're choosing mowers, you want to choose one that have a dealer. One day you're going to need a cable or wheels, you're going to need blades, and maybe online is an okay source for those things, but there's a lot of buying the wrong parts and returning them. If you have a warranty, you need a warranty center like our repair center here. That's why we choose Toro because they're such a good support system, and they have such a good product offering from entry-level price with rear-wheel drive and power to premium to 30-inch to commercial, like no one else in the industry has. And we ran around the market, we looked at them all, and I think you can agree that Toro is untouchable.
So there are a couple footnotes I want to cover to complete this full-on research project of 21-inch mowers. If you add all the battery mowers together, there's no way to count them all. They're just popping up all over the place. If we went on Amazon, there would just be tons of brands we've never even seen. They're pouring in container ships from overseas with all kinds of different stickers on them. But when it comes to gas mowers, there is a very limited selection still in the market. Stanley Black & Decker bought MTD, which stands for Modern Tool and Die. Their brands include Troy-Bilt, Cub Cadet, Craftsman, and DeWalt. So a bulk of the brands that we saw at the big box store were one of those four brands. Aside from that, we'll call them The Independents. You have Steel now, which is a new player in the game. You have Toro, of course. There's Murray. Murray still hanging on by a thread. They produce three models. It's not a good idea if you can buy another brand at the same price, but a brand that has support, that's your better way to go. Also, Cub Cadet. Cub Cadet makes 21-inch mowers, and we have some dealers here in town. None of them carry the mower. We called them all. They all said, "We don't carry it. It cuts a little too low for Florida grass. We just don't carry the 21-inch mower." But you know, I looked at their options online, and they look like really nice machines. So if you're in another market where you have lower uh cutting requirements and you have a good Cub dealer, Cub may be a good option for you. And then there's a brand called Masport. Masport is a huge brand in Australia and it's trying to break into the US market. It's just not, it's not everywhere. It's not supported well, doesn't have good distribution. So in the start of this video, we mentioned that we're going to be going around other mower dealers, and we started calling every dealer in town. And what we found is they either just don't carry push mowers anymore, they're focused on bigger product, or they carry Toro, which we carry Toro, so it wasn't worth going to them. Or they carried Honda, which Honda no longer makes a gas-powered mower, and they haven't hit the market with their battery mower yet. Or they were a Cub dealer and they didn't have any Cub Cadets on the floor. So we really were unsuccessful in our hunt for a mower shop in Central Florida that had a full-on gas-powered 21-inch display other than us. One final note is Steel has a new gas-powered mower with a much better price point and a much higher cut. It is called the RM 453. It cuts 4 inches. There's two models with two different self-propel systems, like a a single speed and a variable speed, and they are $619 and $699. That will be a product that we carry at Main Street Mower. That will be a product you'll find at Ace Hardwares. That is a good option. By the way, if you're looking for more on new Steel products, we dropped a video where we're going through the catalog and everything new coming out. So look for the icon and click on that at the end of this video. Thank you so much for making it all the way to the end. When it comes to buying a 21-inch mower in 2025, my favorite is Toro's 21565. It's $799. Has a five-year warranty, has an aluminum deck, has a beautiful cut. It's the prettiest cut out there. It SmartStows, it bags, it does it all. If you don't want to spend that much, my next recommendation is a 21462 from Toro. Also a very nice machine. Thanks so much for watching. We'll see you next time.
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