When we bought our home there was a big argument regarding how we would care for the yard. At .47 acres, it’s not small, but not large. I wanted a riding mower, but Rachel wanted to push mow the lawn.
At the same time we were having this argument, mainly regarding cost, a co-worker of mine told me about a used John Deere riding mower she saw for sale a few miles down the road. During my lunch I drove down and took a look at this mower, and fell in love with it. The only mystery was the cost.
To make a long story short we bought that mower, and I still own it to this day. It’s a John Deere STX38, and about as old as I am. I believe it’s an early to mid 80’s model.
It’s much different than many riding mowers available today, even other John Deere models. Many of the safety features are not there and the biggest difference is the lack of engine power. This mower only has a 12.5 hp engine. Many might be in disbelief, because the lowest hp ratings I’ve seen in a few years is 17, but you have to remember that this is around 25 years old.
Last weekend, with the help of my daughter, I performed the yearly maintenance on the mower. This includes changing the oil and oil filter, replacing the spark plug and fuel filter and the air filters. It’s a pretty straight foward process.
I noticed that the mower wasn’t it’s normal self and was very sluggish. I thought I would just see if it got worse before taking action, and it got worse.
I believe it needs it’s carburetor rebuilt or cleaned or something else, as the smell of gas eminanates from it while running. I took it to John Deere yesterday.
They told me that they were 3 days out and they would call me with an estimate on repairs. I’m not too worried, I’d rather spend a little money to repair this one than spend almost 2k to get a model similar to it.
UPDATE: John Deere called on Monday and said the “throttle arm” was broken and that it needed a new carb. They said it’s going to run about $200 to repair it. I think money well spent. I also found out with some hard research, that this model was made from 1988 – 1997. They even made a “racing” model. The first few years had a yellow deck, so this mower is around 20 years old.
