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The Grass Roots Report

Lawn Mowers • Physicians Warn Lawn Mowers Pose Danger To Children • Coming Soon: No-Mow Grass • Lawn Mower Injuries Increase Nationwide • The Trouble with Lawn Mowers • Like Crabgrass, Lawn Care Schemes Abound • Six Months Without Gas: We Test a Cordless Mower • The Grass Roots Report • Lawn & Garden Safety Tips --- • Lawn & Garden Section

There are good things to be said about Spring -- birds, flowers, lack of ice. But on the other hand, there's the lawn, a constant irritant. There are basically two ways to care for your weed patch -- do it yourself or hire someone to do it. Both have their drawbacks.

For the do-it-yourself crowd, the first essential is a lawn mower or for those with SUV aspirations, the garden tractor. You can get one of these at Sears. Or can you? Doris thought she had purchased a riding mower but the grass was as tall as an elephant's eye before Sears could be bothered to tell her otherwise.

There are plenty of lawn mower brands to choose from, although many of them are now owned by MTD. Among those we hear lots of sad tales about are:

• Murray self-propelled, push and riding mowers. Otherwise, no problem.
• Sears Even an experienced professional like Sergio can't keep his walk-behind mower running. Nor can James, a lifelong handyman, afford to feed his Sears garden tractor the parts it needs.
• MTD "I own an MTD piece of junk that could have killed me," says Billie of her graden tractor. That pretty much says it.

No Parking Zone
Most people keep their lawn mowers, garden tractors and so forth in their garage or, sometimes, a shed. This is OK most of the time but gas-powered machines should be left outside on a paved surface until they cool off. As long as a gas engine is hot, there's the possibility it can start a fire. It may be a remote possibility, but it only takes one fire to make up for all the other times. Ask Patty.

Whatever kind of mower you have, you will have to resuscitate the beast each spring. You can do this by changing the spark plug, cleaning the filters and changing the oil, if necessary. Or you can take it to a repair shop and have it done. It's not realistic to expect a mower to start on the first pull after it's been sitting in an unheated garage all winter.

Be careful when mowing! Lawn mowers will take off hands and feet and can throw rocks and other debris with great force. Don't let children ride on your garden tractor with you and don't let them play nearby while you're mowing. Oh, one other thing ... be very careful not to hit tree stumps, large sticks, rocks or other solid objects. You will almost certainly bend the drive shaft, which is pretty much the end of your mower, regardless of manufacturer. We have plenty more safety tips. They're worth a look.

What works? We asked the guys at the lawnmower repair shop the other day which brands were most reliable. Their reply: Honda, Lawn-Boy and Toro. For what it's worth we have found no recent complaints of consequence for any of the three in our database.

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