thoughts on an older murry rider

[rundrave]

so that guy craig has a mower near me on his list. I just bought a new home and it is on a 1.5 acre lot. So I need to invest in a riding mower.

I came across this ad:

Riding lawn mower with a 46 inch cut, 18 HP Briggs engine. This mower is 15 years old and mows very well. I had the engine replaced with the 18HP 4 years ago. I decided to purchase a zero turn mower with a larger deck.

seller is only asking $385. My thoughts are that if its 15 years old it was probably made a little better than the cheap ones places sell now. Anyone have any opinions on the 18HP Briggs engine? What about the mower itself, is something that old gonna require alot of maintenance to the deck etc?

I was planning on spending anywhere from $1000 to $1500 but this one caught my eye.

[Tom7227]

All you can do is go look at it. You're not going to be able to tell anything about the transmission. The deck - can you tell if the bearings have ever been greased? Lift the front wheels off the ground with a jack and see if there's a lot of play in the steering - worn out parts. If there's an hour meter on it how many hours on it.

[heavyduty]

I had about the same vintage craftsman and my biggest problem was it cut good, but the deck was hard to level. After I would get done mowing I could see lines where the grass was at least a half inch shorter. I tried leveling the deck, air pressure in the tires, even go out the tape measure and measured the blade distance never could find a solution. after a couple days you couldn't tell anymore but at the time it bothered me. still have the mower for yard work but don't use it to mow any more.

[chad austin]

I've got a 1992 murry garden tractor that we use as a workhorse around the yard. "Ole" has been a great tractor and starts every time.