As a lawn mowing contractor with over two decades of experience I’ve obviously frequented many different lawn mower shops over the years. With so many visits to so many stores under my belt I’ve seen everything imaginable that one might expect to encounter, plain old regular service and repairs, excellent service, poor attitudes, rip offs, con artists, shockingly bad repair jobs and everything else. Here are some insights I can share about some of the lawn mower shops I’ve used and some experiences I thought worthwhile to share.
Excellent Lawn Mower Shops
I really do appreciate and value a high quality lawn mower store when I come across them, which is very rare. These stores may be independently owned or part of a franchise, but the staff and owners of these businesses go about their business in a decent manner in all respects of providing good service, good repairs, kindness, decency, and going out of their way to help their customers in whatever way they can. These businesses are run and staffed by good people.
Of all the lawn mower shops I have around me, I have just one such good store close by, which is a franchise store, sadly however this store does not stock the machinery brands I use, they don’t offer the maintenance and repairs service I need for my cylinder mower, and they don’t have a good selection of parts that I need either, they are geared towards servicing councils and similar large enterprises. Therefore there is very little that this high quality lawn mower shop can do for me with my daily business needs.
All other lawn mower shops close by to me are rip offs, con artists, they do shoddy repairs, the staff in one shop seem to be sabotaging the business where they work, or the store and management and service are just all run down etc.
Therefore I sometimes need to travel longer distances to get to a quality lawn mower shop to purchase machinery and parts, and it’s worth the trip every time, and I gladly do it.
The Rip Off Mower Shops
The rip offs and the con artists are much the same, or probably are the exact same plague, however for the purpose here I want to separately mention each aspect of their character.
The rip off merchants are those who overcharge for the products they sell at exorbitantly high margins. The closest mower store to me does this and it is why the store gets no business at all from me unless I’m in an emergency situation with no other alternatives.
This store charges 50% - 100% more for the parts they sell than any other store. A clutch cable sold elsewhere for $35 will be $58 here, some mower blades that sell elsewhere for $30 will be $45 here, and the same is true for all parts. When there’s a promotion on for a cordless battery product with a free battery from the manufacturer this guy wants to charge an extra $50 for the product, even though the extra battery is free from the manufacturer. I can order a new lawn mower anywhere else and usually get a discount off the RRP, this guy wants to charge me full RRP plus a delivery fee.
Needless to say I’ve never taken machines to this store for repairs, and as I said, I never buy anything from this store unless it’s an emergency.
Con Artist Mower Shops
These little trolls can be quite common, these are the ones who can find 1,000 different ways to rip off their customers every day of the week, and every week of every year. They may sometimes be the same as the rip off shops, but I’ve never taken my machines into a rip off shop for repairs and I’ve only ever seen spare parts and machines sold at regular prices at mower shops run by con artists, that’s why I separate the two, even though they are very similar in dishonesty and deceitfulness in how they go about lightening the wallets of their customers more than is fair.
The first time I clearly saw a con artist mower shop was about 3 years into my business, about 20 years ago. I went into my local independent mower shop and had to wait for service as they were busy.
An elderly gentleman in his late 70s was being served, and the manager was explaining to him why the repair bill for his decades old lawn mower was over $350. This poor man was appalled and shocked by the repair bill, the store never even asked him for the go ahead for the repair at such a high cost for such an old mower. They just did it, and now they were trying to explain to their victim why they did what they did, when the mower should have been junked and the man bought a new one. As this poor old chap left the store devastated, the manager and his workmate started cracking up in laughter at this poor man who they just ripped off.
While I had purchased machines from this store prior to this event, I never did again, and I never took my machines to that store for repairs. One really busy work day in an emergency however I had no choice but to go in there as the closest store after I blew the engine on my lawn edger. The store did not sell the engine that the machine was custom built to carry, yet the same store manager tried to sell me an entirely unsuitable engine of a different brand that was much heavier and would have completely unbalanced the machine making it unfit for use. Nope.
About 15 years later and I ran into another one of these stores, although I didn’t recognise it at first. I had my cylinder mower sharpened there without issue or rip off. I purchased several mowers from there and a blower, without rip off. This con artist instead worked his magic in dodgy repair scams, while maintaining a veneer of respectability at the front of the store with normal pricing for mowers and parts.
The first con came when I took a mower in with a bent axle. The young female on the front counter also ordered in a spare axle for me, while my mower axle was being repaired. This was a con that was too obviously a rip off and the manager stopped this order going through and I was never called to pick it up. But the young female was trained in this art and she tried, she just did poorly.
I never used a Honda 21” self propelled mower for most of my business life, they were new and unknown machines to me, I was ignorant of their common repair requirements. The clutch cables on these machines go regularly and need to be replaced, this is normal, and I had no idea. When I took it in for repairs I was told that there had been a run of dodgy gearboxes put into Honda mowers and my gearbox was broken after very little use, and needed to be replaced. Of course I had no objection, although I was furious with Honda for selling a dodgy product at such high cost and at the enormous repair bill I now faced for a near new and expensive machine. A staff member at the store phoned me as the repair was about to commence and recommended that I put in a Bushranger gearbox instead of the Honda one, they were far superior, had more torque, were stronger, but they cost an extra $60. I agreed to this too. It was much later after more experience of owning and running these mowers that I discovered that my gearbox was not broken at all, only a cable needed replacing for minimum cost of about $30 labour, and also that the Honda and Bushranger gearboxes are exactly the same.
I since taught myself how to do these repairs
and now I can replace a Honda clutch cable in just minutes - maybe with my eyes closed
There was nothing wrong with the Honda at all, it just needed routine maintenance.
I don’t blame the poor young man who was the mechanic who had to phone me and lie to me to rip me off for his boss. He unfortunately found out that he was working for a con artist and soon after quit his job.
Before realising this con, I had other drive issues with the same mower and took it back for repairs, each time his repairs breaking within minutes, the shop owner doing the repairs was grossly incompetent too.
The con artist works by conning victims in sly ways, not outright openly ripping them off.
Needless to say I never go to this shop anymore. The shop has lost thousands of dollars in sales and repairs and parts business from me already, all in the name of running a small con on the side to rip me off. Such people only have very minimal vision or understanding of what they do to themselves in their degenerate ways, but a scorpion is a scorpion and all it knows how to do is to sting its victim. no matter if that victim is a cow that falls down dead on top of the scorpion and crushes it.
I’ve seen similar scams run from other shops too.
I once took my cylinder mower into the actual workshop of the manufacturer of the machine, the mower was built in the same shop. It was taken in for a sharpen and set of the blades. When I picked it up the shop had decided I needed another $300 of repairs which they proceeded to do without asking. Needless to say I never went back there again except for parts which were normally priced and only when I was in the area at the time.
Arrogant Mower Shops
This is the “I know better than you” mentality. This time I went to a mower shop at a distance away as I once again went looking for a decent mower shop to buy from and to service my machines. At first they seemed pretty good, friendly and helpful enough, and I bought another mower there at an earlier time.
On one visit I chatted to the staff member at the front counter who had usually helped me with most things, this time we talked about contractor lawn mowers. This shop sold one brand and not another brand. That was okay, however I wasn’t interested in the contractor grade mower that they sold, it wasn’t necessary for my needs, I was interested in a different type of mower of the brand they sold which they could order in for me.
After giving it some thought in the next week or so I decided to go ahead with my purchase and emailed the shop first making enquiries and then asking them to order the mower in for me.
While my emails of enquiry were all responded to, when I asked them to order the mower I wanted I never got a reply ever again. Why? Because the staff member at the store thought that the contractor mower was best for my needs, while I did not, therefore that staff member outright refused to order the machine I wanted to buy.
Arrogance.
That store has also lost many thousands of dollars of sales over many years from me, they could have had all mower purchases I’ve ever made since, all of my repairs gone to them, all of my spare parts purchased from them.
Talk about being stupid.
But hey... if it's not your business being gutted by large volumes of lost revenue... who cares right...
that I then bought somewhere else
Staff Sabotaging The Store Owner’s Business
Just when I thought I’d seen it all, this is a recent version of the crappy mower shop that I came across as late as 2024. This time the manager and staff at the store were working together to damage the store owner’s business. It took me a while to catch on that this is what they were doing, and even when I suspected it the concept just seemed too ludicrous, but yes this was what they were doing.
At first this chain franchise store seemed normal, and then the ongoing absurdities kept continuing until I once again had no choice but to also stop visiting this store altogether.
First I took my Honda mower in for drive repairs again, after abandoning the previous con artist mower shop that I mentioned earlier. After this new shop did the repair the drive issues began to resurface within 10 minutes of me putting the machine back into use. I thought this was just a slight adjustment that was needed on the adjustment nuts, something easily mis-gauged to accuracy. On finishing work for the day I adjusted the nuts and everything seemed to be fine, until the following day when once again the drive was having major issues on the machine that they just repaired.
I tried adjustments again and again, but none of them did anything, the repair was dodgy. Then when adjusting the nuts I saw something, the nuts were not holding in position, they kept moving, it was like the thread on the screw section had been damaged.
What I didn't want to accept then, even though the evidence was in my very hand, was that the mower shop staff had filed down the screw thread so the nuts would be impossible to hold into place, this was deliberate sabotage by shop staff.
I chose willful ignorance rather than have to accept what was obviously preposterous, and instead I put this down to simple error of the mechanic, but decided to try to learn to do the repair myself after so many issues over such a long time with now 2 mower shops and dodgy repairs. I taught myself to do the repair and the repair held.
including an actual real gearbox replacement some years later
yep... I can do that
I chose to continue to think nothing amiss with the mower shop and I kept buying parts even a new mower from the shop, never allowing myself to accept anything was amiss, even though I knew there was.
I later took my cylinder mower into the shop for a sharpen. Since I got it back there were issues with the drive clutch. It was not holding in position, the mower would still move when stationed in a stop position, I’d release the bale and the mower would not drive.
Again I thought nothing amiss, just bad luck on my part, and a slight error on their part.
Though the truth was that these mower shop staff had once again deliberately sabotaged another lawn mower.
As time went on I kept buying parts from the store.
I took a mower in for repairs, they told me it was not repairable, so I sold it for parts, I believed them at the time, but I don’t now.
Then I would go in for simple common bearings that every mower shop had for the most popular mower brands for contractors, I was told they had none, and they didn’t know when they would ever get any more in again. This was the first time that I now allowed myself to become highly outrightly suspicious of this store, this was very odd and very strange advice.
The final straw came when I had to order new wheels for a mower brand that they sold. A month passed and I heard nothing, which was very strange, I went to the store for another part and also enquired about my wheels. They checked the order on their computer, and I was told they were still on back order.
The mower was not that important so I waited another month, while being even more suspicious of the staff at this shop. I contacted the manufacturer of the mowers directly, asking when they would have the wheels back in stock, I was replied to with confirmation that the mower shop staff were indeed running sabotage on their employer’s business. The wheels were never out of stock at all.
I went to another store and ordered the same wheels and had them in 4 days.
5 months later this shop phoned me saying the wheels had just come off back order and did I still want them. The store manager was bold faced lying without any shame.
Everything that I ever suspected about this mower shop, was now confirmed true.
These recalcitrant staff committed these nefarious jobs:
- refused to supply common items for sale in every mower shop
- refused to order parts in for mower repairs (the second mower shop sabotaging Masport)
- sabotaged my lawn mowers that they were paid to repair
- tried to wreck my business and income
- wrecked their employer's business reputation
- wrecked the business reputation of the worldwide mower store franchise
It took me a long time to figure out why these staff were doing so many destructive acts to destroy their own business, until I realised that it was not their business that they were destroying, they were deliberately and methodically destroying their boss’s franchise mower shop.
These staff were at war with their employer, and they were being led in rebellion and sabotage by the store manager, usually by wrecking their customers machines, refusing to order spare parts, and so on.
I still have never on a single day - missed a beat
my business remains to this day - impeccably reliable
Conclusion
Just like in all areas of life we come across different types of people, some good and some bad, some meticulous and some careless, and so on. The same of course is true with mower shops, where we will find the good and bad of people within their walls.
Over the years, and still just very recently after more than 2 decades in this business, I still keep teaching myself to do my own mower repairs, and I continue to get better at it all the time. I have no choice, as there is no worthwhile mower shop anywhere close by to where I live, and I’ve seen so many dodgy repairs, con artists, and incompetents.
There really is nothing about an outside appearance of a mower shop that might give away the types of people who work inside, so we can get no clues there at all as any warning for us that we might be visiting an unconscionable business.
The best and most honest and trustworthy mower mechanic I ever came across in 23 years was found in a broken down old shop on a side street, no signs on the shop, and nothing to look at inside at all, but his skill and honesty were impeccable.
While some of the worst mower shops imaginable have been big fancy franchise businesses with a million dollars worth of mowers for sale on their shop floor, or even a mower shop that was mostly dedicated to contractors needs.
In my years of experience and wisdom I often have red flags appear for me quite quickly as warning signs about particular people or businesses, mower shops too and even with my own customers too, however in my natural innocency of character I always want to overlook these red flags and believe and trust the best about people, and so I have often continued to frequent businesses and even kept customers which have had those red warning flags flashing at me.
And every single time I ignored those red flags, I was wrong to do do, the red flags of warning were right every single time.
In conclusion I will say this now… I can’t tell you how to discern a good mower shop from the bad, I will only advise the following, if you notice any sort of behaviour from anyone in a store which seems odd or suspicious or disrespectful to another customer, or even a word said in jest amongst staff about knowingly doing a dodgy repair, if you see anything like this at all, or any other red flag from the staff within that mower shop, leave, and don’t go back, and most certainly do not take any lawn mowers or other garden equipment into them for repairs.
There are good mower shops around, we just need to seek them out sometimes, and then give them our loyalty.
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