Outdoor Power Equipment (Lawn Mowers, Snow Blowers, Chain Saws and more) Discussions

Havener Enterprises Inc. commercial mowers are sold under various  brand names in the United States and other countries:

32 inch Belt Drive

10.5 HP Briggs or 15 HP Kohler engine

	5 Speed Peerless Transmission
	9 Spline Couplers
	Grease Zerks on Spindles
	Dual Belt Drive
	Two 16" Blades

My dealer really seems to like this model over the Exmark of the same size.  The 10.5 Briggs will do my  yard for years! (I am not planning to do other yards or make money with this)

So, What do you think??? Pull the trigger???

Fla Mike has one I think. Who built it? Don't know. Never seen one.

In general, you need to like it. What someone else likes, you may hate. A few things i would consider, if you have hills, how will it handle. I have found narrower machines that are heavy are hard to control on side hills, even small swails. You can get real good with a narrow machine, but it might take time. I don't like pistol grips. You might like a hydro better than belts. Belt driven machines will NOT go if they get wet. Belt machines do not back up very well at all. Let's just say they don't back up.

I would not buy a machine that I could not try, even for a bargain. Try it on conditions that you will use the machine on. Try it until you are satisfied. Check the warranty and the track record of the manufacturer.

IMO hbars, tbars, and ECS are all better than pistol grips, because they are easier for me to use. you may love pistol grips.

Just because someone else likes it, doesn't mean you will.

BTW it was me that resized the image. It was way big on the monitor at work. Should it be bigger?

Link to mower picture

Bradley mowers

All good advice. And I took it! I went back to the dealer and he let me try it out. He showed me a different brand pistal grip and it was HORIBLE!  You could not hold the grip without  having the top lever down (The top lever was too close to the grip) The Bradley felt fine. As for my yard....well it is so flat it is boaring  And it is not THAT big....my property  is 133 feet by 121 feet  and a small house with a seperate garage with a 2 car driveway.  I used to mow it with a 21 self propelled Scotts with a 6.5 HP Briggs Intek and while that mower runs GREAT, it just took me too long.  So anyhow I tried to haggle some more with not much luck but I bought anyway I know he paid $1049 for the machine, and  $75 to get into his shop. I wanted the grass catcher and that was $180 plus TAX GRRRR! My price out the door was $1550 ( I figure he made about $130 on the sale and that seems fair)

BTW I have been all over looking at different models and brands.  I made parts availabilty  pretty high on my list.  The Snapper was impossable to get parts for locally (Off the net is a breeze), Troy Built was even worce.  The other good thing about this machine is a lot of the professional yard guys around here use this Bradley, the Xmark or the Scag...so if I ever had to unload it, I could get some of my money out of it. Plus it is a 32 and every  pro guy here has a 32 or a 33 to fit into gates

I should be able to take delivery on Saturday (He said that they come in steel crates and it will take him some time to set it up) and I will try and post some pictures if any one wants to see.

Thanks again everybody for such fast replies!!!

OH! And that Snapper that looks so much like my machine was well over $2,000 plus tax...way over budget.  But it does have a better engine...

Darn right we want to see. A review would be good too. A lot of times a commercial machine will have a faster blade tip speed. You can get some mulching blades, wavy, gators, or mo megs (never used the mo megs) and you might be able to not need to bag so much. It seems the only people that need to bag the most are the ones with pools.

wow ...with a machine like that im curious what you will do with all your spare time.

real nice unit and price was good to.

Rob what are the mor meg blades?

later chris

Meg-Mo

Great deal! I didn't know the commercial guys used them, never even heard of them. Funny how some products are regional in their popularity. That thing looks very much like that Snapper. Where is Bradly out of? I'll have to look into them more.

Good luck, we do want a review too.

Hey Brian, I have that mower,  mine has the 14hp Kaw. on it though. I only use it for a backup and for one yard. I don't know the year one mine I only paid 500.00 for it. There is a picture of it under one of the topics I posted and one that Marshall posted for me. I like the way its cuts, now as far as the cut of it and my Exmark not even close, but then again the Exmark is alot newer. But if you would any info you find on it let me know I would like find out more about these mowers. I really just took a gamble buying it because i could;nt find anything one them and no one knew anything really. Mine says Bridges on the deck, I don't know what that is about. But anyways keep me up to date also. thanks mike

This mower will replace my 2000 Scotts 21" 6.5 Intek mower....so yup! Should be a lot faster:-) That Scotts was soooo sloooow!

Around here I see Scag's/Xmarks all over the place! Scags are the most popular I would say. There is also one guy who only has Toro in his trailer. Then a bunch of these Havener Enterprises type mowers. My dealer said "Bradley" was a newer name while Red Hawk  was older. However, they are all really the same machine.  As far as quality goes, I really inspected both this Bradley 32 and the Xmark  Metro 32.  No wonder he could not sell the Xmark!  Just to give you an idea, the large drive belt that goes to each wheel was 1/2 the size of the Bradley. But as soon as you went up  the Xmark  line it became just like the Bradley. He said that  Bradley  was the way to go for the true profesional (Which I am not) in the 32 size, but if you wanted a bigger machine, they go Xmark hands down.  When I go to pick it up, I will try to snap some pictures to show you what I mean.

As for the company, it just seems like the parent company makes different brands maybe to keep people from price shopping...however they are all priced the same from brand to brand. Odd isn't it? Anyhow, here are some links on this company that makes this mower:

http://www.bradleymowers.com/

http://www.redhawk-usa.com/

Also I went and looked at the Scags...can someone tell me why they are sooooo much money? Do they have a feature that knowbody else does?
My dealer also showed me an OLD/ rusted walk behind that had very small hard front tires and a small gas tank. It was like a burnt orange color.  He went on to say that  when Scag came out, they were one of the first to use a nice big front tire and a large gas tank. Now everybody is doing the oversize tank and big front wheels. Scag also relized that the professionals wanted more walking speed and they gave it to them. How much of this story is true?

This is what I have learned about  the commercial walk behind mowers in just my short time with using them.  They are all pretty much the same! The only thing I really see a diffrent about them is the controlsand maybe a slight diffrence on the decks, other than that I think they all pretty much run the same  gear box and either a kohler or a kaw. Thats just my opinion on them. later Mike