GrandStand: New Height Adjustment

[The Toro Company]

Originally Posted by Stephen M.

in the parking lot of my dealer. I was impressed with the machine. It looks like it will have the weight to do hills. My dealer has photos that were taken on a 60* slope with someone actually mowing it at the nearby PUD office. That would be a plus over my Wright Stander which slides down hills or won't go up unless its a hard surface.

The weakpoint I see is the short handle being used as the height adjuster. A person has to use both hands to move it and then hold the weight of both the 7 iron deck with the engine mounted on it in order to move the pin back into position. Toro didn't do the mower operator any favors by doing this, and even a strong handed person will have trouble making the height adjustment on the fly.

In comparison, the Wright Stander is a dud for hill mowing, but great as a flatland mower. At least the Rapid Adjustment models have a long enough lever with a push button stop to be good at leveraging the deck and engine mount and can be done with one hand.

Even the John Deere models of the Grandstand have a long handle for the leveraging needed. HMMM, maybe Toro needs to fix this problem before the 2011 models come out?

Stephen M. -

Thanks for your email. The unit you saw at your dealership was a '09 model. For '10 the deck lift system utilizes compression springs (similar to a Z) and the lift force has been reduced. These new models will be at Toro Commercial Dealerships (CD designation on dealer locator)for review and demo in March. You can checkout these new models and '10 Z Masters on the following micro site www.toro.com/challenge.

-The Toro Company