I don't see a 22" mower in your sig, that would be a recycler. Are you sure you have one? They home depot crap. if you actually use them that is.
I have a recycler, super recycler and had lots of trouble with them once the newness wore off. Now I have a commercial heavy duty 21" and have never had trouble with it. Big difference between the home depot crap and a commercial mower.
The posts I read referred only to them as "personal pace mowers" which I assume would mean the drive system that came out some time ago, replacing the 3 speeds used before. So, my reply referred to them in general. I own super recyclers.
But the drive system is the same on most recyclers (steel deck mowers) and super recyclers (aluminum deck mowers) except for one front drive model. Wasn't the original post about the drive system?
The super recyclers I had from the 90's used a drive system almost identical to the 3 speed on the commercial units (which I've also used) except they had a cable to the speed adjust rather than locating the switch down low. But while not as good in my opinion, even the newer PP superrecycler has been relatively trouble free except for me stripping out a small notched plastic washer that controls the reverse free-wheel function somehow the very first time I used it. This caused one wheel to not drive consistently, but the unit still ran and functioned. It was not adjusted right when I got it and I admit I got in a situation where I had to drag it about 4' uphill to get out of tight spot and that probably broke it. This is exactly what bonehead employees would do to one, so it's not surprising if they give problems used commercially by employees. That's what they make the 130 lb versions for.
I'm pretty sure most of the transmissions themselves are very similar. How? Because I pulled that same plastic part off my old broken-tanked 90's Toro super recycler and used it to fix the 2004 model. That's about a $5 part, not a new transmission. I then readjusted the cable that was misadjusted upon delivery and 4 years later, no problems. Took about 15- 20 minutes to pull the old part and install it on the newer machine. A trained mechanic would need half that much time with a new part. Any LCO with experience could do it himself. Mine was under warranty but it was easier to just do it myself.
I'm not saying it'd hold up to day in day out use by a crew of gorillas, but it's already got the equivilent of about 25 years of homeowner use. So my assessment would be that its hardly 'junk'.
From what I could discern the recyclers were just a steel deck version. My brother has one that is a 2003 and it still runs fine for his home use. He uses it to mow a fairly large super-steep section of his lawn a tractor is too dangerous on. So it's getting "hard hours" on the drive system being used 100% on steep slopes. Never had a single problem. The bags are even the same, he gave me his to use on my super recycler as he never used it. They both have briggs engines. Maybe the limitations of steel stamping mean it doesn't give the same cut quality, but I wouldn't call it "junk". It's a $350 mower if you find it on sale. A rational person might expect the $1200 ones to do a little better.
BTW, I visited a toro dealer last month who had no Toro commercial units in stock, so I asked why. He said "they keep coming back with problems". He didn't elaborate, but apparently they're not perfect either.
