Haven't heard that personally. The Staris is for sure the ugliest mower I've seen in several decades and I haven't seen one being in the field.

 

So I have a 48" staris and have been pretty happy with it, over 400 hpurs on it. I like the controls, ergonomics and balance of it. The QOC is something I chase every day and I think my problems are with the short blades on the 48". I like how all the hydraulic line are solid and not rubber. I know they are not selling well around here and someone with some good negotiating skills could get one for a good price.
My guess is the cover will be redesigned so it doesn't look like something from the original BattleStar Galatica series and if they can get the platform you stand on to fold up completely so it can be used better as a walk behind that B nice.

 

I did hear there would be a new model next year

 

I have seen and used the new prototype in person. A company in our area is demoing them to get the kinks out of the system and my dealer had one in the back the other day when I went to pick up a turf tracer


It basically looks like a red Wright stander x. Awesome machine for what it is.

 

I have seen and used the new prototype in person. A company in our area is demoing them to get the kinks out of the system and my dealer had one in the back the other day when I went to pick up a turf tracer

It basically looks like a red Wright stander x. Awesome machine for what it is.

Any pics??

 

It's funny that Exmark would let the designer/engineer run through the whole process of a bad design all the way down to the production and sales of the machine before saying, wait your fired. Seems like the designer/engineers' boss needs to be fired as well.

 

Ummm no the machine (Staris) had been around for a while now
RND and engineering are frequently outsourced
I believe they let the entire department/team go and brought on a new one
Not just a single person

 

If the new model is a complete redesign then I would look for a different position for mounting the hydro pumps. Now they are mounted to the top of the motor and removing the motor shroud to clean out the cylinders is not a simple operation for routine maintanance. Any one know of any other mowers mounting the pumps this way? I wonder if the engines are even designed for this?

 

It doesn't sound right placing blame on the Engineer. The marketing dept is supposed to do research and find out what the market wants.

 

Unfortunately that's how the corporate world works. When the company culture doesn't truly allow 'mistakes', it becomes cut throat and they look for scapegoats.

 

Has anyone heard the rumors of the Exmark Staris stand-on mower being silently phased out of production due to poor sales? I've heard that Exmark fired the designer/engineer who designed the machine and are going to debut a new stand on at the Green Industry Expo in October.

I personally did a week long demo of the Staris and returned it on day three because I hated the entire machine from overall design, controls, operator comfort, safeties and cut quality. The dealer then asked me if I liked the Staris and would I be trading in my Vantage for the Staris and I laughed in their face.

I've run Exmark for the last 20 years and the Staris has been the worst mower they've debuted in a long time in my opinion. Anyone else heard these rumors or have experience with the Staris?

my dealer that sells almost every brand said to never buy one and Exmark DID fire the engineer that designed it. He worked there 20 years. He said they have like 6 flaws that are like recalls and they are just bad mowers. He said buy the grandstand or v ride if want a stander. I have been dealing with this dealer for over 20 years and I never heard him go off on how bad a product is.

 

Same thing happened to lead guy on the Metro 26

 

If anyone at Exmark cares about their customer experiance please contact me. I'd like to know why I should ever by another Exmark product again. I have stated I'm very happy with my Staris but if its going to be dropped and known as one of the biggest mistakes a manufacture has made recently my Staris will be absolutely worthless. I paid $10,000 for this machine and with 400 hours I wont be able to sell it for $4000 after the product line is dropped and becomes a joke.

 

your worried about the wrong thing. Never buy a mower thinking your going to sell it for X. You buy it with the plan of running it 80% though it's life expectancy, and sell it for $2000-3000. The guys buying$2000 mowers will not care.

 

How much is it worth now, without announcement of the line being ended?

 

Probably less than $5000. This is my first large mower purchase, is this kind of depreciation normal?

 

Yes, fairly normal after 1-2 years of ownership.

 

Trade it for a Tracer.

most you kids running around on Standers would be better off w/a Walk anyway.

 

Staris isn’t that new. It’s a few years old now. Manufacturers switch product lines every 4-6 years. Some times it minor changes. Sometimes it’s major changes. Ford switched their body style in 5 years.

 

This mower will not sell well, and likely the new design may not either.

the toro and exmark design of the grandstand where slightly new in concept to the market and fare different than anything else in the market. They had pros and cons to the design (operator well behind the wheels hanging off the back). Because no other manufacturer made that style, they developed their own following. In other words some contractors choose them because of the pros in the design and capability. Just as Wright has its own pros and cons to its design.

exmark ran that design for many years, and when the staris came out, besides looking funny and having other design flaw, The biggest was that it lost the “pros” that everyone has become accustomed to. Those buyers went to toro, in order to keep those feature/benefits. Unless the new design is close to the old one (which I’m told it’s not). They basically threw away all their present user base. And have to reinvent a new base. Designing similar to Wright will not help. Wright has a great following, and many others copy their design already.

 

Yes and no. The platform hanging off the back was a patent issue work around. Wasn't it Wright who owned the patent up until recently that allowed them to put the operator between the wheels? Everyone else had to go behind the wheels. Toro, Gravely, etc all put the platform off the back. Ideally it's better between the wheels to avoid wheeling, reduce impacts of centrifugal force during turns, and it keeps the unit more compact. Now that the patent is expired, it's fair game for all manufacturers to move the operator position.

https://patents.justia.com/patent/6862872

Edit - Here's all Wright's patent to read through for fun. You can click into each one for more details. Very interesting to see nitty gritty. You'll also see Ed Wright on them as of recently. His Pops William before that.... And also James Velke. That name should sound familiar to many. Velke attachment anyone?

https://patents.justia.com/assignee/wright-manufacturing-inc

 

As stated above. I don't care about who had what pattens or how they got to the present design.

vantage was in production for a number of years, and attracted certain use types for specific characteristics which made them different than competitors. Some people purchased them because they were different and had a different pro or con. Standing behind the wheels or between them offers different pros and cons. Those people that purchased them lost the ability to buy those same characteristics that they had become accustomed to

 

The only reason they had the operator behind the drive wheels on the Grandstand and not directly over was Wright's patent. It did nothing to make the machine better. The "Walk" feature was garbage and provided none of the benefits of a true Walk.

 

I agree on the walking part being garbage, and the wheelies. We tested a number of brands and our crew preferred the rear design. They felt they got better traction on hills, could turn the machines faster and could use body weight to impact the machines center of gravity in a more dramatic effect.
Back in the day I ran a Great Dane. The original with the operator slightly rearward of the wheels. 2 years later we got a super surfer which had the operator between the wheels…. We traded it off after 700 hours. Everyone liked the original design better.

regardless of Who holds what pattens, each machine design style is simply different. Pros and cons to each. It's like a mini van vs suv argument. Different uses. Exmark designed and then attracted and sold to an SUV market. Then suddenly stopped building it and switched to min vans. Those suv owners had to switch brands, or at least if they decided to switch to the mini van, they now had a bunch of different brands with similar operating characteristics to compare against.

If I'm wrong- ask anyone that use to buy the vantage design, and switched to the staris. Ask them how they feel about the ability to brake while facing down hill. Because the vantage could do that. Why isn't it selling

 

OK, so the way I see this problem is on me(and Exmark). I know better to buy a model in its first year of release. I don't buy a machine of any sorts to run it for a year or 2 and sell it . But by the math presented this thing should have a value of maybe $7000 which is what I would expect. With Exmarks new model I don't think they should market it to the people that didn't upgrade tothe staris, those were brand loyal customers that switched to whatever brand and they aren't coming back at least until the new model has proven itself fora couple years. Me on the other hand will look at anything but a Exmark. Mr Donovan(and staff) do an excellant job with SEO and if anyone at examrk is trying to out what happened then this thread will show up in a quick google search-CALL ME.

 

Because Wright, Scag and Ferris do over the drive wheel design much better.

eXmark had the advantage of being last on the design and they still offered Zero improvement

 

Because Wright, Scag and Ferris do over the drive wheel design much better.

eXmark had the advantage of being last on the design and they still offered Zero improvement

i think that's your opinion and your getting stuck on the fact that you believe "they do it better".

It's not "better". It's different.

and I would put the original grandstand/vantage design up against all 3 you mentioned on steep hillsides, on a 52" platform. My team of 20
Guys did two years ago, and nearly all of them liked the grandstand/vantage better than those you listed, for this situation. They gave other points in other test areas to Wright and the others.

 

Nope. A z2 will hang a slope as well or better than the GS. The only reason they offered behind the wheel was patent. .

None comes close to Walk however and I got deal w/many municipal drainage ditches and slopes and soft turf so Walks for me.

 

I smack my head as you miss the concept completely.

1st, I don't care how the rear plat form was developed or that it may have been developed because of a pattern issue. The fact is that it did get developed in the way that it did, and the machine came away with certain attributes which attract a certain percentage of the market. It honestly doesn't matter what you or I think if those things are good or bad, there will simply be a certain percentage of buyers that like it. When they made the drastic change that they did, those buyers didn't go along for the ride.

I can list a bunch of different things from the Wright to the exmark vantage. Not just hill side.

we allowed 20 of our guys to test it for 2 weeks, we also had our managers and mechanics look at it and give input.

the main items that we got back from them; 1. was that they liked ride and room on the plat form of the vantage, the bigger guys found the Wright constricting. 2. They felt they could bail off safer. 3. Our guys felt more control, specifically stopping facing down hill on the GS/vantage. That's obviously open for debate but we had 20 operators on it and most reported that.

related to your hillside comment. There are too many variables to say one way or another. The GS does do wheelies way easy. Which is bad while facing uphill but while facing down hill it means more traction is given to the drive tires. The Wright doesn't do that, so less traction while facing down hill. You can do math to figure out that much. You can't over come physics. But to aid further, the operator can just hang his big butt further off the rear or to a given side to enhance its ability.

Now you could still be right, it could just be my guys perception in how they operate. But that doesn't change the fact that they liked how the GS operated over the Wright.

exmark created the vantage. Marketed and attracted buys who liked it (good or bad) and then completely switched to a different design, thus throwing all those users aside.

they hung themselfs out to dry, making a unit that was more like a Wright or scag. They attempted to enter a world selling a product that Wright had many many years to perfect. They should have just stayed with the vantage as a different alternative.

 

If you recall the very early marketing for GS when first came out, eXmark pushed the “walk” feature allot. Not so much in subsequent years.

 

I can buy used 2019 staris's all day with 700 to 1000 hours by me for $3500 to $4500. For a 2 year old mower that is cheap. That is when I asked my dealer about them and he went off. 1 guy had one by me and it caught on fire with only like 20 hours on it due to grass on the muffler and that's because the muffler is right next to the discharge chute lol. He got the fire out but it had all the paint off the frame and hood by the muffler. He sold it because it freaked him out.
All I know is they are not being made anymore and must be very bad if they were pulled in 2 years. Most things that have some poor designs they just change a few things and all good but these things seem to be s#!t on wheels

 

the 26 Metro didnt last much longer than 2 yrs either.

Toro uses eXmark as a testing ground for a lot of new equip before it gets the Toro badge. Case in point the next-gen 21" push mowers. After 25 yrs they redesigned the 21" Prolines and eXmark got the Gen 2 first. It sucked at a few things, and 2 years later Toro brought out a slightly redesigned version which improved all the eXmark flaws and badged it Toro only. eXmark is still stuck w/the original crappy gen 2 first attempt. This happened w/a few other mowers as well. eXmark is Toro's testing brand.

 

the 26 Metro didnt last much longer than 2 yrs either.

Toro uses eXmark as a testing ground for a lot of new equip before it gets the Toro badge. Case in point the next-gen 21" push mowers. After 25 yrs they redesigned the 21" Prolines and eXmark got the Gen 2 first. It sucked at a few things, and 2 years later Toro brought out a slightly redesigned version which improved all the eXmark flaws and badged it Toro only. eXmark is still stuck w/the original crappy gen 2 first attempt. This happened w/a few other mowers as well. eXmark is Toro's testing brand.

Interesting.

 

They didn’t because most people who buy Standers over Walks buy them for their ultra compact design. GS “benefits” were pure marketing. Their original design was driven by patent limitations.

Wright copied eXnarks ECS patent as soon as that was up but hardly as big a deal as the Stander layout.

 

All these replies lead to one thing. The Vantage was and is still superior to the Staris that Exmark was stupid to get rid of it. Toro still uses the Vantage platform because it works.

Our year one Vantage (2010) has only had to have general maintenance and so far its lasted 2300 hrs