We have Masport with a plastic catcher. Our's has a Honda engine but otherwise is probably very similar to the one in your picture. It's about 10 years old and has given really good service.

I like the body of the Masport as it is cast aluminium which doesn't rust like the steel body on the Lawnmaster might do.

The Masport in your photo appears to have a much large chute for discharging the grass to the catcher, which when the grass is long and or damp (or even worse wet) will make a huge difference to how the grass will flow into the catcher.

One tip to get the grass to fill the catcher properly especially when the grass is long and or damp/wet is to run the mower at full power so that the blades can impart as much energy into the cut grass to throw it into the catcher as far as possible.

Our mower also came with a mulching attachment which I almost never used. Mulching is fine for when the grass in short when you cut it other wise I wouldn't bother. Also in some parts of the New Zealand the mulch never breaks down and rot properly then ends up as a thatch on the lawn which needs to be dealt to by raking it up and disposing of it.

richms:

 

When did you buy the one that died from bunnings? Under the CGA they have an obligation to ensure that spares are available etc, and since bunnings isnt staffed by bitter old men with a financial interest in the company like mitre10 are, they are usually quite good about honoring their obligations when challanged over that.

 

Have you discussed the lack of spares with them? Might get a bit of credit towards a new one.

 

Don't get me started on Bunnings, they might not be grumpy old men (neither are the staff at Mitre 10 in my experience ) but their service isn't all that flash.

Bunnings seem to make a habit of not carrying spare parts for tools/equipment they sell.  I had an electric Ryobi lawn edger which I bought from them. The blades are a consumable item, but Bunnings didn't carry them in stock and wanted me to pay upfront for them to order them in. To add injury Bunnings were the exclusive agents for this line of Ryobi edger so you couldn't buy the blades elsewhere.

STIHL are running a promo until the end of march where you can get $100 off a lot of their Masport mowers 

If you can stretch your budget a little more you can get a really nice mower 

https://www.stihlshop.co.nz/lawnmowers

Thanks all for your advice.

I'd stay away from masport. I purchased their top of the line model about 3 years back, paid over $1000.

Complete piece of crap. None existent after sales care.

Plastic catcher came in two parts, click together, all the clips broke, now held together with cable ties.

Often doesn't start if it's warm, needs to be left for a couple of hours to cool down - briggs and stratton motor - never another. 

Also don't buy a mower from bunnings or mitre10 - they pass off any service to their "service agent" who doesn't know what service is. The few $$ you'll save won't be worth the aggravation.

Our local (before) mower repair guy said Briggs and Stratton are not what they once were.

He says Honda is it these days. If you can afford one.

We had our very old mower (with chipper) serviced as we had it 15 yrs now, and bought it second hand.

It needed very little, some wheel bearings, a bit of a service and that was it, surprisingly.

It uses a bit of oil but not much at all, he said no worries with that, will last at least that long again before we need to worry.

Which I am pleased about as I love that chipper, yes you can get a few now with them, but not many and beyond our budget now. It has been well used.

Does anyone have any feedback on the Ryobi ONE+ 18V mowers?

I've got tools that take the batteries including a large 5AH battery, but worried the power won't be quite what i'm looking for.

There have been a number of threads on electric mowers, including some that include discussion of the 18v Ryobi models; I ended up buying a 36v Ryobi, as I was starting fresh (ie, had none of the other 18v tools) and I'd not say mine is underpowered (this could be applicable to your situation, assuming the real-world power is fairly similar between the two systems). But this is assuming your needs are pretty standard - perhaps there's something particular about what you're after?

My biggest issue is still having only a single battery, which is typically not enough to get through the whole lawn, but given you already own 18v batteries this may not be an issue for you.

Earlier threads include:

https://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?forumid=141&topicid=224169

https://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?forumid=141&topicid=224169

We have a small lawn, probably 100m2, but it's not a "nice" lawn in that it's lumpy, and I don't mow it very often, so our Lawn Master 158cc mower just isn't coping (plus it's a terrible design so that grass gets caught in all the "corners".

I'm looking for some to replace it with, that's "appropriate". I want something POWERFUL (I am told 190cc is a better fit for me), that starts easily and reliably and isn't too finicky to use. It would be good if it could mulch or side output potentially.

Does anyone have a current recommendation? I don't think Battery-powered would be good enough in long grass according to recent reports by Consumer.

Ryobi 190cc from Bunnings is $500, but I am told it can be a PITA to get the catcher on and off, and that would annoy me.

Hello, we recently bought a Lawnmaster with a 140cc Briggs & Stratton motor and has an 18" 4 blade disc like the photograph you've shown. It came with a plastic catcher and we love this Lawnmower. The mower both cuts and mulches and we love that it has ball bearing wheels, not plastic. The mower cuts beautifully and works better when your lawn is dry and kept low. 

We also have a single blade mower 140cc, this also cuts well but perhaps not as beautifully manicured as the Lawnmaster. The difference we noticed is the Lawnmaster struggles on over-grown lawns and more so if its a tad wet. The single blade, not as much.

That's my 5 cents worth. 😊

Thank you.

We ended up purchasing the Lawnmaster with the "blade disc". We had it for almost 9 months now, and we are quite happy about it.

It works as expected, collect the grass well.

The handles are a bit poor but that's alright.

Batman: I have a wet lawn more often than not with boggy ground . Any recommendations? My old mower is on its last legs and I'd like to get a better one.

One of the advantages of most electric mowers is that they're relatively light-weight (especially those with plastic bodies), which means they also generally don't get as stuck in soft ground as petrol mowers. I find my electric mower gets stuck far less, and is far easier to handle, than my old petrol mower...

Batman: I have a wet lawn more often than not with boggy ground . Any recommendations? My old mower is on its last legs and I'd like to get a better one.

The old Flymo's were good for those sorts of lawns as they didn't have wheels to get bogged down.  The converse of that was that they struggled a bit with thick wet grass.  Not sure if there is a current equivalent though.