Frequently asked questions

Deck width against lot size decides most of it:

• Up to ½ acre: a 22-inch walk-behind, self-propelled
• ½ to 1 acre: a 30-inch walk-behind — roughly a third fewer passes
• 1 to 2 acres: a rear-engine rider, where walking stops making sense
• 2 acres and up: a zero-turn, up to 54 inches of deck

These are guides, not rules. A half-acre with a steep bank and lots of trees behaves like a bigger lawn. Call with the acreage, the slope and your narrowest gate and we'll narrow it to one machine.

Measure your narrowest gate at its tightest point before ordering. This catches more people than anything else — a 30-inch deck is a great machine and a useless one if it can't reach the back garden.

As a rough guide: a 22-inch walk-behind clears almost anything, a 30-inch needs a standard gate, and a 54-inch zero-turn needs a driveway or double gate.

Self-propelled if you have any slope, or more than a few thousand square feet. Pushing a mower uphill stops being fun quickly, and self-propelled machines are only modestly more expensive.

Toro's Personal Pace system has no speed lever — push a little harder on the handle and it speeds up, ease off and it slows. It takes about five minutes to get used to.

On a slope, a front-wheel-drive mower loses grip as soon as the front lifts. All-wheel drive keeps pulling, so you're steering rather than shoving.

If your lawn is flat, front-wheel drive is fine and cheaper. If you have a bank you currently mow sideways, all-wheel drive is worth the difference.

• Mulching cuts clippings fine and returns them to the lawn as fertiliser. Best for regular mowing on a healthy lawn
• Bagging collects clippings. Best for a tidy finish, or for the first cut of spring when grass is long
• Side discharge throws clippings out to the side. Best for overgrown grass that would clog a mulching deck

Most of our machines do all three, so you're not choosing once and living with it.

The lap-bar steering takes a session to get used to — each bar drives one wheel, so there's no steering wheel. Practise on open lawn before you go near flower beds.

Once it clicks, trimming around obstacles is far quicker than with a steering wheel. But zero-turns lose steering traction on steep ground, so check the slope limits in the manual before mowing a bank.

Orders are processed within 1 business day, then standard delivery takes 1–2 business days depending on where you are.

Processing includes assembling the machine, filling the oil and test-starting it, so an order placed Monday morning typically arrives Wednesday or Thursday. Orders placed at a weekend are processed the next business day.

No. Standard shipping is free on all orders within the United States, with no minimum order and no handling fee added at checkout. The price on the product page is the price you pay.

Yes. Every machine is assembled, filled with oil and test-started by a technician before it ships. You unbox it, add fuel and mow.

This is the main reason we take a day to process an order. It's slower than shipping a flat-packed box, and it's why our machines start.

Machines too large for a parcel carrier travel on a pallet with a freight company. That works differently:

• The carrier calls ahead to arrange a delivery window
• Someone must be there to receive and sign for the pallet
• Delivery is kerbside — the driver brings it to the end of your driveway, not into the garage
• A freight truck needs room to stop and operate a tail lift

If access to your address is difficult, tell us when you order and we'll work it out before the pallet is booked.

When your order ships you'll get an email with a tracking number. It's also on your order page if you have an account.

If the tracking email hasn't arrived within two business days of ordering, check your spam folder, then contact us.

All major credit and debit cards — Visa, Mastercard, American Express and Discover — plus PayPal.

Payment is processed securely by our payment provider. We don't store full card numbers.

Yes — free 30-day returns on every mower order. Thirty days from delivery, we cover the return shipping, and there's no restocking fee.

The machine has to come back unused. Full detail is in our Refund & Return Policy.

You can unpack it, roll it to your gate, sit on it, adjust the deck height and start it briefly to check it runs. None of that affects your return.

Adding fuel and mowing does. Once petrol goes in the tank and the machine cuts grass it can't be sold to the next customer as new. If you're unsure whether a machine suits your lawn, call us before you fuel it.

Engines carry a 3-year manufacturer warranty, which we register for you at checkout — no card to post. Deck and drivetrain terms vary by model; the operator's manual that ships with the machine is definitive.

Wear items aren't covered: blades, belts, filters, plugs and tyres. We stock all of them.

No. A fault is a warranty matter, not a return, and being used doesn't count against you — that's exactly what the warranty is for.

Returns and warranty are two different things. A return is for a machine that's fine but wrong for you, within 30 days. A warranty claim is for a machine that's faulty, for the manufacturer's term. Contact us either way and we'll route it correctly.

Note the damage on the delivery receipt before you sign. This is the most important step — signing a clean receipt makes a carrier claim much harder to win.

• Photograph everything, including the packaging and pallet
• Contact us within 24 hours, or within 72 hours for damage you only find on unpacking
• Don't run the machine if you suspect damage
• Keep the packaging until the claim is settled

We open the carrier claim and arrange repair or replacement. You don't chase the carrier yourself.

Follow the interval in your operator's manual — typically after the first few hours on a new engine, then annually or every 50 hours for most residential machines.

Most engine failures we see are the result of skipped oil changes rather than manufacturing faults. It's the cheapest maintenance you'll ever do.

Look at the grass, not the blade. A sharp blade cuts cleanly; a dull one tears, leaving ragged, whitish tips that brown off a day or two later.

Most people need a sharpen once or twice a season. Stop the engine and disconnect the spark plug before you go anywhere near the blade.

• Run the tank dry, or add fuel stabiliser — stale fuel is the single biggest cause of a mower not starting in spring
• Change the oil while the engine is still warm
• Clean grass off the underside of the deck
• Sharpen or replace the blade so it's ready
• Store somewhere dry, off bare concrete if you can

Nine times out of ten it's the fuel. Petrol degrades in a few months and gums up the carburettor. Drain the old fuel, put fresh in, and try again.

After that, check the spark plug and air filter — both are cheap, both are in stock, and between them they account for most of the rest.

Find the model and serial number. The plate is usually under the seat on a rider, or on the deck of a walk-behind. Call or email with those two numbers and we'll match the part exactly.

We keep blades, belts, filters and plugs in stock for every model we sell, so a service isn't a three-week wait.

Within the limits in your operator's manual, and the limits differ sharply by machine type. A walk-behind handles ground that a zero-turn shouldn't go near, because zero-turns lose steering traction on steep slopes.

Read that section of the manual before you mow a bank. If you're not sure whether a particular slope is within limits, call us and describe it.