The average person wants to get that lawn mowed in a hurry and then get on to the next job or perhaps something fun. And even people who like to cut their lawns have their limits. This ambivalence – love the lawn but hate the cutting – has resulted in a demand for machines that cut grass efficiently and makes fewer physical demands of the operator.

Over the years, manufacturers have developed more efficient grass-cutting machines, and the most recent expression of this is known loosely as a zero-turn moto mower. This is a machine that steers using the rear wheels and is far removed from the traditional front-wheel-steering tractor design of other products.

We did tests on the machines that are direct descendants of the commercial cutting machines introduced several years ago. They are designed to cut so closely around obstacles that they nearly eliminate the need to trim. One advantage of these machines is that they pivot through 180 degrees without leaving a circle of uncut grass. The radius or diameter of the uncut circle is one measure of a conventional rotary tiller mower’s cutting ability.

The typical design of a zero-turn mower has each rear wheel connected to a hydrostatic transmission, a device that creates wheel rotation using pressurized fluid. Rotational force from the engine turns a pulley-operated pump that pressurizes the transmission fluid. When you move a steering/speed lever, you are controlling the flow of fluid through the transmission and the rotational speed or the forward/reverse direction of a drive wheel.

Maximum lever movement means maximum fluid flow, which translates into a rapidly turning wheel. If one drive wheel turns more rapidly than the other, the machine moves along a curved path. If both wheels turn at the same speed, the power sweeper follows a straight path. If one wheel stops and the other turns, or if the wheels turn in opposite directions, the mower pivots. Are these machines a good fit for you? It’s true that they deal effectively with maneuverability, aggressively so, in fact.