Really if it is a new piece of equipment ill be da**ed if they dont fix it for free under warranty tells me you must have been bought it from wal-mart or sears or somewhere of the likes. They dont honor warranty once its been ran more than 3 hours. But since its new take it back to wherever it was purchased. You should have no problem gitn yor cash back and then go to yor local tractor supply and buy it. They will fix it 4 free 10 years from now minus normal wear and tear.. And F**CK the E.P.A volcanos put out more harmfull emissions in 1 minute than every car in the whole wide world does in 1 year.

Commercial mowers? Seriously? In my opinion, no homeowner should ever consider going commercial. There really is little to no point in doing so. I use an HRC-216 from Honda when I help my father-in-law with his landscape business, and while it is a great machine, it is way more than I would ever need for ~52 times a year. Also, when something does go wrong, they are very expensive to fix. My advice for the OP is to sharpen the blade on the reel he has now and get it working well. Maybe add a weedeater, probably electric, so you don't have to store gas. If the reel has a hard time with your type of grass then go with a cheap mulching mower, gas or electric. When you find yourself with a larger lawn, then consider a premium residential mower like a Super Recycler or Honda. What you want to look for at that point is a decent engine and non-rusting deck. Also, if you do not need self-propelled, don't get it. It adds to the cost and complexity of the mower and is one more thing that can break. Looking at your lawn, a large self-propelled commercial would almost be more of a hassle to use than something smaller and more nimble like the reel mower you have or a 19"ish electric. Also, the money you save could be put towards more landscaping. There are plenty of plants and such that are drought resistant. That would do far more to beautify your lawn than a mower.

I know this is an old thread, but I just wanted to chime in here. I don't think there is anything wrong with buying inexpensive power equipment as long as you aren't asking the equipment to perform above and beyond what it was designed for. For example, I own a weedeater leaf blower ($99) a Poulan "Wood Shark" chainsaw ($99), and a homelite string trimmer ($79). All of this equipment is over 10 years old and with the exception of the leaf blower, needed no repairs. I did have to rebuild the engine on the leaf blower a few years ago. IIRC it cost less than $35 for the piston, rings and jug. I guess they aren't "disposable" if the manufacturer stocks engine components after several years! My point is that I don't use these tools commercially, and I take care of them. The chainsaw starts every time I need it because I always empty the fuel tank and run it dry after every use. My other equipment gets drained and run dry at the end of the season. They always start right up in the spring. I routinely pick up relatively new blowers, trimmers and mowers out of the trash and most of them only need fresh gas, air filters and possible a carb cleaning to get them running. Some of them are Echo's, Tanaka's and Stihl's. It was the neglect of the homeowner that caused the tool to fail to operate. I wonder if any of their original owners end up buying them back when I have a garage sale. Too many folks just run them until they stop. Oil changes? What are those? Heck, they don't even check the oil! I just picked up a Poulan Pro snow blower with a blown 8 HP engine. Owner let it run low on oil and with all the snow we got this past winter, the engine let loose when trying to move 12+ inches of heavy, wet snow. I am going to re-power it with a Harbor Freight engine and sell it. It looks brand new - what a shame. Once again, even if it were an Ariens that was twice the price, the same result would have happened from the neglect. My "cheap" Craftsman snow blower is 16 years old, runs great, starts every time. It's all in the care and feeding.

Weight costs money, whether it is cast iron or sheet/bar steel, although cast is a bit cheaper. There is no doubt you could build a very good fabricated front axel from sheet and bar steel,it could be stronger than a cast one, but it would probably cost more than a cast one to make. The low end guys use fabricated front axels because they can get "acceptable" strength at the lowest cost. The weak points seem to be at the pivot, as was mentioned, as many use extruded sections for pivot support instead of welded in tubing and bushings. The typical "I beam" style they use also seems to be pretty weak when it sees twisting style loads. When it comes to the strenth of non fabricated axels, as was said, a forging would be by far the best, but are very expensive. Casting materials also vary a lot, but if nodular iron were used, it would start to approach the strenth of a non high strength forging. Plain old grey cast iron is not very strong, but it is the cheapest, so sections can be a bit thicker at the same price point. Cast iron also has pretty good internal damping characteristics, so it will take out some vibrations and such. It is also somewhat self lubricating, so they will eliminate bushings to save some money. I can't say what is up with the lawn and garden stuff, but there is getting to be a LOT of asian and other 3rd world cast iron showing up in products. It is usually of pretty poor quality both from a metallurgical (made almost completely from scrap) and from a casting methods standpoint. The castings I have cut apart are full of inclusions, poor mix, hard spots, sand, etc., and are very prone to failure comapared to good clean castins.