[greenmachine]

I'm looking at buying a mower for trimming the areas that I can't get with the tractor. One feature that has caught my attention is the BBC. It sounds like a good thing, as you can keep the motor running without the blade in order to stop and empty the bag or pick up pieces of garbage.

I'm considering a Honda HRR216VXA and a Toro 20333. However, there don't seem to be many other choices out there with the BBC, so that has me wondering if there are some drawbacks to having it. I have read about some issues Honda had a few years back with the control cable slipping and stopping the blade unintentionally, but I would assume that has been fixed by now.

Is BBC a good idea, or is it a mechanical hassle? I won't put many hours on the mower each year, so I would expect wear parts to last quite some time.

 

[rhenning]

BBCs work fine but the reason you are not seeing as many is three fold. First it makes the mower much more expensive. Second they are very expensive to replace and they do from time to time break. Third new mowers are not very hard to start. Usually one pull and you have it running. Roger

 

[cuts]

my folks have bbc on their lawnboy, works good. My toro has bbc and i simply love it, in fact my toro has been through a lot of abuse including fallen off of a moving trailor and after a broken deck gears etc the bbc works well, not to bad for a $350.00 mower.the main thing imo,is that it saves wear and tear on the excesive amount of restarts

 

[bwdbrn1]

I have a Honda HR214 with BBC, and 2 speed transmission. It's a great mower, and it has a lot of features of their commercial line.

 

[rhenning]

I also have a BBC JD 14SB and 14SE which are a great mowers. The flaw with them is when they were built in the mid 1990s they cost about $400 for the SB and $500 for the SE. To replace it with a new BBC JD you looking at closer to $700+. The JD is probably worth it but most consumers will not pay that much to buy a lawn mower. Roger

 

[greenmachine]

Thanks for the replies. I was hoping that it was just a matter of economics, whereby most buyers are unwilling to spend the cash on a more advanced feature.