Briggs & Stratton Quattro 4.0 HP Push Mower review

When I lived on a military post, they had strict regulations about lawn mowing. My husband is a strapping lad, but he couldn't always mow the lawn right when it needed to be done, and it's expensive to pay someone else to do it! We didn't have our own mower, so I borrowed one all the time. I'm a little person at 5 feet 2 inches tall, and I do not have a lot of upper body strength. The mowers I was borrowing were SO heavy and hard to push! Not only that, when you pulled the string to start them, it had to be pulled WAY out, and my arms weren't long enough to do it in one fluid motion. That was the worst part. Sometimes it would take 10-15 minutes to start the thing because I had to pull the string and jump backwards at the same time to be able to pull the string long enough. It's a real skill.

Well, my neighbors moved out and offered us their "broken" lawn mower for free. It was a cherry-red Briggs & Stratton Quattro 4.0 HP push mower. All it needed was a tune-up at the local small engine repair shop and it was good to go.

My lawn mowing life greatly improved the day I took that mower home. First of all, not only is it easy to push, it was light enough for me to pick up and put in the back of my SUV to take it to the repair shop. When you pull the string, the engine catches pretty quickly with no need for the backwards jump. Usually it catches on the first or second pull, too!

It's a mulching mower, and the side thing where the grass gets spit out can discharge the grass, or you can unscrew it and push it in so you can attach a bag and it will spit into that. It's also got adjustable wheels for grass height.

This is a pretty basic mower. I need a basic mower so I don't get heat stroke from 15 minutes of pulling and an hour of pushing a heavy monster mower. Since I got my Quattro, I consider mowing to be some good extra exercise and not a frustrating, blow-a-blood-vessel-in-my-forehead task.