Toro riding lawn mower

Looking to settle a score? Still mad at a brother for giving your kids the popping vacuum toy? How about that uncle that picks on you at the Thanksgiving table? Look no further for the perfect gift for these sorts.

Sure, this Toro looks nice (it better, been taking up precious space inside the barn), but wait until he gets on it. He will notice the battery is weak and have to dig around under his work bench for a charger, might knock something heavy off onto his shoe. Bummer. But once he gives it some juice it will crack off and purr like a cat in the creamery. Ha, he says, but just wait.

He will start moving around with this zero turn feature, a big grin from ear to ear. He will fire up the mower and see it cuts real nice (it should, blades are practically new). He will start spinning in circles to the left and think he has got it made, but then he tries to drive straight and notices it steers hard and doesnt like to go straight. To the right is even worse. Backing up isnt real great either. But it zooms to the left and he still likes it. 

After about 15 minutes it starts to lose steam going left, by then he will be clear across the yard. Now it will not budge right, sputters to the left, and barely creeps forward. He will think he can limp it back to the garage, and if its down hill it might, but lets hope its uphill and he has to resort to pushing the beast, which is fine with a normal battery but this one is weak and wants to engage the parking brake at random intervals. So after a workout only rivaled by hot yoga he will be drenched from head to toe. 

At this point he will start looking into what is wrong and how to fix it. He may think the linkages are out of adjustment (they're not) but he can wrench on that for an hour. Then he might try replacing some steering parts but after $250 that wont help. At this point he might take it to the dealer for diagnostics, which theyll say the drive units are bad, and for $1000 in parts per side plus labor it can be right as rain. 

He will say that is ridiculous and call HydroGear, maker of the drive units. They will say try replacing the center section in each unit and that should do it, the parts are only $200 per side. He will say What a bargain and order both sets. Then he will start to take them apart and see he is over his head, but he is in this deep so he will keep going. After 20 hours of labor he will get it back together, refill the oil, crank it up and it will work 5% better than before. At this point he will be looking to trade it off for a pair of ill tempered goats to mow his lawn and you can savor sweet victory.