Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)The Spyder is designed for smaller lawns - about 5000 square feet.
I love mine. It's great to be able to relax on the patio with a cold drink, and watch the grass being cut by this machine.
It's beautifully made - and easy to work on, if something does go wrong. But be sure to make notes or take pictures of how the cables attach when you remove the cover. There is a schematic available at Lawnbott.com if you forget to do that.
To remove the cover, just remove the six screws in the recessed holes in the bottom. Flip it over, and lift the cover off. Do it gently so you don't disconnect the four cables/wires connecting to the motherboard from the cover switches and from the two handles.
If they do come loose before you can note their locations, then just refer to the schematic to see where they must be reconnected when you put the cover back on, after you've finished working on the machine.
Initially, I had a short-lived problem with one of the two drive belts breaking on two separate occasions, which was caused both times by a screw in the center of the axle that kept working loose.
(The drive belts transfer power from the direct drive rear axle to the front axle, giving the machine its four wheel drive. The machine will still cut grass with broken belts, since the rear wheels will continue to propel the mower. Depending on your lawn, you may not even notice the difference.)
Anyway, once I diagnosed the source of the problem, a heavy duty thread locker product (Loctite) easily solved that. - The seller provided replacement belts both times at no charge.
To replace a belt, you don't need to remove the cover. Just remove the wheels on the side where the broken belt is located, then remove the long oval shaped plastic cover from over the drive belt & axles on that side.
The programmed extricating pattern could be better, in my opinion. My Spyder occasionally gets stuck against walls or in corners, simply because it gives up much too soon in its attempts to extricate itself (via repeatedly backing up and attempting to make a left turn away from the obstacle). - So I occasionally have to go out and extricate it manually.
A perhaps related problem concerns long narrow sideyards or similar narrow strips of grass that you need to cut. One of my sideyards is only 8 feet in width and perhaps 70 feet in length. The spyder has problems with narrow areas like this. It frequently stops after connecting with side barriers - in my case, the brick wall of the house on one side and a stone wall on the other side. So I have to frequently move it from where it has stalled against the stone wall to an open area to get it to restart. I plan to solve this problem by eliminating grass in this sideyard, replacing it with shrubs and ground cover.
Once again, it appears that this issue could be solved by the manufacturer by changing the extricating pattern. If the Spyder completely reversed direction more often, when encountering an obstacle (say, like the Roomba), in addition to its present pattern of just repeatedly backing up a short distance and trying to make a very gradual left turn away from the obstacle, it seems to me that the narrow space issue could be solved.
I have chosen to just eliminate narrow grass spaces, and continue to use this great machine. One other option is to cut grass in narrow areas with a string trimmer or other device - which I have been doing occasionally, when I tire of continually restarting the stalled Spyder.
I have added to the black rubber bumper, by cutting and gluing additional rubber pieces to areas on the fenders which were all scratched up from impacts with stone walls in my yard. (used Goop adhesive & cut suitably attractive pieces from a rubber garage door seal)
I'm using my Spyder for the second year now on my centipede lawn, and I'm very happy with it. In fact, I'm seriously considering getting a second one so I can cut the front and back yards at the same time.
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UPDATE on April 26, 2011:
After a little over a year of owning this machine, the second drive belt on the other side of the Spyder broke. Same problem, a screw in the center of the axle had worked loose causing the belt to break. This is not the belt that I replaced before. That repair on the other side of the Spyder is holding securely.
I have just finished doing the same repair (replacing the screw and adding Loctite "blue" thread locker). And this time, I replaced this belt with one I bought online from an electric motor parts supplier for $14.95. Total cost of repair was about $20, including everything.
You have to buy a new stainless steel blade each year, which adds about $45 to operating costs.So in the year plus that I've owned my Spyder, I've spent about $65 total for maintenance.
The machine is working great now. It cut the grass this morning beautifully.
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