Hayter is amongst the most well regarded lawn mower brands in the market and their products have attracted a loyal and dedicated following over the past sixty or so years. One of the few law mower manufacturers in Britain still to make lawn mowers in this country, new Hayter products are always keenly awaited. So has the wait for Hayter’s new lawn mowers for 2008 been worth it?
The short answer is certainly yes. This year we have seen new additions in three important areas where the Hayter line up of lawn mowers had either been underrepresented or completely lacking in products in the past.
For the first time we see Hayter take on board growing concerns about the environment and deliver a new mulching lawn mower which is designed to help reduce the amount of waste you produce in the garden by recycling the grass cuttings. It’s good to see Hayter catching up with some of its rivals who have been pushing this type of lawn mower for many years but surely we could have done with a wider range than just the one model (two if you count the electric start version)? The new Hayter R48 Recycler Lawnmower is a great machine and offers some really neat features such as the ‘on-demand’ recycling system (you can automatically switch to mulching from collection mode which the Hayter R48 also features) and a drive system that automatically adjusts to your walking speed, but with a cutting width of 480 mm and a large petrol engine, this is not lawn mower which is going to suit everybody’s needs. At MowDIRECT we look forward to a broader range of recycling lawn mowers from Hayter with electric and both smaller and larger petrol models becoming available.
The second area in which we see a new and important addition to the 2008 range of Hayter lawnmowers is in hover mowing. In January 2007 Hayter acquired the assets of the Allen Hover Mower Business and this year there has been an expansion of the range with the release of a significant new model. It has been some years now since we’ve had a small-sized petrol hover mower available on the market and many people have been put off by the size and bulk of the larger machines that have been on offer. The launch of the new lightweight Allen XR44 Petrol Hover Mower by Hayter, weighing just 12.5 kg, makes the go anywhere benefits of a petrol hover available again to a much wider cross section of the population. In previous years you may well have had to settle for less powerful electric model with a cord to mow overgrown banks and slopes away from the house – machines really intended for shorter grass on smaller lawns. Where these electric models will have struggled to cope, the new Allen XR44 Petrol Hover Mower will tackle these areas with relative ease. Well done Hayter for this much needed addition.
Finally we see the release of a new Heavy Duty Walk Behind Rotary Mower which Hayter say has been structurally built for professional landscapers and contract gardeners. Hayter has taken a bit of knock in recent years from these very same people for weaknesses in the drive system – now thankfully resolved – on their Harrier 56 range of rear roller lawn mowers which have been widely used for may years by professional gardeners. So will this new mower stand up to the scrutiny of contactors and the daily rigours of professional use? Our guess would be yes as in essence this mower is a Toro product (Toro are an American lawnmower manufacturer and Hayter’s parent company) and has been proven out in the field over a number of years already. Features contractors and professional gardeners will be interested in include the low vibration design allowing for a full eight hours use in a day under current legislation as well as commercial grade Kawasaki engine, heavy-duty deck and strengthened crankshaft to protect against unexpected impacts.
