Using the wrong tool can make a seemingly straightforward job much harder and more time-consuming. Take mowing the lawn, for example: If you have a small yard, you might be able to run a standard push mower over it quite quickly, but if you’ve a big stretch of land to cover, a ride-on model might be your saving grace. 

There are some unique care needs to stay on top of with a riding mower, along with some important dos and don’ts to bear in mind. Even if you’ve been using one for a long time, you might find that some of the things you do (or don’t do) regularly could even be harmful to your machine, from the huge potential hazard of tackling inclines in your yard to the art of taking turns with the right technique to limit damage to your grass — with the latter being something that’s especially important on zero-turn mowers.

Here are some things you should definitely stop doing when using, maintaining, and storing your ride-on mower. These tips should be helpful for riding mower beginners and experienced users alike. While lawn tractors are a particular subset of riding mower with more overall versatility, these tips can generally be applied whichever type of model you have.

For riders of motorized lawn mowers, inclines pose a danger that are easy to underestimate. The crucial factor is how steep they are. As a general rule, a slope higher than a 17.6% gradient (approximately 10 degrees) is ill-suited for many riding mowers. It’s vital to be armed with an accurate reading of the angle of any slopes. You can get this with a flat board like a 2×4 and either a traditional spirit level or an angle finder app on your smartphone.

Taking straight, steady paths directly up and down a hill while maintaining speed as much as possible is the safest way to tackle an incline, as cutting across can lead to tipping sideways. You also need to be prepared to shut off the blades and take a straight course back off the incline immediately if you notice any change in performance. The essential thing is to avoid potential overbalancing, which could injure the rider and damage the machine.

Features such as larger wheels and smoother movement can improve traction on this kind of terrain, but it’s vital to consult the manufacturer’s guidance for your specific model to learn what your machine is capable of and when it’s important for your own safety to choose a different model instead. A walk-behind model, with rear-wheel or all-wheel drive, could be a more appropriate choice for hills, with the additional power of the machine easing the work. Riding mowers with dramatically different levels of horsepower are available, and it’s about finding a balance between what best suits your land and your experience and comfort levels.

Electric models are becoming increasingly popular, but for many drivers of rider mowers, the crucial question of gas has to be answered. If you will be storing your rider mower away for a period, such as over the winter months, you’ve got to be aware of the harm that old fuel could cause your machine. 

Gas that’s left for too long in your mower will start to go bad, potentially resulting in a thick layer of sludge in the carburetor and other components of your mower. Unsurprisingly, this can have a huge negative effect on performance, potentially causing it run considerably worse than before or even fail to start altogether. If you’re not going to use your mower for several weeks once you’ve finished with it, you should take steps to prevent the fuel already inside it from going bad. The most obvious way to do this is to run the tank empty before putting it away, but if you still have a significant amount of regular, non-alkylated fuel still in the tank, you can prevent this issue by adding some fuel stabilizer.

Your lawn may not need trimming very often, but if you have a ride-on mower, it naturally follows that you have a lot of ground to cover. As such, then, your machine will need to be in the best shape. Leaving stale gas in your mower is one of the biggest mistakes that could threaten that, as well as the one that’s potentially easiest to overlook.

The zero-turn lawn mower is a very special kind of ride-on model. Instead of a more conventional control setup with a steering wheel, It has dual left-and-right steering handles. These are each linked to a separate motor, a unique system that allows for maneuvers that a more conventional model wouldn’t be able to perform, like 360-degree turns. This increased maneuverability is designed for smoother cutting without backtracking. Your grass can be delicate, however, and those same special movements can also cause damage to it.

In one Reddit discussion, a user asked fellow owners for advice on preventing the front wheels of a zero-turn (a Toro Z Master 3000 in this particular case) from causing damage to their lawn, especially with maneuvers like three-point turns in mind. Several users noted that pivoting on a single wheel, particularly where the grass is damp or potentially thin, has a tendency to tear the lawn up. Steady, wide turns are usually the key to keeping your lawn even and tidy, but these specialized models are also capable of specific maneuvers like K-turns. 

Demonstrating this technique, YouTube’s Brian’s Lawn Maintenance describes it as “we’re going to come straight down, we’re going to make a turn, come back on ourselves, and then we’re going to realign and come back down.” The creator goes on to note that the danger with simple 180-degree turns at the end of a row is that the mower can grind into the grass rather than cutting smoothly through it on the way to the next pass, possibly leaving deep divots in it. Though these mowers are designed to be intuitive to steer, there’s a learning process that goes with the technique of using them effectively. 

One of the most simple and important tips of general grass cutting is that you need to work to the length of the grass. U.K. manufacturer EGO Power Plus provides one set of general guidelines, suggesting that during cool weather your grass should be up to around 2 inches long, and longer in summer and hotter weather (up to just over 3 inches long). A typical ride-on mower or lawn tractor has a cutting deck that can be raised or lowered, typically using a lever or similar mechanism. The guidelines above are a good place to start, but your grass may be considerably longer. If it’s grown unruly, the appliance manufacturer recommends mowing twice, firstly to an appropriately high but more manageable length, and then to the length at which you intend to keep it. 

The positioning of the cutting deck on the mower’s body can have a marked effect on its performance. Two primary varieties are front- and mid-mounted mowers, and each has its own primary advantages. With a mid-mounted mower, the cutting deck is beneath the rider’s seat, which makes the system more compact and manageable but may also limit utility. Front-mounted models’ cutting decks aren’t built into the body of the vehicle itself, giving them more freedom to follow the angles of the grass. Because the deck will reach spots of grass before the model’s wheels can impact it, they may be better suited to cutting more overgrown lawns, or for cases where you have to cut the grass while it’s still damp. The deck is more accessible for cleanup reasons too. These models are typically considerably larger, though, so may not be practical for the amount of land you have. 

In 2018, the Canadian government looked at “unintentional lawn mower-related injuries which happened on or after April 1, 2011.” According to the data, provided by the Canadian Hospitals Injury Reporting and Prevention Program, 71.6% of the cases required emergency room treatment, and just 11.7% reported that they were wearing protective equipment at the time of the accident. This applies to various different types of lawnmower, but one thing they all have in common is that they’re among the most potentially dangerous tools.

The first critical thing to consider with gas ride-on models is that they can be extremely loud. According to Eufy, for instance, these are the loudest types of mowers, reaching approximately 88-96 dB (with gas-powered push models registering about 85-90 dB). Hearing protection is a must, then. After this, it’s also recommended to wear appropriate, hard-wearing footwear paired with a full-length pair of pants.  Accidents can happen even with the most experienced operators, and not protecting exposed skin with gloves and so on is an unnecessary risk. It’s easy to miss the smallest obstacle on a lawn, and with the power and potential speed of these mowers, they can send sharp fragments towards the rider.

Riding lawn mowers aren’t restricted to just mowing alone, and can have other backyard utility depending on the type and model you have. However you’re using it, though, be sure to take every precaution and dress appropriately.