Do your research on the engines and the pumps. And in those two places you get what you pay for usually. The other stuff such as the sticker on the mower and the paint color is just dust in the wind, especially in your price range, where they are the same 5 mowers with different badges basically. They all use combos of the same 5 motors and pumps. The more people(mechanics) you talk to on those, the better off you will be. Also splurge for a commercial deck on whatever setup you buy. You'll thank me when you are bolting it onto the next mower you replace this one with. And talk to the mechanics about parts availability, etc. Expect the worst case scenario to happen in 5-10 years on those residential setups(which is what you will get in that price range).
I've thought about forming another LLC to rebuild mower engines fulltime, but I just don't have enough time or determination to do it, nor the leadership/people skills to hire and teach anyone else to do it for me. The general rebuildability of all these different mower engines is the best kept secret going. Ton of meat on those cylinders and crank. And parts are generally cheap and easily available online. No shops will do it -- they'll just charge you the $1500+ for a new crate engine, when they could have usually rebuilt it for a couple hundred, made more in labor, and still saved you a bunch of money. Have been buying and flipping a couple mowers a year that were blown up doing this. One Kubota/Kohler I'm "still in touch with" has been used commercially for another couple hundred hours and is still purring like a kitten.
One hour...maybe 90 minutes?
