Viking Ride On Mowers.

Gautama

Are Viking Ride On Mowers any good?
I'm in the market for a ride on. Most equipment I have is Stihl (chainsaw, strimmer, hedge trimmer) but I've heard that Viking, though owned by Stihl, are not really Stihl.
I was wondering if any member have a Viking and if it's any good?

fox0512

....and some nissan are made by renault so its hard to know whos who anymore....ive had some into workshop that gave problems while others have not.... the life of many of these machines is down to the pilot and how well they look after the machine....if your mulching then what size/HP engine is it?.....an engine strong enough to do the job will take pressure off other components like pulleys, belts etc....big grass = big engine.....from what ive seen id have no issues with viking IMO...

Needles73

Gautama wrote: »

Are Viking Ride On Mowers any good?
I'm in the market for a ride on. Most equipment I have is Stihl (chainsaw, strimmer, hedge trimmer) but I've heard that Viking, though owned by Stihl, are not really Stihl.
I was wondering if any member have a Viking and if it's any good?

Yes they are good. They are made in Austria by "Al-ko" as far as I know. I am on my second and I think they are good. No issues if you look after them. They do have a price premium but I prefer them to castlegarden but that's me.

Ogie84

I'm running a Viking T6112C, as part of a share with a few other family members who are neighbours. It's a very good machine I have to say. In it's fourth season now, over 200hrs on the clock. We have had some problems with it over the last year, which turned out to be mechanic related. At it's service in 2015, the mechanic made a balls of it and we spent over a year trying to figure out why it was spluttering and down on power. Frustrating to say the least and completely avoidable, won't go into the details here.
Eventually we took it to another Viking dealer who got it running properly again and so far this year, no issues to report. 42" cutting deck, big box, good turning circle for a machine of it's size and 17hp engine. Easy to operate, simple forward/reverse shuttle and no annoying reverse safety switches like on a John Deere.
My garden is fairly young and has good growth, but that doesn't slow the Viking down a whole lot. I'm using the mulching plugs at present but if it goes over 10 days or so I tend to collect it. Would definitely consider another one in a few years when trading in.

Needles73

Ogie84 wrote: »

I'm running a Viking T6112C, as part of a share with a few other family members who are neighbours. It's a very good machine I have to say. In it's fourth season now, over 200hrs on the clock. We have had some problems with it over the last year, which turned out to be mechanic related. At it's service in 2015, the mechanic made a balls of it and we spent over a year trying to figure out why it was spluttering and down on power. Frustrating to say the least and completely avoidable, won't go into the details here.
Eventually we took it to another Viking dealer who got it running properly again and so far this year, no issues to report. 42" cutting deck, big box, good turning circle for a machine of it's size and 17hp engine. Easy to operate, simple forward/reverse shuttle and no annoying reverse safety switches like on a John Deere.
My garden is fairly young and has good growth, but that doesn't slow the Viking down a whole lot. I'm using the mulching plugs at present but if it goes over 10 days or so I tend to collect it. Would definitely consider another one in a few years when trading in.

The newer ones have very annoying reverse safety switch but that can resolved quite easily...the model line up had changed also with the mt5112 now having the 22hp plus back to 2 timed blades