Swisher (44") 14.5HP Rough Cut Tow-Behind Trail Cutter w/ Electric Start

I just wanted to say this machine exceeded my expectations. Cut through 5 acres of thick fescue and other tall weeds.

My mother left a review already but I just wanted to show a video of what the machine can do.

ps: The cable that broke was the blade engage cable when somehow I hit a bump and the latch pin unlocked and released from the 4 wheeler causing the cable to break.

I called Swisher about buying a new cable and the gentleman sent me a new cable and latch pin free of charge under warranty. Awesome service and it arrived 3 days later.

I just wanted to say this machine exceeded my expectations. Cut through 5 acres of thick fescue and other tall weeds.

My mother left a review already but I just wanted to show a video of what the machine can do.

ps: The cable that broke was the blade engage cable when somehow I hit a bump and the latch pin unlocked and released from the 4 wheeler causing the cable to break.

I called Swisher about buying a new cable and the gentleman sent me a new cable and latch pin free of charge... more

The adjustment screw broke, but I repaired it in the field. The hitch pin broke and pulled the cable out of the ignition and ruined the plastic conduit fitting, but I replaced it with a better metallic fitting. THIS THING MOWS LIKE A CHAMP! The motor is strong and starts easy. There are some improvements to make like wider wheels, but overall I'm very satisfied with this mower.

First let me say that your carrier - SAIA Motorfreight for the Evansville, IN area was excellent. The gentleman who delivered my mower was prompt, courteous and very helpful. The mower arrived in good shape. Assembly was relatively easy with the hardest task getting the unit out of the crate, but nothing a hammer and a pry bar couldn't handle. I checked out the mower per instructions, and the only issue I found was that the motor oil level was about 1/2 qt. low.

I topped off the oil level and connected a lawn tractor battery. Motor started on the first turn of the key. No problem. I took my mower to some "recreational property" that I own to give it a try. The ground is old coal strip mining spoils which I have cut roads through 55 acres. I used the mower to cut brush and grasses growing up along the roads. Brush was 3-4 feet high with some small saplings - 1 inch dia. growing in places. I offset the mower behind my 4 wheeler and pulled it from one end of the property to the other. The mower cut down everything in its path. I couldn't be more pleased with its performance.

I agree with other reviewers who said the hitch pin is too small. The hitch pin you supplied was severely bent after my first mowing. I replaced it with a 1/2" Reese hitch pin and had no issues on my second mowing.

On my first mowing, I mounted the start switch and blade engagement lever to the tow bar but in this location the lever was dragged through the weeds and got entangled and bound-up with weeds that were broke-off/grabbed by the lever.

On my second mowing I mounted the lever on the support bracket/tube holding the height adjustment rod and it worked great. The bracket is just behind the front of the mower so the weeds were pushed over to be cut before they reached the lever. Nice machine, so far "The Beast" has mowed over more than 1 mile of rough road and off-trail areas without a problem.

First let me say that your carrier - SAIA Motorfreight for the Evansville, IN area was excellent. The gentleman who delivered my mower was prompt, courteous and very helpful. The mower arrived in good shape. Assembly was relatively easy with the hardest task getting the unit out of the crate, but nothing a hammer and a pry bar couldn't handle. I checked out the mower per instructions, and the only issue I found was that the motor oil level was about 1/2 qt. low.

I topped off the oil level... more

I purchased this mower about 2 years ago to mow down my horse pasture, and it has been a wonderful purchase. Worked immediately and mows like a dream! My pasture is between 8- 10 acres (has allot of brush and berry vines in areas) and I can mow it just as fast towing it behind a 4 wheeler as I could with a tractor and bush hog.

I was looking for an affordable alternative to buying a tractor and bush hog since I could no longer rent them in my east Texas area and came across this mower and it has more than paid for itself in the 2 years I've had it!

No issues with it other than im having to replace the battery this year (but its a battery I purchased since they don't come with one). Would definitely recommend to anyone who asks and I will for sure be a long time user and customer! Very happy!

I purchased this mower about 2 years ago to mow down my horse pasture, and it has been a wonderful purchase. Worked immediately and mows like a dream! My pasture is between 8- 10 acres (has allot of brush and berry vines in areas) and I can mow it just as fast towing it behind a 4 wheeler as I could with a tractor and bush hog.

I was looking for an affordable alternative to buying a tractor and bush hog since I could no longer rent them in my east Texas area and came across this mower and... more

I purchased this mower to mow 5 acres of rough hilly ground. When the mower arrived I was instantly surprised by beefy and well-built it looked. A major reason I purchased this mower was the price point and was expecting to give up some quality for the cheaper price. It fired up first key turn out of the box and ran good.

I've put about 10 hours on it mowing weeds 3-4' tall with no problem. I pull the mower with a Polaris Ranger but a smaller 4x4 ATV would be ideal. I've only pulled the mower in the straight back position and haven't tried the side offset yet. It seems like it would put a lot of torque on the hitch arms. Overall this is a great mower so far.

I purchased this mower to mow 5 acres of rough hilly ground. When the mower arrived I was instantly surprised by beefy and well-built it looked. A major reason I purchased this mower was the price point and was expecting to give up some quality for the cheaper price. It fired up first key turn out of the box and ran good.

I've put about 10 hours on it mowing weeds 3-4' tall with no problem. I pull the mower with a Polaris Ranger but a smaller 4x4 ATV would be ideal. I've only pulled the... more

I was in the market for a trail mower to pull behind my Polaris Ranger and I have to tell you, this Swisher mower has exceeded my expectations. It plowed through waist-high grass without missing a beat. As others have said, I'm a little suspect about the hitching mechanism and will put on a 2" ball joint hitch. Regardless, I would buy again in a heartbeat. Starts right up, mows great and seems to be very high quality and durable. Mowers Direct to the rescue again!

I ordered the 14.5 HP 44" Swisher Rough Cut Tow-Behind mower with electric start after reading and researching many of the reviews on Mowers Direct and other sites. It seemed like a very good mixture of feature/function and price (strong value) when compared with riding mowers and other pull behind mowers. Overall, I still gave this mower a recommendation, but there are a few items (which were noted by others in reviews) that were annoying at best and very frustrating at worst.

1) As was discussed elsewhere, the hitch definitely is sub-standard.
- First, the size of the two metal posts on the front of the hitch tube for the mower that fit into the hitch on my quad are too small. They are smaller than a standard hitch receiver and therefore have a fair amount of play.
- Because of the extra play mentioned above, the hitch pin not strong enough and therefore gets bent rather severely. Over time, I would suspect this will break because of the constant bending and stress. (Buying a stronger hitch pin will be a must...also, doesn't seem right to have to buy a new part for a new machine because it is not sized correctly.
- I think the real answer is to make the mower compatible with a standard ball hitch. It would seem like this would be much stronger, and allow for some of the stresses on the hitch arm.

2) The battery compartment does not fit. You cannot have the battery in the compartment and fastened with the bungee, and hook up the positive and negative cables. Turning it different ways and configurations of the positive and negative posts still does not allow it to fit. I took it off, and now my battery slides around. I am concerned that over time this will be a bad situation. I believe the fix could be just a little longer battery cables that would stretch to both the positive and negative posts while the battery is in the compartment. That is probably what I will have to do. Does Swisher have longer ones for this machine?

3) My last somewhat critical comment is related to the drive belt. In the instructions it states to run the motor with the cutter engaged for at least 5 minutes before ever cutting anything. I ran it the first time for at least 10 minutes to give it a good break in. I've attached a video of the first cut. We mowed for maybe an hour or two, and then took a break. After the lunch break, we let it warm up for 7-10 minutes again, and started mowing. Shortly into this second mow on the first day of using the mower, the drive belt broke. We needed to open up the machine, and replace the belt. I ran to the store and got a new one. We've mowed a couple of weekends now on this new belt and everything has held up fine. Disappointing on the first day of mowing to go through a belt and have to buy a new one.........after maybe 2 -3 hours of total mowing time.

4) The last comment I'll make on the mower is related to the gas. The instructions mention using Sta-bil with today's gas to make the engine run smoother. If you watch the video of our first cut, and listen to the engine, you can hear the roughness. The mower came with a little packet of Sta-bil for the first fill of gas. I didn't put it in, and the engine ran very rough. Before our second cut of the day, I put the Sta-bil in the gas tank and it was night and day better. Highly recommend using this with every tank full.

Lastly, I think Mowers Direct is an excellent web site and seller. The information I found on the site and breadth and depth of products was very good. I would highly recommend them and buy from them again. I was concerned about the length of time it would take to get the mower and it was at my house three days after I bought it.

I ordered the 14.5 HP 44" Swisher Rough Cut Tow-Behind mower with electric start after reading and researching many of the reviews on Mowers Direct and other sites. It seemed like a very good mixture of feature/function and price (strong value) when compared with riding mowers and other pull behind mowers. Overall, I still gave this mower a recommendation, but there are a few items (which were noted by others in reviews) that were annoying at best and very frustrating at worst.

1) As... more

The good: I cut actual brush, not just thick grass but bushes, saplings, etc with this thing and thought surely the blades would but all dinged up and dull after 4 hours of cutting. Much to my surprise they were still factory sharp if not sharper for the loss of powder coating. 14.5 horses is plenty of power the engine only bogged down a little when it went over a 3-4" branch I didn't see when turning. Otherwise through all of the brush, saplings, etc. it didn't miss a beat (well other than engaging the blades of course).

The bad: This mower is great for trail and brush cutting, but I do wish I'd gotten the 4-wheel model because hauling it across my lawn I tend to tear ruts unless it's at a very high cutting height. An anti-scalp feature would be nice, but that's on me for not buying that (out of budget anyway). Additionally a pullaway disconnect on the controls would be great too. I've read other people's accounts of the hitch pin popping out and pulling the wiring out of the ignition and PTO cable. I was even dumber and pulled the hitch to park the mower and started to pull away, which pulled a wire out of the harness for the ignition before I could stop real quick. I'm lucky it didn't do more damage, but it would be nice to have a failsafe in place for that since it's a normal use hazard (sort of).

All in all I'm extremely satisfied and quite impressed with this mower. If you aren't concerned with scalping, this is your cutter.

The good: I cut actual brush, not just thick grass but bushes, saplings, etc with this thing and thought surely the blades would but all dinged up and dull after 4 hours of cutting. Much to my surprise they were still factory sharp if not sharper for the loss of powder coating. 14.5 horses is plenty of power the engine only bogged down a little when it went over a 3-4" branch I didn't see when turning. Otherwise through all of the brush, saplings, etc. it didn't miss a beat (well other... more

I purchased the 44" cut 14.5hp three weeks ago and it hasn't stopped since. This brush cutter works like a charm.
Has no problem cutting grass and weeds 2-3ft, brush and small saplings with little to no hesitation.

Only complaint i have with this unit is the control unit that mounts to the bike. I had to mount this to a long 2x6 board for quick removal.

I received my Swisher mower in the crate from the manufacturer. The setup was fairly easy, primarily just installing the front trailer hitch bar. Note this is a heavy mower at around 550 lbs. After reading reviews on the websites, I did order the trailer hitch connector instead of relying on the connecting pin others had trouble with.

Last weekend I took the mower to my lease and cleared trails, mowed field of 4 foot tall grass and cleared out brush in a wooded area and the mower performed flawlessly, it took down 2 inch saplings and anything else my UTV could drive over.

Great built product and it performs as advertised, so I would recommend it.

I received my Swisher mower in the crate from the manufacturer. The setup was fairly easy, primarily just installing the front trailer hitch bar. Note this is a heavy mower at around 550 lbs. After reading reviews on the websites, I did order the trailer hitch connector instead of relying on the connecting pin others had trouble with.

Last weekend I took the mower to my lease and cleared trails, mowed field of 4 foot tall grass and cleared out brush in a wooded area and the mower performed... more

I really like my 44" Trailcutter. It performed pretty well except for the belt. The belt broke after a short time mowing high weeds. I guess my biggest complaint is there was no step by step instructions on how to replace the belt which was surprising being as how the belt is really small for a Trailcutter claiming to cut up to 3" saplings and will be an ongoing issue because of it size.

Other than that I liked it and it does a good job.