Quick Navigation:
- Overview
- Riding Comfort
- Engine
- Mower Handling and Performance on Hills/Rough Terrain
- Quality of Cut
- Accessories
- Conclusion
Overview
Husqvarna has been building mowers and accessories forever it seems like. Let’s take a closer look at the YTH22V46 46″ Riding Mower.
Riding Comfort
There are not a ton of comfort features to talk about. It has a fairly standard mid back 15″ seat with springs under the seat for a tiny bit of suspension.
The Husqvarna 46″ mower does have a cruise control lever which is nice for those times when you’re mowing long stretches without many turns.
On uneven terrain I would expect the ride to be pretty rough on this mower but it should be just fine if you have a flatter area to mow.
A cup holder rounds out this mower’s comfort set.
Engine
This Husqvarna 46″ comes equipped with a Briggs and Stratton 22HP Intek motor that is 724cc. I would say this is an above average engine for a mower of this size.
If properly maintained this is a pretty good engine. Speaking of maintenance the oil changes are a little bit of a pain because of some cowling that has to be removed on each side to access the oil drain and oil filter.
It is also a bit of a messy job, I would recommend cutting a piece of thick cardboard out in about a 5″ x 6″ rectangle to use as a “trough” under the oil filter so oil doesn’t go all over your frame when you remove the oil filter.
This mower does have an hour meter which is a nice little feature.
A 2.5 gallon gas tank will let you mow long enough to do at least the 2 acres this mower is rated for.
Click here to read the full warranty on the Briggs & Stratton Intek Engine
Click here to read the full warranty on the Husqvarna YTH22V46
Service Manual for the Husqvarna 46″ Riding Mower
Mower Handling and Performance
WARNING: You should always follow the manufacturer’s recommendations for mowing hills, usually that means don’t mow a slope over 15 degrees. Try to attack the slope in an up and down manner instead of side to side (if you have to lean halfway off the mower to feel stable you’re probably exceeding recommendations!)
This Husqvarna 46″ riding mower sits on 15″ front tires and 20″ rear tires (which actually wind up being about 14.3″ and 19″ tall after further research.)
With plenty of power from the 22HP motor I don’t see many issues with any sort of hills. You’ll have a max forward speed of 5.5 MPH and a mow in reverse speed of 2.5 MPH. You won’t set any land speed records on this mower but it is fast enough.
The Husqvarna YTH22V46 lawn tractor uses a Tuff Torq K46 hydrostatic transaxle. This is a very popular transaxle is these lower end budget mowers but it is not very durable. The good news is that this mower fits well within the specs for the K46 (some other larger mowers with 54″ decks also use the K46 and they are apt to burn up much quicker.)
If you are mowing mostly flat ground and not towing much, I’m sure the K46 will be more than sufficient for you.
However, if you mow a lot of hills and/or tow a lot of weight, this could be a conern.
Quality of Cut
There are a lot of issues related to this mower scalping lawns, especially if they have tall fescue grass. It seems the issue is mostly related to decks that are out of adjustment.
I found a helpful tip here (about 3 posts down the page) on how to adjust the deck by a person named Pete Spring.
Basically, it goes like this: Raise the deck to the highest setting (6.) Now you get some 4×4 wood and place it under the front and rear edges of the deck while on a flat surface. The deck is now perfectly leveled 4″ in the air (the highest it should go.) Now you start adjusting the levelers. There are four adjusters, two each for side to side and two each for front to back.
Back the lock nut off each and then start adjusting until the slack is just taken out of the adjuster. Now tighten up your lock nut again. After this is complete your deck should be fully adjusted at the proper height.
Make sure to adjust your ant-scalping wheels too. At a level 3 they should be just touching the flat surface. This will give you a 2.5″ cut. You can go up or down from there.
Once the deck is adjusted, The Husqvarna 46″ lawn tractor should cut beautifully, but honestly, why should you have to do this on a brand new riding mower?
The deck is 13 gauge stamped steel with 2 blades and 2 anti-scalping wheels.
Accessories
The Husqvarna YTH22V46 lawn tractor does come with a standard garden hitch so you could tow all the usual attachments such as a lawn trailer, broadcast spreader, a tow sprayer or you could even add a bagger attachment to this mower.
It also comes equipped with a deck wash port.
Conclusion
All in all this is not a bad mower, though it was a little disappointing to read of the many lawn scalping issues. I hope the deck adjustment tips I shared will help if that becomes a problem. Also, I should note it’s not like that issue happens to everyone, seems to be more or less people mowing a lot of uneven yards.
I wish the price was a little lower on this. There is a similar model, the Poulan Pro 46″ Riding Mower that is basically a cousin to this Husqvarna. The main differences are this Husqvarna has cruise control, a slightly higher backed seat, an hour meter, and a slightly larger engine. However this mower is also $500 more.
So I think you need to weigh out if those options are worth another $500 to you. If they are then go ahead with this mower, I think you’ll be happy with it as long as you understand the flaws I pointed out.
Affiliate Disclaimer – if you decide to purchase a mower based on my review, I do get a small piece of the sale. It helps to keep the lights on around here. I am very passionate about lawns and mowers and offer my unbiased review towards everything that goes on this site. I research several pages, specs, videos, forums and other reviews of each mower before I post about it so you don’t have to. If I wouldn’t buy it myself, I wouldn’t recommend it to you either.
– Brandon
