Review on Ballard Inc Products
Unlike residential grade equipment where there is usually an abundance of reviews on products, commercial equipment tends not to get a lot of reviews. I have bought a handful of items from Ballard Inc, and most of them have been a complete headache. I want to like this company since they are also based in Iowa, but I've been so disappointed with some of their products.
- Ballard Hex Chute Blocker: Terrible assembly and installation experience. Their instructions and instruction video are complete garbage. Once in operation, the chute does not open and close smoothly, and is it easily broken or severely bent if bumped, which is easy to do since it sticks straight out. Overall, this product is too flimsy to be commercial grade. A silver lining is that they sell replacement parts for when something breaks.
- Ballard Super Jack V2: Stay away. Bent the mower deck on my Toro Grandstand mower so that the blades hit the deck. I was able to hammer the deck back close to the original form but wow what a pain. I will be switching to a more traditional lift moving forward. Also, it takes a good amount of strength to lift a mower with this jack. It's not a problem for me, but for many employees it would be too heavy.
- Catch Pro bagger: Came with machining errors, so I had to drill wider holes to assemble. Assembly otherwise wasn't terrible with this one. In operation, the chute consistently clogs when the bagger is at about 50% capacity, so expect to be emptying it constantly. To empty it, you have to remove it from the mower and take the door off. The door doesn't operate very smoothly, so it's not a great experience. The bagger adds a lot of width to the mower, and I'm very nervous it'll break if it ever gets bumped on an obstacle because, like their chute blocker, it doesn't seem particularly well built. I haven't used it long enough to encounter any durability issues yet though.
- Blades: These seem to hold up pretty well. I think most of their modified blades are gimmicks. Just buy the regular ones. The ripper blades work a little bit better at mulching than a standard blade (as one would hope), but it's not enough to justify the noticeably worse cut quality. I wouldn't recommend the X blade set up unless you want to wear out your mower faster.
Overall, this company sells gimmick products at a premium price. I'd recommend you look elsewhere for these type of accessories, except maybe mower blades.