John Osman champions refurbished Jacobsens

Providing customers with high-quality refurbished machinery has been a cornerstone of John Osman Groundcare’s business since it was founded in 1992 by Managing Director, John Osman.

The company works on a variety of mower brands but has found that the build quality, accessibility and cost of parts for Ransomes Jacobsen machines make them one of the best on the market for refurbishment.

A recent package provided to Wergs Golf Club has highlighted how much of a working life used Jacobsen mowers can still have, with some in the deal having done up to three and a half thousand hours of work. 

John explains:

New machines create used machines and we’ve always found the Jacobsen equipment good enough to go again. From a customer’s perspective, if they are buying new Jacobsen equipment and at the end of the lease or their ownership, there is a significant value still in the machine because it can be refurbished and resold again, it gives them a lot of confidence with their initial purchasing decision.

As I said, Jacobsen mowers are built well enough in the first place that they can be refurbished and go again, and to be fair; we aren’t just working on Jacobsen, we’re working with other major mower brands as well. They are one of the brands we’ve got to spend the least amount of money on to get back up to good order. Some other brands are very expensive for parts or are already worn out so it wouldn’t be viable to refurbish these.

Access and the cost of spare parts is paramount in all of this. At the end of the day availability is very, very important but on top of that is the cost because that factors into the affordability of the refurbish process. We take a lot of pride in our refurbishments, and we won’t deliver them unless we are happy with them. Like any machine, you can always get niggles, but you can get niggles with a brand-new machine, we try and be as thorough as we can be. The more of these refurbishments you do, the more experience you gain with it and you know the areas to look at and what needs to be addressed with them.

Wergs Golf Club in Tettenhall, Wolverhampton, is just one example of how well a refurbished fleet can work. The club received a package including two Eclipse 322 Hybrids, two Fairway 305s, two AR522s and a TR3 all of which meets their specific needs at a cost that is affordable with a back-up service that they can depend on.

John continued:

With the Eclipses, the owner had done a lot of research and watched YouTube videos and other media, and from that, they’ve gone for the hybrids. The fact they don’t use oil was a major positive because they’d suffered from several oil leaks on the greens with their other machines.

They’ve got a large fairway acreage, and it’s a grass factory, especially with the weather we’ve been having through the summer and September. So, the Fairway 305 with that extra width of cut, slightly heavier units and contour following is doing an expectational job for them.

They find the AR522’s which we delivered recently absolutely staggering, and they cannot get over the capabilities of that machine, they’ve even rang me up to say how impressed they are with it. It’s a contour trim mower that really sucks up the grass, so the presentation they are getting is fantastic. The TR3 is also proving to be a great addition giving a very clean boxed finish on tees and approaches even when there is a dew.