I would, look at it this way. A snapper will last 10+ years, if not abused. I have to ditch my current mower this spring. It has had 3 plastic parts break and I had a shaft adaptor break. And it will coset $75 to replace them. I will be looking hard at a snapper. It may cost more bu it lasts longer. I spent $200 of my current one, lasted 4 years. That comes to $50 a year. A snapper for say $400 last 10 years, that is $40 a year. Quality is almost always cheaper in the long run.
"I have to ditch my current mower this spring. It has had 3 plastic parts break and I had a shaft adaptor break."
Quit hitting rocks and letting the bowden cables rust and you won't have that problem.
I hadn't thought about it much, but I just completed the 9th year on my Black and Decker CMM1000 cordless rechargeable lawn mower.
I've replaced the batteries once, at a cost of $100. I had it serviced at the same time for normal wear and tear, that cost me about $50 (replacing the brushes, the wheels, and the rubber grip on the handle).
So, in 10 years I've spent a total of about $200 for keeping my lawn mower running, plus whatever I spent on charging the batteries each week. The Lawn mower was $400, which seemed a lot for a mower that doesn't even power itself, but there's no reason to think I'll have to replace it for another 10 years.
I don't know why everybody doesn't buy a cordless electric lawn mower like this. No gas cans in your house, no tuning the engine, no oil changes, oil spills, pulling a cord a dozen times, etc.
And when I'm cutting the grass, I can run to the garage, grab the mower, and cut for 5 minutes. Then I can be interrupted, and start up and get interrupted and start up, because you just pull the lever and it starts back up.
And it is about half as noisy as a gas mower. And I dont' pollute the environment nearly so much.
They don't sell these at Walmart though...