Personally, i never do ANYTHING to my mower. It sits all winter with whatever gas i have in it after the last cut. I put sta-bil in the tank (about 1-2 caps) and leave it. In the spring i pull it out, change the oil, sharpen the blade, prime the HELL out of it, and go for it. It'* a 5.5 HP Briggs about 3 years old. I did the same, as did my dad, with my 13 year old craftsman mower and that thing ran great till the very end, and even then it was a compression problem not a carb problem. The biggest problem with these carbs is the main jet getting clogged, but it rarely happens with the Briggs carbs.

Same here. We have a 5.5hp Honda and don't do anything to it. I occasionally check the oil but other than that nothing. Don't put stabil in it or anything either. Throughout the year it will start first pull no problems, at the first start of the year it might take 2-3 pulls. We've had it for a few years now with on problems at all. Used to have a ~20 year old honda before this and when we got rid of it, it still ran well, just smoked a bit (needed rings) and if you put a really heavy load on the engine (some really thick long grass or something) it would have a rod knock as well, but the knock would go away when you took load off of it. I'm sure if we had actually done any sort of maintenance to it, it would still be running strong today.

Man I wish I had a ride on mower.