Got to test drive a ZD326 today. Worked ok on the flat, but when riding along a slope, i was all over the place. Never had the feeling of it being unstable, but man......what a riot....Bit of a learning curve on a zero turn mower.....looking forward to a F series. Got to be better with a steering wheel and 4 wheels that i have control over.
I bought some acreage about 10 years ago. It was/is on a hillside a couple of miles east of Somerset, Ky. The Subdivision was cut with streets over 30 years ago and no one had built a house until I started building mine and 3 other people that I didn't know started building at the same time. Two of us on the upper part of the hill and 2 on lower side.
First thing I did was buy a BX2200 FEL MMM to be my lifetime mower with an expensive wheelbarrow on the front. Why not, it was going to be my first and last tractor/mower purchase. I smiled when I signed my 15 Kubota financing contract a few months ago on my new F3080.
Any way, my neighbor on the up hill beside me bought a Cub Cadet smallish tractor? type machine. Didn't last long and he then got a zero turn. It to didn't last very long and he finally bought a Kubota BX1800 which he later traded to a BX2350 FEL MMM which he still has but he is lusting alot about trading it for an F.
He almost turned his Z over backwards going up the steep hill behind his house and it would slip side ways on the hill in front of his house and mostly he'd see me mowing away with no issues with my BX. My nephew retired from the Marines, bought a couple of acres going down the hill and when he got ready to buy I let him mow once with my BX2660 and he then went and bought a BX2360 MMM FEL which he still has and he has really used it. He's wore out 2 sets of tires and a few dents.
I don't have a problem with buying the wrong Kubota and then trading the wrong one back to Barlows (L3240 and BX2350 are 2 easily remembered mistakes) and then believing I'm getting the right one which in time can become the wrong one to keep but was right for the jobs at hand at the time. Some people hate doing this so they really need to pick the right one first and maybe not let the money be the biggest deciding factor IF they can afford the right one the first time. If money is to tight then any purchase can become the wrong one but for ??dollars difference per month to get the right one vs the wrong one can leave a very sour taste for a long time or it sometimes does for me. Just sayin.
Again, I've never tried a Zero turn mower but I have owned 3 different Fs anf for mowing and easy service and endurance and hours sitting on a mower which I don't love, well the F seems for me the most economical deal because I would probably never be satisfied with levers over a steering wheel and I'd never stop planning and plotting on how I could get an F.
Kubota rates the F as being faster top speed than their Z but neither one could do full speed on any land that I own and I doubt on any land other than a paved parking lot so top speed to me is irrelevant even though the F is faster.
Ponder, pray and check prices all around is what I do.:laughing:
