Mowing Which is better for mowing on hills, ZTR or SCUT?

[Steve C]

Yep, I know that Y.

How often do you find tearing up the turf to be an issue? And how is your hills experience?

The Y turn on my ZT is ten times faster than the Y turn with my garden tractor or my CUT.

I have a 60" Swisher ZT that is probably half way between a consumer unit and a professional unit. Mine doesn't tear up the grass much. When going down hill it can get a little un-nearving if the hill is steep and the grass is a little damp. It will tend to gain speed quickly because it weighs a lot. Rather than use the brakes by pushing the handles "out" which is probably the "right" thing to do, I tend to pull them back to slow down. It is a stupid thing to do but feels right at the time because that is what I do on flat ground all the time. Then the wheels totally loose traction and spin backwards momentarily and steering becomes problamatical because they both don't loose traction at the same time. It then gains more speed and I have to push the handles forward to regain steering control, and pick up even more speed. I need more practice on steep hills.

Side hills are O.K. but it crab walks accross the face of the hill because the front is trying to fall down the side of the hill and the rear tire on that side has to be turning faster than the up hill rear tire to compensate.

Stability is not an issue. I don't think you could tip mine over even if you tried. There is just to much weight down low and the deck is 5 foot wide. I am pretty sure that you wouldn't be able to drive it to a place it would tip over, it would just slide down the hill first.

It is my understanding that the front deck ZT's are far superior on hills as compared to the mid deck ZT's although I have never used one.

I do like mowing with the ZT, it is like riding the tilt-a-whirl at the fair

 

[Charlesaf3]

HOw steep are your steep hills, do you know?

 

[Steve C]

HOw steep are your steep hills, do you know?

No I don't, my house is about 100 feet from the road. My basement floor (walk out basement) is about 8 foot above the edge of the road. Then it gains another 8 feet to the garage doors on the west side of the house. My old barn is a "bank barn" you can drive into the first floor and it also has a walk out basement on the back side of the hill. The slopes are irregular making constant corrections necessarry.

 

[Couple of Achers]

I often do a "Y" turn in low traction situations to avoiod tearing up the grass with my zero turn. I just vere off to the left a little at the end of the run, back it to the right to get it mostly turned around, and turn it to the left to finish the turn. It only takes a couple of seconds and it is a lot of fun.

That will work also to help eliminate lawn damage.

In big open areas another way is to mow, kind of like you would plow. After making a few passes around the entire area (head lands), then mow a strip and turn around an come back, but not right next to the strip you just mowed. Mover over 10 feet or so. Then on the next pass down move over and come back next to the 1st strip you mowed. Continue to work your way over the area until you get to the end. That way you can still mow back and forth and never have to make a real sharp turn. You just make a wider sweeping turn. Since you never have to slow down to turn, it is really a fast way to mow a large area, and no lawn damage.

 

[Charlesaf3]

Great idea on the mowing - I'll have to remember that. Doesn't work for my current situation, but I could see being in a place where it was a neat trick.

Steve - I think I'm a bit steeper in places, but that looks pretty similar (I just built a bank barn for that reason). So you are a good comp indeed. Do you find going up hill easier?

 

[Steve C]

Great idea on the mowing - I'll have to remember that. Doesn't work for my current situation, but I could see being in a place where it was a neat trick.

Steve - I think I'm a bit steeper in places, but that looks pretty similar (I just built a bank barn for that reason). So you are a good comp indeed. Do you find going up hill easier?

oh yes it will climb an almost vertical slope without hesitation. With 26 hp and dual hydrostatic transmissions it will go anywhere. The weight transfer and traction are supurb when going up hill and it steers very well going up. If your area is aranged so you can do the steep parts going up and the more lesser slopes going down it will work well. From what I have read the professional units handle the hills better than mine. When you drive mine down a 45 degree incline like I have at the corner of my barn there is a bit of a pucker factor the first time. All is well as long as there isn't anything to run into at the bottom because the steering becomes a little vauge unless you have the stones to push forward on the controls. If I do that I am flying down the hill!

 

[beersngars]

As said above, a ZTR will climb about anything. Mine is a Ferris 61" 25hp and use it to mow a steep bank in my backyard. Going up is no problem nor is siseways. The pucker facter is going down. Remember, you really don't have brakes, you use the transmissions to slow yourself. You have to be careful not to pullback too much (actually reversing) or the tires spin and you go into a slide. In my case there are obstucles at the bottom of the grade so I have to turn and manuver around them at the steepest part of the hill.

As to turfing the yard turning, yep you have to be careful if the ground is soft, but no real problem. My Ferris is a commercial mower so it's pretty heavy at about 1100 pounds plus my carcass so the weight comes into play.

At the end of the day I would not trade my zero turn for any other mower.

 

[Code54]

I like my zero turn but on my steep/rough hill I use my Kubota CUT tractor and just cut it up and down. The problem with trying to go across a slope with a ZTR is if you do start to slide down the hill, the front wheels are basically casters so they then spin and point down hill. Not good! Also I have have the ZTR start to slide and when there is no run out room this is a problem. I cut out steep (WV mountain slopes) with the 4x4 Kubota and never have a problem. Drive up, back down - the hill is way to steep to ever turn around on and is bordered by woods on the top and bottom to try and give you a mental picture.

 

[Diamondpilot]

Around my part of the country Ferris is King. My neighbor is a lawn guy and runs Ferris IS3100's. This things are amazing. He can knock out my 3 acres in 36 minutes. Takes me a 1:40 using my 72" Rear Finish Mower and small garden tractor to do the trimming. His mowers all have the 37 HP Kawasaki and the 72" deck. According to my GPS I used on one of his mowers we were running 12mph. With the suspension it gives a great ride and cut.

He has ran Scag, Dixon, and a few others but his last 3 have been Ferris.

IS® 3100Z Series, Ferris® Industries, Zero-Turn, Riding Mowers, Ferris Mowers, Mowers, Mower, Commercial Mowers, Lawn Mowers, Lawnmowers, Suspension, Independent Suspension, Munsville New York, Syracuse, New York, Central New York, Mohawk Valley,

http://www.ferrisindustries.com/pages/page.php?pageid=3

Chris

 

[Ken45101]

I speaketh from experience. I have been mowing with ztr's for years. And all I can say about slopes is, if you are going to try to mow slopes with a ztr. Then get the one with the lowest center of gravity, widest tires, and heaviest built. I tried to run brand X for a couple of years mowing my ditches. It was worthless. There is no way you could hold it from loosing traction with the up hill tire and down the ditch you would go. Once I upgraded to the Kubota ZD series, I never had another problem holding the slopes. It sticks to the hill side like none other I had used in the past.

Come show me how please! LOL.

We bought a ZD321 this summer and love it, but our hillsides are a challenge (there is a pasture fence at the bottom). Going up the hill is no problem (as others have said). Going down? Scary! Going across works for most of it but then the front starts to head down and there's nothing I can do to change it's mind. The hill is about 20-25 degrees.

I do agree that the ZD321 hasn't worried me about turning over, it's just keeping the thing aimed where I want to got!

For years, I cut that hill (up and down) with a B2710. No problem. But the rest of the yard took a lot longer with the B2710.

Ken