Are Woods Implements worth the extra $$$?

[Rusty]

I got a quote on a Woods back blade & I've been searching the lot of the local TSC. Their back blade is about half the price of the Woods unit. Is it worth the extra expense?

75H2: My first RB was a 6' WorkSaver from TSC. I used it behind a Ford 8N and later behind a Kubota B7500 HSD (21HP), mostly for snow removal. The RB was light duty (and light weight) and I had trouble keeping it from climbing up on packed snow and/or ice. I now have a 6' Woods that is considerably heavier and stays down against my concrete and asphalt. Both blades had skid shoes, the Worksaver shoes were fixed, the Woods shoes are the rotating (mushroom) type. Both blades were sturdy enough for me, but the Woods does a better job on snow removal and is worth the premium price to me. Best Wishes! Rusty

 

[Aquaman]

I bought a Woods M5 5' brush hog a while back for $100. Before you think I got a steal, you should know that this poor thing had obviously been abused beyond belief. The housing around the gear box had completely broken loose from the deck, and was sitting at an angle, and could be moved by hand. The deck looked like the thing had been used to quarry rock instead of mowing brush!! I think I bought it because I felt sorry for the poor thing. I took it home, and using come-a-longs to hold the gearbox housing in place, welded everything back together and added a brace to reinforce it. With very low expectations, I hooked it to my M Farmall and turned on the PTO. I can tell you that I have been using this thing for about 8 years now and it mows like a brand new machine. There is NO vibration, and the gears are as tight as a new machine. I guess the point to all of this is, if this thing survived all of the abuse it took and still works this good, it must have VERY tough gears and moving parts.

 

[MtnViewRanch]

Mtnview - I have a 50hp MFWD utility. The Landpride implement that failed me badly was rated for exactly 50hp. The Frontier/Tenomec blade that is basically functional but weak and not wonderfully designed is rated for 60hp MFWD or 65hp 2wd. I can't guarantee that Woods would not have failed me either, but I tend to doubt it.

Sounds to me like you ended up with one of those Monday built items. Truly a shame that Land Pride did not stand behind their product. Sounds like your dealer did nothing either?

I had a similar problem with MidWest on the heaviest rear blade that they sell. Bent it the 1st time that I used it, called the dealer and sent pictures, they called MidWest, sorry not our problem, your on your own. You would think that after you spend big $$$$$ that somebody would back up the stuff that they sell. I suppose that sometimes they do and sometimes they don't, maybe it depends on what side of the bed they woke up on that day?

 

[MessickFarmEqu]

I think the most important time to stay with a Woods or higher end product is when you are looking at somthing with drivelines or gearboxes. We see lots of cheap import stuff, like King Kutter, that uses odd sized PTO shafting and gearboxes which we can't find equilivant parts for if somthing breaks.

 

[rpoage]

We see lots of cheap import stuff, like King Kutter, that uses odd sized PTO shafting and gearboxes which we can't find equilivant parts for if somthing breaks.

King Kutter is imported?

 

[Z-Michigan]

Sounds to me like you ended up with one of those Monday built items. Truly a shame that Land Pride did not stand behind their product. Sounds like your dealer did nothing either?

I had a similar problem with MidWest on the heaviest rear blade that they sell. Bent it the 1st time that I used it, called the dealer and sent pictures, they called MidWest, sorry not our problem, your on your own. You would think that after you spend big $$$$$ that somebody would back up the stuff that they sell. I suppose that sometimes they do and sometimes they don't, maybe it depends on what side of the bed they woke up on that day?

The dealer didn't offer to do much either. It's not the dealer I bought my tractor from, and boy am I glad of that! But I did drop $1300 at one time to purchase two implements and I would have expected decent service. Soured me on both dealer and Landpride. The Landpride bit is because their factory rep inspected the thing in person, agreed it was damaged and then refused to do anything about it. What a load of ....

I don't think it's a Monday built item, I think it's a bad design. The main competitor uses a clevis style draft link pin and for scarifier uses I think that is essential. Oh, and the main competitor would have been $60 less brand new than what I paid for the Landpride model that had been sitting on dealer X's lot for over a year. I wish I had waited to have a different dealer special order that one!

Funny you should mention Midwest. I was interested in them at one time, but they did not return either email or telephone messages asking what dealers they had in my area. I guess they aren't interested in selling product in Michigan!!! Sounds like another one where it's just as well.

 

[napabavarian]

I think Aquaman and MessickFarmEqu nailed this one on the head, I would always prefer to buy quallity tools used than junk new because the used tool will last longer, that being said I live in an area where tractor implements are hard to find and severely overpriced, along with everything else, when they do come arround, so I am pretty much forced to go new on anything I buy, this year I need a tiller, smaller mower, and a backhoe, the tiller and mower will be KingKutter and Caroni because I can use them for a couple years and then buy a Vrisimo flail mower and Land Pride reverse rotation tiller, I do comercial work and these tools will help be build the buisness, but I can't fit all the quallity tools on the credit card right now, so in my case it works, tiller + mower are arround 3k vs 10k for quallity.

It really is a tool by tool chioce, if you need to use the tool for one job then cheap may be logical, if you want something that will be arround with repair parts availible in 20 years buy quallity is better, if you use it rarely then the pitfalls of inexpensive equipment may be worthwhile for the money saved, if you use it regularly then the pitfalls can be quite frustrating, 10% of the job is the tool, 90% is the opeator, but good tools make the work easier.

 

[schmism]

i love my landpride rb3572.... would i ever pay the cost for a new one.... not likely.

would i be statisfied with something less.... probibly not.

cant beat a KK tiller.... would never pay for the woods when the KK is as good as it is.

am i happy with my cheep bb...not really, but it was 1/3 the cost of a woods/LP... can i make my cheepy bb work for me... shure, just need to weld some plate on it to make it heavier.... (which is what you pay for in the first place)

plenty of inexpensive brush hogs out there.... for my use, a cheepy would work fine... for someone who has a buisness of cutting, i wouldnt bat an eye at getting a woods....

 

[GinNB]

I've had fairly good luck with Woods rotary mowers.

One 5' M5 Dixie Cutter was way too light and got beat up pretty badly, but it wasn't tough enough to stand up to mowing granite I guess... Deck is buckshotted pretty badly, the frame cracked a few times and got rebraced, and finally the whole deck let go and the gearbox almost parted company with the rest of it.

We've got an R106 6' that's had tons and tons of use and abuse and would still be going strong if the gearbox hadn't been reassembled improperly after a relatively minor repair. I think the dealer did it wrong but with others using it and our own mechanics working on it sometimes so I'm not positive. We yanked the gearbox from the M5 and installed it on the R106 and it's working just fine again.

We got a new Woods BrushBull 7200 with stumpjumper this spring that I'm not terribly happy with so far. Apart from a few minor problems (bolts loosening up, bent support rods from the a-frame to the deck, hitch pins wiggling loose, etc), we've managed to break TWO sets of blades. In all my years of mowing I've never broken a blade before. I've bent a few, worn out a few, and one of the fellows lost one when the pin fell out, but between everybody on the farm we've never broken one before. The BB7200 (their really heavy duty model) even has shorter blades than the R106, so they should be LESS prone to breakage. When they shatter, they've got what looks like a thin hardened layer on the outside of the blade and "foam" on the inside. It looks like either shattered cast or fatigued steel. I mentioned this to the dealer and all he'll say is "You must have hit something". Well duh... I've been running mowers and "hitting things" for 16 years and the only blades that have broken are on this BB7200, their "heavy duty" model. I don't think we've put a hundred hours on it yet.

 

[jarbill]

Could I chime in with a slightly different question? I have noticed that some companies offer the option of a slip clutch instead of a shear bolt on their mowers. I was wondering which was better, if either one. I haven't seen any posts about any preferences of one over the other. I don't even know if one costs more than the other, but it sounds like the slip clutches would be better as far as not having down time, especially when you break your last shear bolt mowing on Sunday afternoon and no one is around to sell you any new ones.

I'm getting ready to buy a rotary cutter, and I have a lot of flat rock on my property that I am concerned about hitting when I mow, at least until I get them all removed.

Any thoughts from anybody one way or the other?

Jerry in Texas