Buying Advice Buying a Zero-Turn Mower

[2ndhalf]

Yes, I'm starting to lean toward a 54" for those reasons.

6" makes a bit of difference but so does ground speed. How fast does the snapper go.. that does sound like a lot of mower for that price. I like my Gravely but wish I had looked at Snapper. Personally.. I would sell the trailer and get a 61" snapper and a bigger trailer. 54" just seems too small for that amount of land. I still say unless you really love to mow, you will find that too small. Don't get anything that won't at least mow 8mph.

 

[timswi]

The Kubota ZD series is a nice quasi commercial unit that will cut at 11mph (Tried it on mine), stable comfortable and very well built. I paid more but I got dealer quotes in the mid to high 6k range (deep discounted I'm guessing) after I had already commited to the one I bought. Worth a look anyway...Most dealers have the residential series sitting next to the ZD's, the differences are obvious.

 

[stoyan79]

550Z does 8MPH, 125XT does 10MPH, 200XT does at least 10MPH.

Unless you have perfectly even, straight lawn you will never mow even close to those speeds. At 8MPH you will be bouncing and scalping very bad.

6" makes a bit of difference but so does ground speed. How fast does the snapper go.. that does sound like a lot of mower for that price. I like my Gravely but wish I had looked at Snapper. Personally.. I would sell the trailer and get a 61" snapper and a bigger trailer. 54" just seems too small for that amount of land. I still say unless you really love to mow, you will find that too small. Don't get anything that won't at least mow 8mph.

 

[hawkeye08]

My lawn is rough, we have clay soil and the night crawlers come up and leave little mounds. It makes for a rough ride on mower, so I have been leaning towards the Ferris with the suspension that smooths this type of ride out a bit. Perhaps the others would not be bad, but I would be very sad to buy my last mower and not be happy with it. My delay is the closest Ferris dealer is 180 miles away so I can't demo one on my lawn very easy...

 

[stoyan79]

Ferris, Simplicity and Snapper are the same mower. Ferris and Simplicity have suspension, Snapper does not, that is why Snapper is sold for much less.

Citation XT Zero Turn Mower: Riding Yard Mowers | Simplicity

My lawn is rough, we have clay soil and the night crawlers come up and leave little mounds. It makes for a rough ride on mower, so I have been leaning towards the Ferris with the suspension that smooths this type of ride out a bit. Perhaps the others would not be bad, but I would be very sad to buy my last mower and not be happy with it. My delay is the closest Ferris dealer is 180 miles away so I can't demo one on my lawn very easy...

 

[2ndhalf]

550Z does 8MPH, 125XT does 10MPH, 200XT does at least 10MPH.

Unless you have perfectly even, straight lawn you will never mow even close to those speeds. At 8MPH you will be bouncing and scalping very bad.

I mow 8mph all the time. That is full out on my Gravely and I mow full out a lot. I don't bounce around at all. I did bounce around on my Hustler Mini Z but the yard was rougher at that house and it was a bit faster and yes it did scalp or leave uncut grass especially when my son would mow. It was like mowing on a go cart it was so quick.

 

[DK35vince]

550Z does 8MPH, 125XT does 10MPH, 200XT does at least 10MPH.

Unless you have perfectly even, straight lawn you will never mow even close to those speeds. At 8MPH you will be bouncing and scalping very bad.

I have some areas we need to slow down to 6,7-8 MPH but there are areas we mow full out at 13 MPH

 

[TJP89]

I spent some time this morning calling around the area to various dealers, getting quotes on zero turns. I had narrowed it down to the Cub Cadet ZLX, the Badboy ZT Elite, the Scag Patriot, The Gravely ZT HD, the simplicity Contender, and the Snapper 550Z. The Patriot was quoted at about 7K, which ruled it out, I can get a used SCUT for that kind of money. I messed up the number on the Snapper dealer, so haven't talked to them, and the Simplicity dealer hasn't called me back yet. The others are as follows:

CC ZLX - $4800
Badboy ZT Elite - $4799
Gravely ZT HD - $5439

The Badboy mower seems to be the best one going right now. I'm not completely comfortable with it because it just seems to be a brand sold by TSC. The last thing I got from them was a grader blade, that turned out to be a POS. Does anyone here have experience with Badboy? Spec wise it is better than the others. I also can get 10% off. It's the fact that it seems so obvious that is setting off alarms in my head.

I'm also still going back and forth over the 54 vs 60 inch deck. I'm leaning toward 54 for tight spaces and trailer loading, but I'm still trying to convince myself that it's not going to significantly affect my mowing time on the more open areas.

 

[TJP89]

The Simplicity dealer called be back. The Contender was $4950. He also quoted me a Gravely ZT HD for $4899. The way I see it is it's between the Badboy and the Gravely. Maybe the Cub Cadet too. What do you guys think?

 

[Kimber1911]

The Simplicity dealer called be back. The Contender was $4950. He also quoted me a Gravely ZT HD for $4899. The way I see it is it's between the Badboy and the Gravely. Maybe the Cub Cadet too. What do you guys think?

I think both are a nice mower. Around this area Badboy is carried at stores other than TSC. Our local Mahindra dealer also carries Badboy for example.