BX-23 Sell or Mow!

[jhb]

Well, I purchased my BX-23 for my 2/3 acre property. It was covered with rock and stone walls and had drainage issues. Well, the work is drawing to a close. This spring, the lawn goes in and my wife has dictated I cannot drive the tractor over "her" new lawn.

The BX has served me well, and I hate to sell it. So my question is, If I remove the loader and BH and put a MMM mower on it, will it give a nice finish cut, comparable to a smaller mower? I guess I am wonderng if it is too heavy to mow without compacting the soil. Plus, I don't want it to fall in the septic tank! I could mow the lawn in 20 minutes with this thing.

My wife suggested a riding mower with a small trailer. She does not get it.

Of course, from a price perspective, its an expensive mower! But hey, its *almost* paid for!

All signs point to sell, but I really like the idea of the loader and BH. Help me justify its existence! It may be a stretch, sadly. Plus, we may hire a lanscaper to mow anyway.

I need more land!

 

[KirkMcD]

It's fine for mowing. It does a great job, but do you already have the MMM? The MMM costs as much as a lawn tractor.

I always take off the loader and BH for mowing. That will add about 10-15 minutes to the total time to mow.

One more thing to take into consideration. Do you have trees to mow around? The ROPS will get in the way of low branches.

 

[DK35vince]

Plus, I don't want it to fall in the septic tank!

I drive/mow over my septic tanks with a 4000# tractor and an 800# mower with no problem.

 

[MOPAULY]

Normally I would say keep it, but at 2/3 of an acre you are just going to look silly riding around on a tractor that size. There is nothing more I despise then the urban John Deere cowboys on their 50" mowing deck tractors with a 1/2 acre of ground.

However I can say the cut is nice, but I have the 54" fine cut MMM for my BX24. Previosly I mowed .8 of an acre with my Toro 38", now I have just under 2 acres and the BX fits the bill nicely, although it was bought for it's other uses with the BH and FEL.

 

[c-and-a]

Keep it - it will last forever, good on fuel and it cuts better than any mower in my neighborhood.

As soon as you sell it, a new project will appear that a lawn tractor won't handle...

I added a bagger to my 2350 for a great cut and no cleanup...

 

[jhb]

Normally I would say keep it, but at 2/3 of an acre you are just going to look silly riding around on a tractor that size. There is nothing more I despise then the urban John Deere cowboys on their 50" mowing deck tractors with a 1/2 acre of ground.

I have to disagree, after driving the BX, I would feel like an engineer on one of those child train rides with the tiny engine, knees sticking out etc.

Maybe I'll start a side business where I can dig trenches for contractors or something.

 

[DmansPadge]

I say keep it.... even if you don't mow with it!!

 

[Volfandt]

The BX23 makes an outstanding finish mower with the FEL & BH removed. That alone lightens it up by around 1000lbs.
The good thing is that it just takes minutes to reconfigure from a finish mower back to a TLB.
You'll miss it if'n you get rid of it

 

[KeithInSpace]

The question really shouldn't be mow quality...the quality will be much higher out of the BX23 than any Craftsman. I would put the mow quality of my machine with any Scag, Z-machine, Dixie Chopper, or other professional tool any day of the week.

The part that may get you in trouble is when the sod FIRST goes down...I really tore up my nice new yard for the first few months. Once the sod rooted, things were (and still are) great. The machine is just so darn heavy. And I run turf tires.

If it were me, I'd probably think about a $400 POS used mower just to get me through that first spring and summer. After that you can give it to the kids or use it as a door-stop.

The way I look at money is this: If you bought it, use it. For you to sell it now, you'd probably LOSE as much money on the deal as it would COST to buy a nice little Cub Cadet ZTR from the Orange Store (as my daughter calls the Homey Depot). It's like selling a paid off Cadillac so you can buy a Toyota Tercel and have some pocket change left over. That's bad enough. Now put a BACKHOE AND LOADER on the Cadillac and you're REALLY losing something!!!

I guess I'm hard-pressed to think of a situation where I'm better off WITHOUT my tractor than WITH my tractor. That the wife agrees with me about a $15,000 lawn mower that she doesn't even know how to start really says something about the versatility of these machines. Figure out something for the short term. You'll regret selling your machine in the long term.

 

[KeithInSpace]

Normally I would say keep it, but at 2/3 of an acre you are just going to look silly riding around on a tractor that size.

Mr. Mo Pauly, you need to check out Mr. Goneandbrokeit in the "upgrading bx 23 to b3030" string in the Kubota Buying topic...he's running a B2630 on 0.16 acres.

I'll bet he has plenty of friends in the spring and fall!