Difficult lot - mower suggestions?

[Gafn]

One option no one has mentioned... Take the operator off the mower...

2015 Summit Mowers Remote Control Slope Mowers

or better yet the Mimi
Spider MINI - Slope mowers SPIDER - radio controlled bank mower SPIDER ILD 01 ILD 02 MINI

Buy these and your neighbors will pay you to mow their slopes...

 

[drhjmacleod]

Mr Macleod, thanks for your input. Much of what you said confirmed other advice I have gotten, and also many of my suspicions. My only remaining question is "how bad is my yard?" And so my friend is going to loan me his X320 for a run or two. I'll see how that does, and then have a decent idea from there. But I am already at "no" on zero turns and for the lighter tractors with inadequate axles for the terrain.

My main questions at this time are an X300, an X500 or possibly that Husqvarna that was mentioned. I still may just have to "find something" in the mean time just to keep it under control, even if it won't last for years.

Dave,
If you can, go with the X500 series - you will appreciate and use the locking differential and the transmission is much heavier duty that the ones in the X300 series or Husqvarna. The K72 in the X500 works great! Don't be fooled by the upgraded K57 transmission as in my opinion it is just slightly better than a K46.

Good luck!
Rob

 

[dstig1]

megota - Yes, photos are hard to gage for stuff like this. Here is what I can explain. First photo. Driveway is the far left of the photo but hard to tell as everything is brownish (the dumpster is on the driveway way back there). If I have my box blade on the tractor and try to go from that driveway up the hill to the right, the box blade will catch and drag in the ground as I turn up, even fully raised. it will do anything from just scrape a bit to stop me dead depending on how close I am to the house (steeper closer to the house). There are steep sections, there are crazy steep sections that i do not think are mowable, and there are just slopes that can be handled but i don't want to wear out something too cheap (sounds like some of the lower JD Mowers are this...)

gafn - nice idea, but I won't even look at prices as I am sure they are nuts. I do not want to spend commercial dollars to mow a residential lot a few times a year. I do not have a lot of potential grass, but what I have is not easy.

Rob - X500 is possible. I just saw a lead on a used Kubota GR here that sounds nice. I did not realize they were 4wd. Look at Kubotas website and tell me if you can tell they are 4wd. Does not say it at all. The best clue I had is a photo that I can see a front axle and it looks like it has some drive components on it.

 

[jenkinsph]

Dave,
Reading through the thread I think you really need to determine whether you need 4x4 or not. If you can get by without it that would obviously lower the cost of the purchase, may cut it in half. I have some places I need 4x4 to climb the banks and hills so went with the x749 and it has worked out very well. If an x500 series will work for you that is a nice mower.

 

[DHD]

Back in 2013 I took a serious look at the Kubota GR series, to replace my old Wheel Horse GTs
I already had a Kubota B7800 since 2005 and it's been a great tractor, so I thought another Kubota made allot of sense.

I found out the earlier GR series had some transmission issues, and there were some very unhappy GR owners who got stuck with some large transmission repair bills. It didn't appear as though Kubota offered any compensation to these unfortunate folks either.
Supposedly the newer Kubota GRs don't have this problem, but at the time I was shopping, there still seemed to be some uncertainty if Kubota actually did find a solution for those past transmission problems, and I didn't want to chance it.

I feel the GR would have been too heavy for some damp parts of my lawn too.
My old Wheel Horse tractors weighed between 500-600 pounds and could leave slight depressions in some soft area of my lawn, so I wanted a replacement tractor to weigh less than 600 pounds.

The Husvarna R322T AWD seemed like a great replacement at 570 pounds and AWD for my steep slopes, and a front mount mower made more sense to me than the traditional mid mount mower I had on my Wheel Horse.
One thing that's unique with the R322T is it has two Tuff Torq transmissions to share the load rather than just one.
There is the rear K574 transmission and the front KTM 10 L, and I liked the fact they are
serviceable, (with a replaceable transmission oil filter and the oil can be changed too).
So with proper preventative maintenance and each of the two transmission only required to work half as hard as a tractor which only had one transmission, longevity for this machine looks very promising.

 

[beenthere]

I found through experience that the best traction came when I switched to AWS (all wheel steer). Any small slippage on a side hill causes one to steer uphill, which causes the rears to turn downhill. The end result is much better traction.
Was hard for me to understand the mechanics of how that worked, but sidehills are a breeze compared to the rearwheel drive only and only front wheel steer.

 

[locknut]

megota - Yes, photos are hard to gage for stuff like this. Here is what I can explain. First photo. Driveway is the far left of the photo but hard to tell as everything is brownish (the dumpster is on the driveway way back there). If I have my box blade on the tractor and try to go from that driveway up the hill to the right, the box blade will catch and drag in the ground as I turn up, even fully raised. it will do anything from just scrape a bit to stop me dead depending on how close I am to the house (steeper closer to the house). There are steep sections, there are crazy steep sections that i do not think are mowable, and there are just slopes that can be handled but i don't want to wear out something too cheap (sounds like some of the lower JD Mowers are this...)

gafn - nice idea, but I won't even look at prices as I am sure they are nuts. I do not want to spend commercial dollars to mow a residential lot a few times a year. I do not have a lot of potential grass, but what I have is not easy.

Rob - X500 is possible. I just saw a lead on a used Kubota GR here that sounds nice. I did not realize they were 4wd. Look at Kubotas website and tell me if you can tell they are 4wd. Does not say it at all. The best clue I had is a photo that I can see a front axle and it looks like it has some drive components on it.

The GR would work well up to 30deg up or down.Across slopes I bail past 25 deg or so.The only way I would buy an early model,2000 or 2100 series is if all the uprades were done and documented.The 2110,2010 models or newer should be fine.

To determine whether you need a 4WD you need to do some measuring with a $10 slope finder and a scrap of plywood(so you don't have to put your nose on the ground to read it) and walk the property. A good 2WD machine w/locking rear will handle slopes up to 25 deg,up,down or sideways unless extremely wet.Even then,additional weight will be needed on the rear to minimize the rear tires from sliding on the downhill runs.This is me mowing the 30 deg bank with my GR; Video



http://vid498.photobucket.com/albums/rr342/locknut-1/MOV00014.mp4

 

[dstig1]

More good input - and thank you all for that.

My concern with the Husqvarna unit is that it may become an orphan quickly. If they don't sell many, they may pull it, then parts become even more impossible than they already appear to be. But it sure looks like a great solution.

The test with the X320 will tell me a lot, I just need to get that done, and my friend is out of town so it will be at least another week. Holding out on that before I make any sort of call.

Locknbut- that is pretty steep, but still short. I have steeper than that, from what i can tell from pics, and longer runs too... FWIW

Will report back when we run the test mow with the X320...not much else to say until then I guess...

 

[beenthere]

Just so you know, flipping over backwards on a slope like that won't be any fun. And it can happen very, very quickly. just sayin....
Happened to a neighbor about a mile down the road last year.
Don't want to lose anybody.

 

[Kyle_in_Tex]

More good input - and thank you all for that.

My concern with the Husqvarna unit is that it may become an orphan quickly. If they don't sell many, they may pull it, then parts become even more impossible than they already appear to be. But it sure looks like a great solution.

The test with the X320 will tell me a lot, I just need to get that done, and my friend is out of town so it will be at least another week. Holding out on that before I make any sort of call.

Locknbut- that is pretty steep, but still short. I have steeper than that, from what i can tell from pics, and longer runs too... FWIW

Will report back when we run the test mow with the X320...not much else to say until then I guess...

There is a looooong thread about tearing up K 46 transmissions on hills, or pushing too much snow. Be careful with your buddy's, if it starts to not want to go uphill, park it. You need a strong tranny to do what you want to do. Hate to be the bearer of this news, just don't want you get into a bad accident or buy a tool that won't do the job. If I couldn't mow until the grass was totally dry, I'd be waiting until after lunch...