Koz
Member
My new 7610 was delivered late last Wednesday. With rain and baseball games, I was not able to start playing with it till this weekend. With my 3.5 acres in danger of getting out of control and needing to be raked, I decided my first job would be to mow. Most of my comments are comparisons of the new 7610 with my old JD 445. Also, keep in mind that my comments are mostly all related to mowing, not loader use.
Turning radius - around 6' uncut circle. It does sound like much of a difference versus 4' (for the JD), but there is significantly more time spent backing up when trying to cut around my numerous trees. I had already increased the diameter of the mulch at the base of trees, I need to increase it further (more mulch also means more loader use!).
Cut quality - on par with the 445. My neighbor has a BX 2200 and mowed his lawn last weekend too. His grass is nicer (thicker and greener) and the 2200 left the grass looking more "perfect". The 7610 certainly was not bad, but the ground contact rollers compressed the ground enough that the overall effect was not the same. I mowed at around 2000 rpm (the manual says not to mow at 100% rated rpm till after 50 hours), and am hoping that suction and cut will improve at 2600 rpm.
Noises - more tranny whine than my old JD, and the deck is definitely much noisier due to the ground contact config versus the suspended JD. I got tired of hearing the discharge chute bounce up and down and put a bolt on it to keep it from moving. It still is a much noisier deck. But, with hearing protection on I cant tell!
1/4" valve - I noticed that the 1/4" valve does not seem to work correctly. When dropping the deck, it drops smoothly around 1/4" with each push of the handle. However, when pulling the handle back it does NOT rise smoothly consistently. It tends to rise at full speed, putting a shudder through the system. Happens most of the time, but not always. I'll be contacting the dealer about this.
Deck Hydraulics - Over a 5-min period with the engine running, the deck drops around 1/2" to 1". If the engine was off, I might be OK with this but with the engine on I think something is amiss. I will be contacting the dealer about this.
Steering - When under load (mowing and moving uphill), the steering is not smooth. It goes back-and-forth between being smooth and "stiff". This does NOT happen when mowing a level ground. I will be contacting the dealer about this.
Foldable ROPS - works great, but i've already whacked my shed door once! Hopefully, i'll start remembering to lower it before putting the tractor away.
Engine RPM - As stated earlier, the manual says to keep below 100% for the first 50 yours. Are you guys keeping it at 2000? lower?
attach/detach of loader - It looked straight forward when the dealer showed me on Wednesday. Sat AM, it took me a whole hour because i'm not familiar with any of the terminology in the manual. After reading the manual and thinking about it it is really simple and now takes only a couple minutes.
Thats all I can think of. Any comments about the hydraulics issues would be welcome.
Turning radius - around 6' uncut circle. It does sound like much of a difference versus 4' (for the JD), but there is significantly more time spent backing up when trying to cut around my numerous trees. I had already increased the diameter of the mulch at the base of trees, I need to increase it further (more mulch also means more loader use!).
Cut quality - on par with the 445. My neighbor has a BX 2200 and mowed his lawn last weekend too. His grass is nicer (thicker and greener) and the 2200 left the grass looking more "perfect". The 7610 certainly was not bad, but the ground contact rollers compressed the ground enough that the overall effect was not the same. I mowed at around 2000 rpm (the manual says not to mow at 100% rated rpm till after 50 hours), and am hoping that suction and cut will improve at 2600 rpm.
Noises - more tranny whine than my old JD, and the deck is definitely much noisier due to the ground contact config versus the suspended JD. I got tired of hearing the discharge chute bounce up and down and put a bolt on it to keep it from moving. It still is a much noisier deck. But, with hearing protection on I cant tell!
1/4" valve - I noticed that the 1/4" valve does not seem to work correctly. When dropping the deck, it drops smoothly around 1/4" with each push of the handle. However, when pulling the handle back it does NOT rise smoothly consistently. It tends to rise at full speed, putting a shudder through the system. Happens most of the time, but not always. I'll be contacting the dealer about this.
Deck Hydraulics - Over a 5-min period with the engine running, the deck drops around 1/2" to 1". If the engine was off, I might be OK with this but with the engine on I think something is amiss. I will be contacting the dealer about this.
Steering - When under load (mowing and moving uphill), the steering is not smooth. It goes back-and-forth between being smooth and "stiff". This does NOT happen when mowing a level ground. I will be contacting the dealer about this.
Foldable ROPS - works great, but i've already whacked my shed door once! Hopefully, i'll start remembering to lower it before putting the tractor away.
Engine RPM - As stated earlier, the manual says to keep below 100% for the first 50 yours. Are you guys keeping it at 2000? lower?
attach/detach of loader - It looked straight forward when the dealer showed me on Wednesday. Sat AM, it took me a whole hour because i'm not familiar with any of the terminology in the manual. After reading the manual and thinking about it it is really simple and now takes only a couple minutes.
Thats all I can think of. Any comments about the hydraulics issues would be welcome.
