Before I bought my finish mower, I used my 6ft medium duty Land Pride cutter to do all my mowing with. Most of the heavy, rough stuff was cut down the first year I had it, so since then, it's mostly maintenance.
That first year was really rough on it, and I burned out the gear box. I had a three year warrentee on it, so I told my dealer that it was making a gawd aweful noise. He said to keep using it since I was getting a new gear box, and when it came in, he'd change it for me. Which is what I did.
Since then, I used it for mowing bahia and bermuda grass. Sometimes it was a foot tall or taller and that would really bog down my 35hp tractor if I went too fast. It also wears out the blades.
I re-sharpened them one year and had to replace them the other year. In four years, I've put two sets of new blades on it. I don't know if the metal is just softer then other blades, or if my grass is just more abrassive, but the blades on my mower wear out. They come new at about 3 inches wide, but after two years, there's barely an inch of metal left on them.
Now that I have a finish mower, I just used my rotary mower one time this year to mow the really thick stuff that grew on my spillway. It was too wet to mow when it was flowing, and it got pretty bad. I cut it down real easy with the rotary cutter, and have maintained it with the finish mower.
My blades require a 1 11/16 socket and 450ft pounds to remove and tighten them. I bought a bigger impact wrench and paid $45 for the socket just to change my blades. The first time was a real nightmare, but after that I can do it in under an hour pretty easily.
If it was me, I'd buy the cheaper one considering they are so similar.
Eddie
