South west PA and steep hills with a SCUT?

[Rock Crawler]

The other thing I think I have self learned from goggling the daylights out of this crap is that there does not appear to be good or bad units as much as there are personally preferred units. Put another way, I am seeing that the genereal thoughts are that no matter what color it is or what country created the parts.... they are all good to great, they all are expected to outlive the buyers, and you buy the color/country you like because you like it or because the dealer is close or some other subjected reason.

I was originally expecting to see folks say that brand X, Y and Z are known turds, stay away. But brand A, B, C and D are like Lexus and you can beat them like anvils. That never really surfaces, the tractor following seems to be pretty chill about whatever brand/color you have on these forums... and while I do think I see a LOT of love for orange paint.... There is not near the CHEVY><FORD type of brand hatred. There are no known smoking turds that I have discovered.

So my decision is kind of boiled down to price point and dealer availability. Mahindra is by far closest, but an hour away is a Massey dealer and the Massey is a couple grand less to buy. Mahindra looks to be considered as good as any of them, but so does Massey.

So at the moment I have a pretty big woody for the 1720 with belly mower.

 

[dodge man]

I was in a similar situation that you are about 10 years ago. I own 3 acres total that I mow about 2 acres of. I also have some hills and quite a bit of trees. I was tearing up cheap riding mowers in 3 years and better riding mowers just didn't do well on the hills.

If you buy a SCUT, you will love it. There is no doubt it will seem like a huge step up. Mine has about 660 hours on it and it hasn't been 100% trouble free but almost. I've never had a major issue with it and the minors one I've fixed myself. If you don't want to spend that much, leave the backhoe off. That will save a lot of money, but if you think you need one, get it now. I originally got mine to mow with but probably half my hours have been using the FEL.

A 45 degree slope? Thats really steep, in the engineering world, thats a 1 to 1 slope, 1 foot up for every foot you go forward. Normally that can't be mowed with regular equipement. It could be that its a little bit less. If you are mowing it with a that riding mower with the chains, a SCUT with 4x4 will handle it also.

No doubt about it, they are a huge investment. I'm still not sure how I talked my wife into it but it is some of the best money I ever spent. There is also a saftey issue, with a roll bar and saftey belt, I know I feel safer.

If I were buying, I'd get the Massey over the Mahandra. I don't know why, I have this negative attitude toward some of the overseas makers, I think of them as second tier, even though Mahindra makes good tractors and is probably one of the better over sea makers. They sell a lot of tractors and if you feel they have a strong dealer network in your area, deserve consideration. The truth is, even tractors you think of being American made are either owned, partly owned, or partly made over seas.

 

[Rock Crawler]

You are absolutely correct on the country of origin thing. I also do not like the idea of a Korean or India sourced tractor, but at the end of the day... where do all of the bits originate in a Massey, Deere, Kabota, New Holland? I bet there are plenty of out-sourced bits found within each of those brands that one typically thinks of as being as American as baseball and apple pie. In todays global economy, nothing is what it seems. A Mahindra could be no more foreign than a Massey for all I know.

It's a big step, and likely one that I should sleep on for a few months. I have a bonus every March 1st, so it would be wise to wait until then and hopefully get half in cash out of that and finance only half of it so that the payment is low. My goal would be to get a sub-$100 payment on a $18,000 machine. The problem is, I am sure that March is a high volume time and because of that they may not be hungry to sell and may not the best promotions of the year nor will dealers be as eager to cut to the bottom for a sell if they are in the busiest season of the year. I could be wrong. If I were buy today I could manage around $3K cash in on the deal, that would be it. If I could sell my Excellerator GT for $1,000 that would be able to flip on it as well. But I am not as fluid as I would prefer to be until I get my Jeep paid off.... $12,000 more to go.

 

[dodge man]

Used can be a great buy if you can find one. Used tractors often can look pretty rough after a few years use but often function as well as a new one.

 

[plowhog]

Next March the dealers know they will sell every unit they have and will be sweating out whether they will get enough replacements to keep up with sales. To address that, they will hold out for higher prices than during conditions when they feel they might sit on a unit, unsold, for some time. Why would you "give away" your inventory for a low price when you a) know it will sell, and b) are not sure you'll get replacement inventory. That's how things work in my trading area.

I'm guessing it's just now starting (Fall) when it is the optimal time to get the lowest price on a tractor. Maybe March works better with your cash flow, but I'm guessing it might be at a higher price ..... there's no way to tell for sure since so many variables are involved.

 

[Rara Avis]

I have a 15 acre total size property with 3 that are grass. The general slope that we are built on is 15-17 degrees with steeper areas that are right near 45 degrees.

Since 1990 we have been playing around with different things, first was a Kawasaki Bayou 300 4x4 ATX with a 54" Kimpex 12HP pusher mower. That was tough! It cut great and had great power, but the weight was so much that going sideways you always had to be turned uphill to fight the pull of the deck, this caused the grass to get tore up and streaked. The ATV transmission could not take the weight and hills and failed 2 times before we gave up.

Sears Garden tractor, 24HP Tecumseh, it was a lower end with small drive axle and 46" deck. It was okay at first, but the transaxle could only do the steeper slopes when first started and the fluid was cold/thicker. The POS engine died after 5 summers of mowing.

2010 Sears Excellerator GT - Arguably the biggest, baddest, and bestest tractor ever to set in a Sears store. This Husky built garden tractor is truly a beast, with a Hydro Gear 730 rear axle and 26 HP Kohler Courage, it has never ending power. But the engine is a Courage (not a contractor grade, rated EPA class C for 500 hours median engine life) and after 7 summers the transaxle is starting to give it up. Where this thing used to crush the hills at speed (8.5 MPH max speed, and it was close even up hills at first!) the transaxle is giving up a good bit of its power now when going up.

I run this Excellerator with the biggest wheel weights I could get, fluid filled rear tires, and chains. That allows me to get up the hills while mowing... often with the front axle bouncing lightly up and down as I balance my weight to keep it on the edge of a wheelie. My property has no flat ground :-(

My local mower/tractor (Town and Country, Rochester PA) shop says that a zero turn will not work on my yard, he knows where I live. He says that his Mahindra Emax or Max 4x4 would work well.

Vernon Del out in Calcutta Ohio suggested a John Deer Garden tractor that makes my Craftsman look like a kids toy.... and it is 4x4. But he also suggested the Massey Ferguson GC1705/1715.

So both folks had a SCUT as a recommendation, and honestly... I have been salivating over the concept of a bucket and backhoe for years. I don't "need" it, but holly cow batman... I want!

So the Massey Ferguson GC1720 turns out to be cheaper than a similarly equipped Mahindra Emax. The Mahindra has teeth above the backhoe bucket that would grab a rock or tree, that looks nasty cool! But overall, I like the overall looks and weld quality of the Massey Ferguson better.

My biggest issue is life expectancy of these $17,000 things on hills like I have. If these can't deal for 30 years living on my hill side, I may as well go back to Sears/Husky and spend $4,000 every 5-8 years on a boring garden tractor. But if these SCUT machines are really so much more robust that they can haul their fat butts around these hills for 100-150 hours a year for 20-30 years... I am very interested.

So my goals are to cut my 3 acres 1 to 2 times a week. I spend 4 to 4.5 hours doing this now with my wife on the tractor while I am trimming and push mowing the really steep stuff. The loader and backhoe are more for fun... I shoot on my property and can use them to fashion a better berm to shoot into. We have a camping area down back with ATV/Jeep trails and get water ruts that are tough to repair... with this maybe I can get down into the woods and back out using the R4 tires?

That Vernon Del guys John Deer massive garden tractor would likely be all I would ever need for cutting alone... but at $12,000 for a garden tractor I can easily start to convince myself that a SCUT with loader/backhoe/mid mount mower is worth going to. Suddenly mulch is fun, cutting trees is MORE fun, I can dig like a child any time I wish! I have a wide/long blacktop driveway as well, but I use a Yamaha Rhino 660 with a 60" Warn plow to remove snow on that, and let me say..... That is a snow moving beast! 11 years old and 900 hours on it, I have only changed the battery 1 time so far. But I can hit 18" wet snow and toss it like nothing with the plow angled. I can not imagine the tractor being as fast as the Rhino for that, so I have no plans of snow removal with a 5 or 10 MPH tractor when I can hit that at 20 MPH on the Rhino!

So let me know what you think about using a SCUT on sloped terrain, good idea or not?
Keep throwing away Craftsman/Husky tractors?
Go buy a boring but monstrous JD Garden Tractor?
Is there a general life expectancy of these various SCUT diesel engines and Hydrostatic systems? Like 2,000 hrs, or maybe 10,000 hours?


The 3 closest brands available to me that are not of the "big 3" are LS at 1.5 hours, Vernon Del at 1 hour away with MF (and JD as well as NH) and finally Town and Country at 10 miles away with Mahindra and Cub Cadet. The 10 miles vs 1 HR vs 1.5 HR is not a huge deal, I would really hope to not be making periodic trips to meet these people.... If these are true working class machines, I would expect to buy it and do my annual fluids/filters, mid season blade sharpening (at 40 or so hours) and that would be it unless something broke.

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You want to look at a Ven-Trac...

 

[MESSMAKER]

This is what I would get.213 KUBOTA BX267 4WD 26 HP Diesel Tractor, Loader, and 6" Mower | eBay

 

[dalola]

I have a BX2380 I use for many chores around my rec property, where there are some 10-15 degree grades. It performs very well with the FEL & RFM on the slopes, but I always try to maintain up & down patterns vs side to side. As a general "do-all" machine for light duty work, the SCUT's are hard to beat. You might see if any of the local dealers would be willing to do a demo on your property, to get a real feel for the performance on the slopes.

 

[Rock Crawler]

So I was out cutting grass again and used a digital protractor and the floor pan of the tractor to gather some more accurate data (I verified the step through floor as flat and level while setting in the garage). So the general yard slope is 16-17 degrees. Then I went to the steepest area that I was wrongly calling close to 45 degrees... and my eyes were deceiving me. It is actually 32-33 degrees out at the guard rail.

I cut the 16-17 degree part of the yard sideways as you'll see in the attached photos.
I cut the 32-33 bank vertically.

Seeing these photos, do any of you SCUT owners feel that you would be safe and comfortable cutting my yard side to side at high speed?

Far end of yard looking back.


Peak of yard looking back at house.


32 degree bank.

 

[tractorshopper]

I'd feel very comfortable on my BX mowing that. Much more than my old Craftsman or JD lawn tractors. Filled tires help too. I'd be perfectly comfortable side-hilling all of that except maybe the bank. I might try it down low though. Either way, the hydro on a SCUT is nothing at all like what you've used before. That and the 4WD will make you a very happy camper.