Buying Advice Starting over

[daugen]

Also Zero turns are a pain on hills. Can be more than a pain...

zero turns can be terribly dangerous on hills when the grass is even the slightest bit wet. I slid down a large sand mound and crashed through a split rail fence. Thankfully only my pride was damaged. Any of my garden tractors would never have slid. A close friend, retired family doctor, slid down an incline on wet grass and went upside down into his pond. Almost died stuck under the mower in the mud under water.
Do NOT use zero turns on wet grass and any kind of slope. Many, many examples of folks going totally out of control, like the teacup ride in the
amusement park. Flat lawn, you bet, there is nothing faster to mow with. Just remember that as we get older not all of us want to mow at 10mph or more that they advertise in inflated claims. Beats you to death, even on a Ferris with full suspension, which I owned. And I mowed a friend's 18 acre field once with that zero turn and I could hardly walk when I was done.

My next door neighbor bought a 2 series JD with a belly mower, and no FEL. He traded it in a year later for a zero turn and saved a full hour mowing. But he has to borrow my tractor when he needs the FEL function. He confided in me that if he had bought the FEL, he probably never would have gotten rid of the tractor. Without a FEL, you lose a huge amount of utility. Besides, with quick disconnects, you can drop off the bucket in less than a minute and put it back on in the same time. With the bucket off you can see a lot better and sticks out less. If you are worried about mowing with a bucket on, there's an idea. But no SCUT or CUT was meant to do close mowing in your front yard, they are too compromised for that, doing so many other things well.

If your lawn is pretty open without a lot of shrubbery and you have space to turn, mowing with a SCUT or CUT works fine. You just go slower...but you can mark up your lawn if you've had rain. Most new tractors come with R4's, which are a compromise between turf and ag.
But they can definitely leave marks on your lawn, so also a function of how often your lawn gets soggy.

 

[kthompson]

We use ztr, one a mid size with 52 inch deck and we cut the time it took to cut our 2 acres by 25% over the cut with 72 inch rfm both mowers are Bush Hog with both decks same designs. It came down to how easy it turned, fit under trees and so forth. I strongly agree on wet slope stay off with ztr, the front wheels are caster type wheels as on front of grocery cart and all traction and steering is with the rear wheels. Second ztr is Ferris with full suspension and it is as smooth ride as the cut tractor is, wonder about air pressure in the tires on that mower. The tires on ztr are not run tight as they are part of the suspension.

Have used a N Ford a little but used a 601 hours over years which replaced the N tractors and I am amazed NO mentioin of how terrible the brakes are on those tractors nor how hard they are to steer. Also the lack of two stage clutch and also the issues with the tremble in the lift system or hiccups as some call it. As it is a family tractor would repair it but that tractor compared to a quailty ztr is not safer as it has no seat belt, no rops and brakes issues while the ztr has those but I DO NOT RECOMMEND ztr on wet slopes and we have a yard we cut with slope that does get wet and know the limits there well. If you ever get into a slide with ztr the way to control it is very simple is just steer into the direction of the slide. Believe that is what we are trained to do with a car also. Never had any issue with sliding down a wet slope as has been stressed here by doing that. Sideways will slide. A ztr is not a pasture mower, it is a "LAWN MOWER".

Never used mmm on tractor but rfm does allow you to back it under limbs if you go that way and with hst easy done. I have cut my yard with rfm on cut and 68 hp tractor with no torn up turf, it is turning the front wheels sharp that does the damage so you make slow wider turns. You can tear up turf with a ztr if you turn it too fast and too shap. NO ONE MACHINE IS PERFECT in all jobs.

In rebuilding the fel, remodel to where at least the bucket is quck disconnect.

 

[nrbocke]

Guys thanks for all of the input. Especially, about the ZTR since I have no experience with them. I myself have always thought the 8N was a little unsafe and will never let me son or wife operate it. It would great to have HST, working breaks, and ROPS. Also I agree with the speed of turning. A friend of mind just wanted me to get an newer late model tractor just to cut down my brush hogging time. He wanted to bring over his 4020 saying it would turn circles around my 8N.
I think since I would like a FEL someday anyway I could get the CUT with MMM and skip the ZTR. I wont even know what I'm missing speed wise since I've never had a ZTR. Even if I didn't get a MMM, I'm guessing a new CUT would just blow away the 8N speed wise with existing 5ft brush hog. Only thing I wonder is if I get a MMM can I get away with using it as my only mower or will it be too big and will the tires be to aggressive for my yard. Be nice not to have to buy a new rider since the MMM is so expensive. For example has anyone tried using a Kubota L3301 or similar as their only mower?

 

[4570Man]

I used to mow with my L3240 with a 72" finish mower. I could have done the whole year with it but I used a riding mower to cut around the trees and the house. I just felt better doing it that way because it would be easier to damage the house with the tractor. I already had the riding mower otherwise I'd just make about 3 passes around with a push mower. My finish mower probably did a better job than the riding mower because the tip speed was so fast. It was turning 26,000 FPM which is an insanely fast blade speed. I prefer a RFM over a MMM, but that issue has been beat to death in other threads. As for the loader I say get one. My tractor would be 97% less useful if I lost my loader and backhoe.

 

[4570Man]

I had 10 acres with a house on it about 70 miles away from my house. About 6 acres are mowed and only about an acre around the house was anything that resembles smooth. I decided the L3240 was much more useful at home, and the riding mower couldn't handle the whole place by itself. I bought a B7100 with a MMM to mow there. It's sole purpose in life is to drag a MMM around. In which case I'm ok with a MMM, but I wouldn't have one on a tractor that does anything else. This thing isn't a bush hog, but it's much more robust than a regular riding mower. If I had a little bigger tractor I'd us my finish mower instead, but it's too much for the B7100. I had a ZTR until it burned. On nice yards it was the weapon of choice, but isn't nearly as robust as the B7100 with a MMM, or my grandpas B7200 with a smaller finish mower. The B's also win on versatility, mud crossing, and going up or across hills. The ZTR has a low center of gravity and was stable, but you couldn't keep it on steep hills. Now it takes a pretty steep hill before I'd park the ZTR, but the B's are capable of more.

 

[nrbocke]

Thanks for the feed back. Unless I end up getting by with just a CUT and not buying a separate ridding mower (guessing i'll probably need to buy a rider though) I'll just be using the MMM where the cut quality doesn't need to be perfect. I was just thinking it would just be so much more convenient to mow with a MMM then a shredder. I now it was a lot more convenient to mow with my old rider than having to use the shredder on my 8N. Maybe this wouldn't be the case if I was using a modern CUT instead of 8N. Also there have been times (like wanting to clean up before a holiday or birthday something that gets me shredding off my once a month every 1 1/2 month schedule) that the shredder just seems like overkill.