Whats the best ride on mower?

[Davehoos]

I work for council and we service loads of different brands that are bought on tender.

for the better lawns they use walker or toro exmark zero turn.

-my mother just replaced her walker with a 21 horse kabuta tractor this year. I cant afford the $25k for a house yard..

I have a half acre yard to mow.
I purchased a $2400 yardpro to replace my 36 MTD from husky dealer.
the yardpro 42 inch 21 horse kohler hydo drive pressed steel deck.it was between this and a smaller 18 hp victa.

its the same as the year previous craftman and the year previous to that husky. they change the colour and drop some of the items like cruise control and scalping wheels.

the kohler is good when its running was not going to pay a $1000 for a brigstration engine. or $1200 for fabricated deck. recommend a fuel pump when ordering a mower as if the fuel tank is not full the engine may over heat on up hill lawns.

At work we fit wear plates using stainless bolts to stop sand damage in local parks and gardens. For me the most I may do is hot dip gal treatment.

I had to raise the deck pulley and add bracings to stop the pulleys from being torn from the deck from its steep angle.

steering shaft we fitted proper steering shaft bearing and Ive been replacing all iddlers when the travel belt is worn.

we still have loads of great rover ranchers for community mowers-single disc cut and rugged-these are early OHV brig engines with our side valve models got the pension.. I chose to buy a hydro drive model.

My workmates prefer old cox mower with single belt friction idea.
The local mower dealer recently sold a greenfield look to be headed to a racing life. web site calls them limited edition.

[ridzilla]

Another one here for the Husqvarna (I am biased though due to working there), but even from what I can tell they're a good unit, rarely get any come back for warranty aside from if they're damaged during delivery or production faults. There's a massive range of mowers and from thrashing the demo's around the warehouse, I've still never managed to break anything. If you need to know anything PM me, be able to get any info you want

[zilo]

I have had a few ride ons over the years.

Here's two serious tips....

All MTD products are absolute garbage...avoid at all costs.

The best is John Deere but parts are expensive.

end of story.

[Rapid05xr6]

Walker are very well built mowers, and they are perfect for a manicured lawn, their catching system is second to none, but their servicing cost is high on some models there are upwards of 50 grease nipples! Interesting what you say about john deere, out here parts are the cheapest of any! Toro are good mowers, the council use them around here, all their commercial stuff is pretty well built, but they still aren't as robust and smooth in my experience as a Hustler. the low end stuff is very low end, they even use plastic housings for their hydro transmissions! Bigdog is made by excel - same as hustler but they use lower grade hydro's and thinner steel, they are just built to compete with the lower end market, still quality though.

[4VCLEVO]

Thanks for the replies fellas. I've pretty much decided to get a greenfield 32inch fast cut. It has the 18.5hp BS motor and a catcher. Local mower joint wants $5k for it, but I'll get some prices from some mower joints at near by towns.

[ozpacman]

I live on a 1.5 acre block in tropical far north Qld so my mowers tend to get a bit of a workout. I've had an MTD 12.5/38 for years and it's been okay. A year or so ago I grabbed a used Greenfield 13/32 at a good price and I tend to use it mostly now.

I find that even though the cut of the Greenfield is 6" narrower than the MTD, the actual mow time is less because it cuts everything down properly the first time. Quite often with the MTD I'd have to go back over bits and pieces because it tended to knock some of the grass over and not actually cut it properly.

I reckon the the twin cutter set up on the MTD is to blame because the tip speed of the blades is much lower than the GF's disc and conventional blade set-up.

The MTD would probably be fine in other areas of Australia, but up here in the wet season the bloody grass seems to grow an inch by the time you park the mower I'm sure!

The MTD is definitely a more comfortable mower to use and has really been quite reliable. Body work and general construction is pretty flimsy and I've had to do a few running repairs to keep it all together.

Greenfield in comparison is built like a tank. The downside is it has a hopeless turning circle and awful steering but she certainly cuts well.

I think you'll get a good run with the Greenfield.

Russ

[ebxr8240]

We used a slasher, 3 point linkage on back of tractor using pto..
A horse will keep up to 10 acres bare, trust me..

[XP6]

5yrs this year, 18hp cox hydro drive... only replaced the blades so far, 10ac

You need to decide what kind of blade you want too, slasher or flywheel.
Flywheel give a much nicer cut(like a push mower)because the blades are a lot sharper compared to a slasher, slasher are more robust when hitting hard objects as they dont really have any sharpness to them.