Hey guys need some help. Need to get a new mower old John Deere took a dump on Sunday afternoon. We have roughly 1.75 of grass out of 3 acres with relativity flat land. Trying to decide between zero turn or lawn tractor. Pro's cons Thanks for any feedback you can help with. Need to make a decision in next day or so.
Zero turns have a faster over ground speed as well as the zero turn feature at about 3 times the cost of a rider. At 1.75 acre, do you have a lot of trees and such that you would net a times savings on? Saving 15 minutes on a 2 hour job is not what I would consider a valid reason to spend the kind of money a zero turn commands. Unless perhaps you find a used one. Deere does make a "hybred" lawn tractor. It steers from the front and rear. Of course you are paying for the green paint...
I own a 24hp diesel Deere small utility tractor with a 60" belly mower. It does an excellent job of mowing and has a top speed around 9mph. All summer I mowed for the town using a 25hp diesel Hustler zero turn mower. It's top speed is about 10mph. It does a good job but not really any better than the tractor. It's real advantage is the zero turn abilty. Honestly, you don't really want to mow at even 8mph unless you have a really flat featureless lawn. My tractor cost just over $15,000 in 2008 with mower, loader bucket and tiller, so it wasn't exactly 'cheap' but it's a zillion times more useful than just a mower. Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk
I'll add... I don't know what a 'lawn tractor' is. I just think 'tractor'. Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk
I got a new Toro TimeCutter with MyRide this Spring. 50" for about 4 grand. It cut my mowing time in half vs a tractor style mower, but I have a lot of trees etc., to mow around. The MyRide is a great feature if you don't have a perfectly smooth lawn. I was a little skeptical about the low price compared to many other brands but it looked like a well built mower and has a good warranty, so I gave it a try. So far, I am extremely impressed with everything about it.
If you have lots and lots of tree's I'd say look into a zero turn. Only negative thing from what I've seen with the zero turn is they tend to rut up you're lawn a tad being you can turn very sharp.
Well we went with the zero turn had to order it be here in two weeks Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Walk behind with a velke is what I use and love. They tend to be a little cheaper than zero turns and take up less room in garage or shed. Cub Cadet also has a cheaper zero turn style with a steering wheel that costs about as much as a lawn tractor like pictured above. They are fast and work just as good.
Good call my fathers owned a landscaping and lawn care business for 30 years. Zero turn hands down. Also depends on if you care about the striping pattern you can make on the lawn. The zero turns do a better job at that also if you even do the whole pinstripe thing.
If it's just mowing grass I would get a zero turn, if you want to do more get one of these. Yes they are more money, but I can do a lot more on my property.
I’ve owned both and the pros and cons are well covered in this thread, the only thing I would add is about horsepower. Specifically, zero turn uses engine horsepower to operate hydraulics for steering, which means less is available for actual mowing. In other words, if using the same horsepower engine in both a zero turn and a rider, your zero turn mower will feel like less power than a rider. I don’t have any actual first hand proof of this since my rider and zero turn were different horsepowers, a sales guy told me this when I was comparing the two Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
I could see that being true. But, I have yet to see a good quality zero turn mower that didn't have more power than necessary for mowing as fast as you want to hold on. lol.
Quality is the key word. Some of the cub Cabet zero turns you can’t mow fast when the grass is longer Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
