Shipping a john deere x500?

[Vigilant]

I am looking at a couple different ones, and they are all over 1000 miles away. Is there any way to ship the mower in 1 piece without a crate, or will I be faced with removing the wheels, etc. and putting it in a crate? If that's my only option, I'll probably just wait and buy new locally. Thanks in advance.

 

[bertsmobile1]

Your best bet is ringing a local furnature remover and see if they can ship it to you on a backload.
They will pack it properly and load it by hand.
Freight companies will shove a fork under the deck then top load tieing it down with chains.
In all cases it must not have any fuel in it so you will need to get the vendor to drain the tanks

The other thing that comes to mind is again a local machinery movers.
Most of their trucks will have a crane on them and again , if they have one coming back empty you can ( note I said can ) get them back for little more than fuel costs as the original customer has paid for the trip labour both ways.
Offer to do a door to depot so the final delivery is easy for them.
Even if you have to drive 100 miles to pick it up, the truck was coming back to the depot in any case.