I agree with possum. For the amount you will be mowing I wold think you should go to a dealer, due to the fact they service what they sell, but also because they have more commercial models. Home Depot only has these:
Zero Turn Riding Mowers - Riding Lawn Mowers - Lawn Mowers - Outdoor Power Equipment - Outdoors*at The Home Depot
I have 11acres only 1.5 of it I have been cutting with a GT 2254 Husqvarna garden tractor. I have started planting a lot of trees, flower beds and am expanding my cutting to at least 2 acres. With all the new turns and obstacles in the yard as well as the tractor not mulching good and pilling the grass up in ugly mounds I am thinking about a ZT. Are the ones that lowes and HD sale worth the money? If so what brand.
Also, right now it takes me 1.5 hrs to cut my yard with the 54" deck. This is in 5th gear out of 6 and although it is not that fast it is leaving high spots even with a level deck and new blades. If I go with a ZT can I sacrifice cutting width but gain speed and cut quality?
Thanks
Wade
...Is there a good site to compare the better quality ZT s and rank them?...
Thanks guys this is pretty much what I was thinking. I looked last week at the lowes ZT s and non of them look durable. My Husqvarna in 5th gear I doubt it is even hitting 5 mph now. It is 7 years old and. Has been a good durable mower but cut quality has always been so so. Even with the deck at the highest setting, deck wheels set correctly and tires full of air, I have always had issues with it cutting too low on the outside of turns or missing thin tall sprigs of grass.
Is there a good site to compare the better quality ZT s and rank them?
Thanks
Wade
I found this one. How would you all rate this mower with the assumption that everything works? What about the price, high, low, avg?
Toro Zero Turn 60"
Thanks guys this is pretty much what I was thinking. I looked last week at the lowes ZT s and non of them look durable. My Husqvarna in 5th gear I doubt it is even hitting 5 mph now. It is 7 years old and. Has been a good durable mower but cut quality has always been so so. Even with the deck at the highest setting, deck wheels set correctly and tires full of air, I have always had issues with it cutting too low on the outside of turns or missing thin tall sprigs of grass.
Is there a good site to compare the better quality ZT s and rank them?
Thanks
Wade
You said you have had issues with your mower cutting to low, something to keep in mind when you decide to buy is that most of the home owner version mowers cutting height setting range from like 1" to 3.5" or maybe 4" in height, most commercial mowers can mower up to the 5" range and give you a little more adjustment to play with if that would make a difference to you in making your decision.
So this is the same model and quality? Toro TimeCutter SS5060 50 in. 23HP Kawasaki V-Twin Zero-Turn Riding Mower with Smart Speed-74632 at The Home Depot . The only reason I was looking at the box store is the amount of time you have at 0% and since I already have an HD card I would not have to open up another credit account which I don't want to do.
If I can get a better quality used ZT for 2500 or less then that is the ways would probably go. But if this is quality enough then it may be an option even if from a box store.
Wade
fwiw, I bought my Country clipper off cl with only 27 hours and about a $1500 savings.
So I'm curious.....had you paid MSRP for that Country Clipper new would it not have been a $4K(or close to that) ZTR??? My opinion is you need to approach the $4K price range on Residential ZTR's to get anything that will hold up.
It will hold up as long as you maintain it...
My original Snapper disproves that theory. It cost $2700 and had sealed eaton 7800 hydro's. I did annual oil changes and greasings, It was very abused the 1st 3 years. Less than 25 hours a year for the last 12. It sat outside much of the time. (which I dont recommend) Now it could be the Snapper was atypical of the current breed of low end residential, however short of abuse exceeding what I was capable of in its early years I would expect the sub 3k mowers to do as well or close anyway. I learned the 1st week to be careful with hitting the deck on things as it could be bent. The typical owner that just mows a large yard up to 1 acre once a week or less should be fine. Again that is only my experience and it could be atypical. The country clipper is closer to a 4k mower with fab'ed deck and heavy duty spindles and a much higher blade speed than the snapper had. were it not for my chance discovery of the slide out deck of the country clipper... I would not have hesitated buying another snapper ZTR.