A neighbor of mine has a Dixie Chopper and says it's a great mower and that he's had zero problems with it as opposed to the Grasshopper mower he had before, which he said was always having one problem or another. I have a Scag STHM that I use because of it's ability to mow across hillsides without a problem, and it's also a very tough and trouble free unit. Trouble free or not, serviceability is also something you want to be sure of. If you have to start dissecting the mower to change a belt or do an oil change, you don't want to buy it. Even if you don't service it yourself, it'll still cost you more of the shop has to do more disassembly work to fix of service it.