New or used commercial zero turn for 8 acres

1SlowVW said:

STM317 said: 

Does a church really need 8 acres anyway? Could 3-5 acres be sold off to raise funds and reduce the need to mow at the same time?

This question is very relevant looking at your problem from the outside.

A church with 30 regular attendees, and you need 8 acres? Is some of it graveyard? Is this land helping people? Does the community use it? 

Not my call very much. But certainly a good question that has come up and I hope all churches consider, frankly. 

I will say that I myself am hoping to make use of the land with a motorized vehicle over the long dreary winter— maybe even a 14 mph zero turn motorized vehicle if we play our cards right! :)

current line of thought is to subtract 4 years of maintenance expenses and take the remainder and buy the best we can. And to not get a Dixie Chopper what with their spotty recent corporate history. I prefer to not get used for a few reasons but I’ve been asked to present the board with a few options

Watching the commercial guys around here I saw a few Scags. Scag dealer is dropping by with two models today, Patriot and one of the Tigers, unsure which one. Under $10. 

We decided to clear out the 30 some stumps before the new mower comes. No need to damage the thing. $200 for 24 hour rental, 8 hours of runtime, that is. We got thru 15 older stumps last night. Machines are amazing. 

I was talking top speed with one saleman yesterday and he explained that it doesn’t really matter since you only mow at 5 or 6 to keep it looking good....

YEEEAAAAAHHH about that :)

I don't know that I'd buy a new DC because of their issues. Their older stuff is solid and I'd buy a used commercial grade in a heartbeat. New, Scag would probably be a great option.

I have a suggestion...

What about a bigger tractor used for decent price and with behind deck for a few grand? It could be used in the winter to plow the parking lot also. Just some thoughts. 

In reply to ckosacranoid :

Do they go for under ten?? 

I tried the Scag Patriot and Tiger Cat 2 today. They were both just fine. So far I am not at all a believer in suspension seats. I was still beaten up and tossed around by those mole hills just like with the ‘01 eXmark. To get a Scag with a body suspension (Cheetah) is like $2k more, but I’m interested in seeing at least. If it’s markedly different then I may pursue a full suspension on any brand I can find. 

P3PPY said:

Well, they gave us $13,300. I’m going to have a conversation with the pastor soon about the different paths to pursue. 

1. Smaller footprint lawn and $3k used [EDIT: or $4-5k new??] mower

2. Same footprint lawn and high end fast mower- on the theory that we need to have the lawn done in the least amount of time possible since we don’t have people with a lot of spare time to do it anymore 

Not knowing the property, here is what I would honestly probably do.

Used commercial ZT.  I won't speak to brands since I haven't kept up with them.  When you compare a residential ZT to a commercial, well.... you can't really compare them.  Thin steel decks, stamped pulleys, stamped-steel gear boxes sometimes, just junk.  A commercial tractor has heavy components, cast iron gear boxes and differentials, beefier versions of the more common engine brands, etc.

Then find yourself a good used riding mower/tractor.  Something from the 3 or 4 series John Deere with about a 48" deck.  One of my favorites is the JD 322.  I have one that the hour meter broke at 2100 hours and that was in the late 90s.  I gave it to by brother-in-law and he still uses it to mow his 4 acres.  He will have to replace the deck soon as the metal around the bearing housings is cracking, but I would guess he has 3500 hours on it.  The tail lights have fallen out, the grill is missing, and the back wheels finally rusted so badly that one fell off.  I'm rambling.... my point is, this way you'll have a backup, and you'll have a tractor with some utility for things.  If one breaks a belt, just keep going with the other one.  If you have parishioners who volunteer to mow like our church does, just have them bring their teenager along to run the other mower and get done in way less time.

Newer residential stuff is honestly good for about 300-500 hours before they're just a wasted lump.  A true agricultural or professional piece with good maintenance might go for 4000 hours without breaking a sweat.  Dad and I restore old tractors and we have about a dozen tractors from the 30s to the 70s.  We have a Ford 8N with about 3500 hours that so far has needed exactly one repair.  The points got crusty, so he scraped them with a pocket knife and it fixed it.  It gets used in the summers with a brushhog and the winters it gets a 6' PTO snow blower.

I could tell you all kinds of stories, but you are mowing 8 acres.  Go pro.  Don't skimp.  And just like many things, I would rather have an older mower with the same hours compared to a newer mower.  Newer stuff has found ways of making things proprietary, cheap, light, and not like they used to.  Having worked at HD and sold much of the consumer/residential stuff, I can tell you that many of those riding mowers you see chained up out front sometimes get loaded into the bed of a truck by two beefy guys just lifting them in.  They usually come back after a couple weeks when the deck belt pulley has bent so badly that it won't hold the belt anymore.  Contrast that with my 1976 Bolens, or my SWMBOs 1980s Wheel Horse/Toro, they have massive cast iron axle assemblies and heavy steel frames.  I would venture that the axle in my 14hp Bolens weighs almost as much as the entire Cub Cadet you can buy at HD today.

At least if you buy pro stuff, you're probably getting a pretty good facsimile of an older ag tractor.  Newer consumer stuff is really just awful.

If I were doing it, I would research the ZT brands and find a pro example that is 2 years old with 150 hours on it.  You can likely find one for 70% its MSRP even though it has only lived 10% of its life.  Then do the same with a JD 322, 317, 318, or 430, but go older.  Seriously.  20 years is a good start.  80s/90s is just fine.  700 hours is just fine.  Heck, 1000 hours is just fine.  It will probably outlive you without needing anything more than a spark plug change and a new battery every 7 years.

You have $13k to spend.  You can easily get a lightly used professional ZT and a real, non-box-store riding mower for that money.

Yep find the used commercial mower bought by the rich guy who only put a few hundred hours on it mowing around his lake. 

Curtis, thanks for the advice. We have an old 210 at our disposal that gets to be the sidewalk plow, and we keep onsite a JD garden rider with a 5 speed in pristine condition that was given us last year. I’ll keep that in consideration, esp the part about lightly used heavy duty if I can find it. 

Dunno who all I’m documenting every step of this for but maybe it will come in handy for one of you fine chaps.

Scag salesman came back today with the Tiger Cat and a 2018 Turf Tiger 2 with 740 hours. They’re both available for just under $9. The Turf Tiger is two steps up from the Patriot (entry level, smaller frame, non-greaseable bearings) and one step up from the Tiger Cat (same overall size, greasable bearings). 

Our ground is just too rough for the two small ones, which both weigh in at about 800 lbs. The Turf Tiger 2 had a bagger on it and was probably 1350. It felt much better over the mole hills. It has the same suspension seat as the Tiger Cat so weight was presumably the key. 

However, it has 3 strikes: 1. it didn’t immediately start, it had to turn over and then puffed some smoke 2. It’s too big. It’s unwieldy and intimidating even for me, now imagine I’m a volunteer who’s never mowed one before. 3. I don’t need a third one because those are sufficient

I called the Gravely dealer and explained my predicament. I told him we’re looking to keep it $10 or less (we shall see). He immediately recommended we look into a full suspension Bad Boy - Rogue. I’ve never heard of them. Once I test drive it I’ll look more into it - or not. 

I also called the Hustler/Ferris dealer and we’ll see what he comes up with. 

I don’t know what eXmark was doing so well back in 2001, the frame rails are the size of the Patriot and it’s shorter than it, so surely it wasn’t a 1,200 lb monster, but it just rode better!

I may end up talking to the eXmark/John Deere dealer again. They weren’t going out of their way to make a sale unlike Gary at Scag so I kinda wrote them off, but I may need to test one of their new ones too. 

Sounds like you're researching even more than I would... and that's saying something. 

Yeah well I get decision paralysis sometimes, I’m trying to not go that extreme but I’m sure I’m getting close :)

Ferris guy is recommending this. I’ll see how it drives

2020 IS® 2100Z 5901587 - 61" 26HP Vanguard™ - Ferris

Everything was placed on hold because my wife had an emergency induction on Monday night. We now have a new baby girl at the house so that’s awesome!

I’m back to scheduling test drives, if nothing else, they’re fun for my 3 y/o; she loved driving the old one. Tuesday for the Bad Boy and maybe today on the Ferris. Any reviews of Bad Boy mowers?

Congrats on the kid, hope everyone is healthy.  

I love my cub cadet zforce but it's clearly not in the same zip code as the machines you're looking at!

Thanks, yes, everyone is doing well. The older girls are inseparable from Mallory (the newest addition/edition) and are SUPER cute with her, too :)

I just did some poking around online and it looks like basically as others have said you can’t really go wrong with a commercial one- at least not the ones I’ve looked at. JD 915 came up a few times but local dealer sells eXmark too and told me not to bother with the JD as they’re overpriced for the same features. 

Im testing the Ferris here in half an hour. I’ll report back. 

 Wellllll  that was night and day difference between this one and the Scag. I’m not kidding, I was grinning going over our chaos hill. I had someone else test it out too and they had a smile as well.

I tested the ISX2200 with a 61” deck and a 28 horse B&S, fully independent suspension. Our price would be $10k. He suggested that we not shy away from the 7 or 800 series, which would leave us money in the bank for down the road. It bogged down in some thicker stuff but he didn’t think it was worth going the next model up, 3300, just to get the bigger motor. We will mulch leaves in the fall so we’d get the open/close discharge chute and Gator blades  

Id be surprised if a Bad Boy would surpass this. I think we found our brand, now we just need to settle on the purchase philosophy. 

After driving my friend's ferris and using my cub cadet tank for a year i would definitely go with suspension if i had a lot of ground to cover and it was in the budget.

Ferris makes a very nice product. The only drawback is some increased maintenance with the suspension. 

Congrats on the newest addition too! I like the car-related name that you settled on. It's subtle.

Thanks! Her Aunt Dana cracked the seal on car parts manufacturer names, so that opens up a lot more possibilities :)

Apparently not all mower suspension setups are created equal. I tested a Bad Boy - Rogue and a smaller Maverick, both with suspension of sorts. It was like rubber bushings or something. The Rogue was a fast mower but bumps at speed made it ride like a see-saw until I got off the throttle. The Maverick was too slow to really hit the bumps and so it had a smooth ride but that’s not saying much. 

I also drove a $10k-ish Gravely around and it felt like you’d expect for a motor vehicle with no suspension driving over rough terrain— just like all other zero turns feel. 

It’s now down to which model of Ferris. The 2200 or the 700 or 800. My mindset has changed from buying the biggest and best, now I think I should go with adequate, since at 100 hours per year we will not be wearing out any of the commercial mowers and they will probably succumb to something that wears out due to age, anyway. The smallest one with a 61” deck will probably be the one I choose, unless an upgrade in hardiness comes at a couple hundred dollars. 

Seriously, everyone go out and drive a Ferris with their real suspension. Once you relate it to cars and how you’d not want to drive a car with no suspension on the street, then realize that roads are SMOOTH, it just makes sense. do your body a favor!

The Scag salesman earned the money (call Gary at the BobCat dealer in south Lansing) but the Ferris machine is going to win the sale. Annoyingly, I had to prod the salesman five times to get him to bring out an 800 to test drive before we're willing to throw $8,000 at him. I understand that selling to a church must reduce his take-home, but it's still very frustrating. My wife had to talk me down from pushing him with "are you suggesting I should go find another Ferris dealer to work with?" He's dragged this out an extra week, basically.

So I'll test the Ferris on our field tomorrow or the next day. It's still 4 wheel independent suspension so it should be comparable to the 2200. If so, we'll have a check for them the day after and I'll have it all mowed shortly after that.

To avoid bagging leaves we're going to do an output port blocker and Gator mulching blades instead of the full mulch kit, so we can side discharge at will. I'd still take an opinion on that:

Areas of the lawn of about an acre are flooded or boggy for a long time in the Spring and the grass gets THICK before we're able to get in there. I know it's going to be a struggle in Spring grass -- the $9,500 2200 gets a 28 horse and the $7,599 800 gets a 26 on the same 61" deck-- surely that wouldn't hurt us too much to lose two horses, right? The next step up is a 37 horse 3300 for $11,500 (all of these are church discount prices), which we can afford - and in the interest of saving time would be better at shredding everything with greater ease - but that's an additional $4k and about 500 more pounds on the off-chance that it will be necessary. Thoughts? Just suck it up for that first long mow and save the money?

The added weight might be a bigger drawback on sloppy wet ground than anything else. You'll get ruts and be more likely to get the mower stuck. Torque is great for cutting tall, thick grass. But if I've learned anything about mowing water logged areas, it's that it's best to avoid them with a heavy mower until it dries out more. Then, you can take multiple passes, lowering the blade height with each pass.

As for the operator controlled discharge flap, I've got one and find it to be really helpful for keeping clippings out of landscaping, roadways, etc. Mine is controlled with a foot pedal which I prefer over the ones controlled by a lever or knob. It's faster and more natural for me to do it on the fly without slowing/stopping to put my hands on another control. It was a little bit cheaper than the one offered by the manufacturer.

I have no experience with mulching specific blades. I do mow well into fall and just let the regular blades do most of the work. Sometimes with the discharge chute blocked and others with it open to more evenly distribute the leaf clippings. I've got a massive Sycamore that drops dinner plate sized leaves, 3 silver maples and a huge oak among others. In the heaviest part of "leaf mowing season" I'll double mow to get the leaves clipped up into finer pieces. That's been faster for me than any other approach.

In reply to STM317 :

I forgot all about making ruts. Thanks for the reminder

Any opinions on carbed Vanguard 810cc motors vs EFI Briggs & Stratton Commercial Series? It's $800 more for the Vanguard and that's what guy is trying to sell me despite saying I wanted fuel injection. $$ would say it's better but is it that much better?

In reply to P3PPY :

I avoid anything B&S. Maybe their commercial stuff isn't complete trash, but on the smaller/cheaper end I'd use a Predator from Harbor Frieght before a B&S. 

Is there any other option? The Ferris website lists the engine as Kawasaki which I would prefer over the two B&S options.