I have about had it with my 34-year-old John Deere 430 breaking down, and I am concerned about the safety and difficulty of continuing to remove and replace the 340-pound mower deck over and over for maintenance. I am considering several possibilities: 1) hire a lawn service for the rest of my life, 2) buy a Scag Tiger Cat II, and 3) buy a Kubota GR2120.
Can anyone give me their take on the best choice?
I mow something like 2 acres, which will expand over time as I kill these horrible water oaks. I also have pasture areas where I would like to take out stubby Florida blackberry bushes sometimes, and if I had a good mower, I might start mowing the grass near the highway.
I have, literally, tons of heavy, tough leaves every year, so I have to have excellent mulching. My yard is the Bermuda Triangle of mowers because I still manage to hit a rock or big stick every so often, so the mower has to be very tough. It has to have a long life expectancy. It has to be easy to work on. The yard is not heavily sloped (Northern Central Florida), but it's somewhat irregular. I have to have a mower I can get parts for 15 years from now, so the company has to provide good support. I'm guessing I will do maybe 80 hours of mowing per year. The grass is nasty bahia, which is like strips of leather and hates to be cut. With the JD, I have to mow at a crawl. It would be nice to move a little faster.
I don't want a belly mower which is extremely hard to take off and replace, and I don't intend to keep rolling an incredibly heavy piece of machinery onto its side in my old age.
The idea of buying a tractor is appealing, but I have a real tractor, and in 7 years, I have barely used the JD for anything but mowing. It's not capable of much except pulling things that aren't heavy. I don't know if a zero-turn can do anything but mow.
I'm not buying another used mower. I got the JD used, and it has been the scourge of my existence. New alternator. New rear belt, which is a nightmare to replace. Injector pump leaks. Muffler literally fell off, and right now a new one is almost $400. Hydraulic cylinders can't be rebuilt and have been discontinued; I've already lost one. Like a lot of guys, I ran over my grille, which is designed to fall off when the wind blows. Don't feel like paying $800 for a used replacement. The list of available new parts gets smaller all the time. I can have everything fixed, but I fully expect this tractor to have problems every year.
Values for JD 430's are dropping, so I am thinking that rather than take $1500 or whatever, I would keep this one, basically out in the rain, and use it on the rare occasions when it can fill in for my real tractor or the new mower.
I have used both local dealers (Kubota and Scag) for repairs, and they are at least acceptable.
Can anyone give me their take on the best choice?
I mow something like 2 acres, which will expand over time as I kill these horrible water oaks. I also have pasture areas where I would like to take out stubby Florida blackberry bushes sometimes, and if I had a good mower, I might start mowing the grass near the highway.
I have, literally, tons of heavy, tough leaves every year, so I have to have excellent mulching. My yard is the Bermuda Triangle of mowers because I still manage to hit a rock or big stick every so often, so the mower has to be very tough. It has to have a long life expectancy. It has to be easy to work on. The yard is not heavily sloped (Northern Central Florida), but it's somewhat irregular. I have to have a mower I can get parts for 15 years from now, so the company has to provide good support. I'm guessing I will do maybe 80 hours of mowing per year. The grass is nasty bahia, which is like strips of leather and hates to be cut. With the JD, I have to mow at a crawl. It would be nice to move a little faster.
I don't want a belly mower which is extremely hard to take off and replace, and I don't intend to keep rolling an incredibly heavy piece of machinery onto its side in my old age.
The idea of buying a tractor is appealing, but I have a real tractor, and in 7 years, I have barely used the JD for anything but mowing. It's not capable of much except pulling things that aren't heavy. I don't know if a zero-turn can do anything but mow.
I'm not buying another used mower. I got the JD used, and it has been the scourge of my existence. New alternator. New rear belt, which is a nightmare to replace. Injector pump leaks. Muffler literally fell off, and right now a new one is almost $400. Hydraulic cylinders can't be rebuilt and have been discontinued; I've already lost one. Like a lot of guys, I ran over my grille, which is designed to fall off when the wind blows. Don't feel like paying $800 for a used replacement. The list of available new parts gets smaller all the time. I can have everything fixed, but I fully expect this tractor to have problems every year.
Values for JD 430's are dropping, so I am thinking that rather than take $1500 or whatever, I would keep this one, basically out in the rain, and use it on the rare occasions when it can fill in for my real tractor or the new mower.
I have used both local dealers (Kubota and Scag) for repairs, and they are at least acceptable.
