LAWNMOWERS AND YARD TRACTORS

This has been my experience with typical lawn tractors in the 15 to 25 horsepower range.

ZERO-TURN MOWERS

In my opinion, these are mothing more than an expensive fad, especially the consumer-grade machines at all the retail stores that sell for at least double what they are worth. If you have several acres of grass to cut, spend the big bucks on a commercial zero-turn machine. The consumer-grade retail store junk is not commercial grade. They are not built with anywhere near the quality of a commercial machine.

FABRRICATED DECK

Oooh, Ahhhh - another extra cost item that may perform far worse than most of the standard stamped decks. Many of those cheaply-made fabricated decks do a very poor job cutting grass. Most of them may appear to be thicker than the stamped decks, but they are not thich enough to be nearly as rigid as all those curves do for a stamped deck. I have gotten excellent performance and had zero problems with stamped 42", 46", and 48" decks made by Husqvarna and AYP. Beware, if you want to add a mulching kit to a fabricated deck. The mulching kit may cost several hundred dollars, because that fabricated deck wasn't designed for mulching. Instead of just a set of mulching blades and a cover for the outlet, the fabricated zero-turn mulching kit will require a bunch of bolt-on steel parts that should have been welded to the deck when it was made. All that expensive hardware bolted around the blades will eventually shake/rust loose and get shredded by the blades.

My main issue with zero-turn mowers is that most require two hands all the time. I can drive my lawn tractor with one hand and sip my drink with the other. My new Husky mower even has cruise control! We have 12 acres of property, but only about one acre total of "lawn" that should be cut with a lawn mower. Most of our property is wooded trails and fields that get cut with a farm tractor pulling a 3-point rotary cutter.