Comparison Fair to compare Woods & King Kutter?

[wny770]

There's a reason Woods has been making mowers for over 55+ years. Remember, you get what you pay for. If so called "better other" brands were as good as Woods, Bush hog...etc... then you would see them everywhere. Everyone has an opinion, and personally, you get what you pay for. period.

 

[sweettractors]

There's a reason Woods has been making mowers for over 55+ years. Remember, you get what you pay for. If so called "better other" brands were as good as Woods, Bush hog...etc... then you would see them everywhere. Everyone has an opinion, and personally, you get what you pay for. period.

FWIW, I have doing this machinery business for 34 years now and my observation is that you are correct on this, most of the time. However, In some instances, a customer will pay 10-15 percent more for a products name and all he gets extra is bragging rights on the brand. Woods is a great company and to back that up, we just bought a new $11,300 15 ft batwing from them this year for the farm. That being said, It is no better than the less expensive M & W 15 ft batwing that we replaced. We paid 10-15 percent more for the "Woods" name and knew what we were doing. Ken Sweet

 

[Diamondpilot]

We have two Caroni RFM's and they have been really good mowers. My FIL wasn't much on maintenance and spun a bearing and wore the stud out, so we put a new bearing on with JB weld and ten years later it is still running. These things were used hard.

What turned me on to them is a friend has mowed his 200' wide by 2,600' long runway with one for about 20 years behind a Ferguson 30. He finally just wore it out. He probably mowed 30 times per year. He replaced it with another.

If you do the math and figure 5' of coverage per pass it takes 40 passes to mow it at 1/2 mile per pass. Thats 20 miles of driving per mowing. Then times that by the aprox 30 mowings per year equals 600 miles. Now do that for 20 plus years and the mower has well over 12,000 miles.

That was proof enough for me.

Chris

 

[sweettractors]

What turned me on to them is a friend has mowed his 200' wide by 2,600' long runway with one for about 20 years behind a Ferguson 30. He finally just wore it out. He probably mowed 30 times per year. He replaced it with another.

If you do the math and figure 5' of coverage per pass it takes 40 passes to mow it at 1/2 mile per pass. Thats 20 miles of driving per mowing. Then times that by the aprox 30 mowings per year equals 600 miles. Now do that for 20 plus years and the mower has well over 12,000 miles.

That was proof enough for me.

Chris

We stock the quill spindle assemblies,drive belts and gearboxes for the Caroni for future references. Ken Sweet

 

[wny770]

I bet running a 15 foot bat-wing is a blast!

 

[TripleR]

What turned me on to them is a friend has mowed his 200' wide by 2,600' long runway with one for about 20 years behind a Ferguson 30. He finally just wore it out. He probably mowed 30 times per year. He replaced it with another.

If you do the math and figure 5' of coverage per pass it takes 40 passes to mow it at 1/2 mile per pass. Thats 20 miles of driving per mowing. Then times that by the aprox 30 mowings per year equals 600 miles. Now do that for 20 plus years and the mower has well over 12,000 miles.

That was proof enough for me.

Chris

We more or less stumbled on them as when my FIL was looking for something, Caroni was the only one anyone had in stock. The first one worked so well, he bought a second. The first was a 7' and second 8' I believe. The second one has blades with detachable tips that rotate similar to a rotary cutter and will mow some fairly rough material. Good mowers.

 

[LAWALLSTRACTOR]

No one has mentioned a Buhler Farm King. A Canadian made top quality machine.

 

[k0ua]

I ran a BEFCO 5 foot rear finish mower for a few years. and I really think it was a great mower, never had any problems with it and it made a very nice cut, and it was very easy to maintain. What do you all think about BEFCO? It went when I traded off the tractor, and I dont need it here were I live now anyway, but it sure was a good mower for me when I mowed 7 acres .
James K0UA

 

[sweettractors]

No one has mentioned a Buhler Farm King. A Canadian made top quality machine.

We sell Buhler/Farmking and do parts support for a lot of them across the nation. They are fine machines. They tend to be a little pricey. You can get more bang for your buck and as many features with First Choice or Phoenix brands. We sell those also. Ken Sweet

 

[tillboy2001]

Well, I normally would ignore a sales guy offering me something on a forum....but when Ken Sweet mentioned this finish mower, I decided to give it a look. I discovered that it's an Italian built unit badged as Phoenix, Caroni (?) and First Choice (and maybe more?)...and I couldn't find any bad comments about it. So I looked and looked and looked some more. I compared prices of various brands and models and nothing could touch the price of the First Choice and I really couldn't find anyone saying bad things about them. I was interested enough to find out more about the company that makes it and except for a few features like a self-tensioning idler pulley to keep the belt properly tightened, I really didn't see any deal breakers. Anyway, for what we're using this for, the price was right and I am pleased with the deal. I drove down (2.75 hours) to the store and picked it up myself.

I attached some photos I took a short time ago. The metal on the deck is actually thicker than the Bush Hog RDTH72 we used to have. I opted for the anti-scalp roller too. That thing is pretty beefy as well.

P.S.. I think Ken needs a new camera. The mower really looks better in person than in the pictures he sent to me. Ken, for $250 you can get a really nice Panasonic Lumix digital camera. Photography is a hobby of mine...trust me, it be good for your business to be able to show potential customers better photos ;-)

 

[TripleR]

It looks like a very nice unit; we have had excellent service out of ours.

 

[tillboy2001]

That's good to hear.

One more, showing the deck thickness.

 

[tillboy2001]

Last one. It fit in the back of my F-150, fully assembled...like a glove

 

[buckeyefarmer]

Nice looking mower.
I still have to speak up for KK. I wouldn't run from them. I've had mine for around 12 yrs now. I've had to replace a few things, but KK is great at shipping parts, but normal things are on the shelf at TSC. When I bought my 6' RFM it was around $1200.

 

[doall]

Good looking mower, let us know how it does next spring.

 

[King Kutter Rep]

Hello all -

I want to address a couple issues in this thread which I beleive have been mis-represented.

1 - Unless something has changed recently the Woods machine also has a chinese gearbox. Woods, Land Pride, Bush Hog, Rhino, and King Kutter, all use gearboxes made in China.

2 - King Kutter has a failure rate of about 1 in 10,000 on gearboxes. I'm speaking of actual manufacturers defects here. So to whomever stated that the gearbox has been the weak spot of the King Kutter Finish Mowers, I'm sorry if you had an issue with one.

3 - To the Original Poster - Good luck on whatever you decide or decided to buy!

 

[tillboy2001]

Regarding 'made in China'...I think it's important to understand it's the manufacturer's specs that are given to the Chinese builder that matter. I've seen very high quality products with Made in China plastered on it and I've seen total junk too. We all have. It's usually pretty obvious what is junk though (not necessarily referring to tractor stuff...any product). Now, if the Chinese builder uses parts or materials that are NOT in spec, that's a problem. Say, lead in paint on toys for example. I doubt an American company spec'd out lead paint for the toys. See what I mean? In electronics...I've seen many very high quality products that have a made in China stickers. Again, it just depends on what the parent company tells the Chinese builder to use for materials. They can request cheap, total crap...or they can request the best available. I would rather see Made in America on more of things I buy, but this is 2010 and we have to face reality. It is what it is. Most of us would rather so many things not be made in China, but however it got this way, that's the reality.

Back to the subject of gearboxes. With regard to quality it doesn't matter where it's made as long as it's made RIGHT with the proper MATERIALS. U.S. manufacturers have been guilty of making crappy products - absolutely. I'm sure we can all think of some right now. Again, my point is it's all about what the head company is asking for and whether the actual people building it follow through and really build it that way. They can ask for a crappy product to be built crappy to try to maximize profit by selling as much as they can, cheap....or they can ask for the product to be built well using great materials. Hope you know what I mean. I tried to explain my thought as much as possible.

 

[MtnViewRanch]

pz31g22, I understand what you have said and agree 100%. I have seen the exact same thing. Just because it came from China does not mean that it is junk. They can build good stuff too.

 

[IslandTractor]

pz31g22, I understand what you have said and agree 100%. I have seen the exact same thing. Just because it came from China does not mean that it is junk. They can build good stuff too.

Ditto. They have put a man in earth orbit too.

Recall that until the mid 60's Made in Japan was considered second rate too.

 

[sweettractors]

I worked for a company that moved a capacitor factory to Metamors Mexico and the factory could not hold acceptable quality standards even with the top company supervisors sent down for "in house" quality control. Finally shut it down and moved it back to Glasgow, Ky. I would assume the quality comes from the workforce and that takes generations to develop. A fellow that followed a oxen all his life and moves to the city for a better paying factory job, just can't understand the concept of quality production. Ken Sweet