Bob, just finished off a pot of homemade bean soup so thought I may be able to give some gas consumption remarks but alas you,re speaking of the gas that costs money!Mine was FREE:laughingave
Dave ...never mind the tractor gas consumption...I want some of that Bean Soup.........Geez, I love bean soup. Now I have to have some, I sure wish you had not brought that up...:laughing::thumbsup:
Good to [talk to ya again Bob].I add about 6 slices of jalapeno peppers to mine and always use a smoked pork hock,give it a try:thumbsup:.I must say I get away with it as I,m alone during the week:laughingave
My JD 240 with 14HP kawasaki is about 1 gal per hour. It takes me about 2hrs or a little better to mow, and I can mow twice and it's all I can do to squeeze a 5 gal can it.
My bota 3400 is about 1gal per hr as well.
Dads 61" ZTR with 23 HP kaw is somewhere between 1.5-2gal per hour. But considering it mows 2x-3x as fast as my 240, he is actually using less fuel per acre.
Another note, the 8n we have only consumes about 1 gallon per hour as well. I think that was a big selling point for them as well, being able to pull a 1bottom A WOT one gallon per hour. It also has the sherman tranny so it will do about 25MPH. Given that driving on the road isn't as much load as pulling a 1 bottom, that is somewhere north of 25MPG on 60 year old technology. And considering it uses about half the fuel as some of these small mowers with little briggs motors, and it is way more tractor, are we going the wrong way with technology???
AHHH but remember there were no EPA regs or smogg junk back then like our mowers now have.
I also drove a 1991 geo metro 3 cyl that got 50 + MPG in the late 90's. Not even the worthless smart car gets that now adays and it only has 2 seats and a runk big enough for 4 grocery bags, the metro , small yes but has a back seat and 4 doors.
EPA crap, im telling you, we have the technology.
I always argue that were burning twice the fuel that we could be.
Very true. I drive a 2001 saturn. SOHC 100HP 5-speed. I consistantally get 40-43MPG.
Cant even find a car nowadays that gets that unless it is either a hybrid or a VW diesel. Even when saturn replaced the SL series with the newer IONs, they went backwards on mileage.
We just purchased a new nissan sentra with the CVT last year for my wife. It is not much heavier than my saturn, yet still only gets about 33-34MPG???
We are definatally going the wrong way. What gets me is that the expensive hybrid technology (civic for example as we looked at them as well) added about 8k to the cost yet only returned about 5mpg better. With gas @ $3/gal as it was at the time, we'd have to keep the vehichle for 240,000miles just to pay for itself provided we didn't have any trouble with the expensive to repair hybrid technology.
Call me a planet killer if you like, but they are going to have to do a lot better with the hybrid/electric stuff before I jump on the bandwagon.
But look at the difference in initial cost. If your gas murry costs $1500 less, thinking that you can buy one like yours at walmart or lowes for
$1200. And you keep your mower for 10 years and you cut grass every 2 weeks in the summer starting in middle april to september 15, thats 10 times. So over 10 years thats 100 uses just using this simple figure. If the deisel saved you 1 gallon everytime that would mean you burn 100 gallons more fuel, at $3/gallon thats $300, ignoring inflation and interest like simple economists sometimes do. Keep in mind thats over 10 years buying the deisel you fork out 1K more at purchase time!!
OK you say you cut your grass every week all summer long (probably do at times then its dry and may be 3 weeks) that would be 20 times a year or 200 times over 10 years or 200 gallons or $600, still less than the cost of a deisel motor.
-nate