Help with Frontier Finish Mower purchase

JAMESFNP · Mar 17, 2007

Well, the John Deere dealer came out yesterday and looked at the TC45DA and took pics.

He and I got to looking out some of the equipment specs and we noticed that the Woods RD8400 mower that I have has a 40hp gear box.

He said I would need to upgrade to at least a GM2084R finish mower or a GM1190R with a 50hp gear box(at least) because of the 4720 having 50 pto hp. Well, this killed the idea of trading in the BB72 for a bigger rotary until at least next year.

He had some prices when he came for a Frontier GM2084R and GM1190R:

GM2084R-$3,572.00
Freight and setup-$143.00
Total-$3715.00
Discount-$965.00
OTD-$2750.00

Frontier GM1190R-$5,507.00
Freight and setup-$237.00
Total-$5,744.00
Discount-$1,644.00
OTD-$4,100.00

Are these prices ok? I don't know what he will offer on trade-in on the woods RD8400 yet.

If they are ok, I may just bite the bullet and get the GM1190R. I know the GM2084 has more blade tip speed-16,338 versus 15,570 for the GM1190R, but I don't think this will affect cut quality much?

I know the GM1190R has more beef to it and has 1/2 foot more cutting capacity.

Bob_Skurka · Mar 17, 2007

What if you just bought a heavier duty gearbox and installed it on your existing mower?

Seems like that would save you at least $2200 over the GM2084R and you'd still have the same cutting width. Or it would save you at least $3600 over the cost of the 1190R, but you give up 6" of cutting width.

BillyP · Mar 17, 2007

JAMESFNP said:
Well, the John Deere dealer came out yesterday and looked at the TC45DA and took pics.

He and I got to looking out some of the equipment specs and we noticed that the Woods RD8400 mower that I have has a 40hp gear box.

He said I would need to upgrade to at least a GM2084R finish mower or a GM1190R with a 50hp gear box(at least) because of the 4720 having 50 pto hp. Well, this killed the idea of trading in the BB72 for a bigger rotary until at least next year.

He had some prices when he came for a Frontier GM2084R and GM1190R:

GM2084R-$3,572.00
Freight and setup-$143.00
Total-$3715.00
Discount-$965.00
OTD-$2750.00

Frontier GM1190R-$5,507.00
Freight and setup-$237.00
Total-$5,744.00
Discount-$1,644.00
OTD-$4,100.00

Are these prices ok? I don't know what he will offer on trade-in on the woods RD8400 yet.

If they are ok, I may just bite the bullet and get the GM1190R. I know the GM2084 has more blade tip speed-16,338 versus 15,570 for the GM1190R, but I don't think this will affect cut quality much?

I know the GM1190R has more beef to it and has 1/2 foot more cutting capacity.

If it was me, I'd keep the Woods RD8400. That mower will never know you have more HP.

DK35vince · Mar 17, 2007

BillyP said:
If it was me, I'd keep the Woods RD8400. That mower will never know you have more HP.

I'm with Billy.
In my opinion the mower belts would slip before the extra HP ever did any damage to the gearbox..And even belt slippage would be rare as long as you didn't let your grass get out of contol.

thcri · Mar 17, 2007

I would run with the 40HP gear box and if you reck it, then buy the 50. But I doubt if you would ever reck it. Just make sure you have a good slip clutch on the system.

murph