Rear finish mower vs dedicated lawn tractor

[Fordman98]

I'm trying to decide what the best direction to go with the next mower would be. My current mowers deck just fell apart so I need to decide what to do soon. I was trying to wait till next season before I replaced it but we all now plans don't always work out.

Currently I have about an 1.5 acres of grass to mow. Which at least half is hills but nothing extremely steep. My wife and I plan to clear out about another 1-2 acres to expand the yard and put in a small garden.

My question is what would be better a tractor with a rfm or just buying a lawn tractor? I would love a zt but don't know how well it would do on the hills I have. I'm purchasing a tractor at some point anyways for other tasks but wasnt quite ready to purchase just yet. But maybe if a rfm would work better I should just go ahead and get the tractor with rfm and have everything all in one package. What would you do in my situation?

 

[riptides]

I'm trying to decide what the best direction to go with the next mower would be. My current mowers deck just fell apart so I need to decide what to do soon. I was trying to wait till next season before I replaced it but we all now plans don't always work out.

Currently I have about an 1.5 acres of grass to mow. Which at least half is hills but nothing extremely steep. My wife and I plan to clear out about another 1-2 acres to expand the yard and put in a small garden.

My question is what would be better a tractor with a rfm or just buying a lawn tractor? I would love a zt but don't know how well it would do on the hills I have. I'm purchasing a tractor at some point anyways for other tasks but wasnt quite ready to purchase just yet. But maybe if a rfm would work better I should just go ahead and get the tractor with rfm and have everything all in one package. What would you do in my situation?

A tractor can handle all that. I'd get into lawn mowers when you have more "lawn". RFM's do fine jobs, and a tractor can do more than just "lawn".

 

[LukeDuke30]

A tractor can handle all that. I'd get into lawn mowers when you have more "lawn". RFM's do fine jobs, and a tractor can do more than just "lawn".

We mow our open pasture area with a RFM. We bought a zero turn for the other side of the property with lots of trees and obstacles. It is only about 1 acre but takes longer to mow than an open 2 acres.

 

[Budweiser John]

I'm trying to decide what the best direction to go with the next mower would be. My current mowers deck just fell apart so I need to decide what to do soon. I was trying to wait till next season before I replaced it but we all now plans don't always work out.

Currently I have about an 1.5 acres of grass to mow. Which at least half is hills but nothing extremely steep. My wife and I plan to clear out about another 1-2 acres to expand the yard and put in a small garden.

My question is what would be better a tractor with a rfm or just buying a lawn tractor? I would love a zt but don't know how well it would do on the hills I have. I'm purchasing a tractor at some point anyways for other tasks but wasnt quite ready to purchase just yet. But maybe if a rfm would work better I should just go ahead and get the tractor with rfm and have everything all in one package. What would you do in my situation?

If you only have one tractor swapping out implements is a PITA and since the grass usually needs to be mowed once every week or so, that痴 a lot of time wrestling with PTO shafts.
I would recommend a dedicated lawn mower, ready to go on a moments notice and is spouse friendly.

J. John

 

[Lnk]

I'm trying to decide what the best direction to go with the next mower would be. My current mowers deck just fell apart so I need to decide what to do soon. I was trying to wait till next season before I replaced it but we all now plans don't always work out.

Currently I have about an 1.5 acres of grass to mow. Which at least half is hills but nothing extremely steep. My wife and I plan to clear out about another 1-2 acres to expand the yard and put in a small garden.

My question is what would be better a tractor with a rfm or just buying a lawn tractor? I would love a zt but don't know how well it would do on the hills I have. I'm purchasing a tractor at some point anyways for other tasks but wasnt quite ready to purchase just yet. But maybe if a rfm would work better I should just go ahead and get the tractor with rfm and have everything all in one package. What would you do in my situation?

I have been looking at the power-tracs. The pt-425 looks like the tool for around here. Just wanting to find out how it does on my hills. Swapping implements looks crazy easy. Don't want to throw a wrench in your plans, but you might want to look into them.

Power Trac Products

Lnk

 

[Gary Fowler]

A good commercial duty, even if it is light commercial duty, zero turn mower will handle just about any hill that is safe to mow. I regularly mow my pond dam with mine and some of it is 30 degree slope that I can still mow sideways if the grass is dry so I dont slide. Otherwise I can go straight up and down without any issues. The old wife's tale about zero turns not handling hills is due to the box store machines that weight maybe 350 pounds, THEY wont hold on even a slight hillside of say 10 degrees because they dont have enough weight nor big enough tires to stick to the ground. BTDT with a 6000 series Craftsman zero turn, it would slide sideways on a 10 degree slope with full counter steer. It would just slowly turn downhill. I mow some really steep hills (up, down and sideways) with my Ferris IS700Z with no problems.
A zero turn is much safer on hill than any tractor could ever be made due to it's low center of gravity compared to tractors with their very high CG.
I know lots of folks will disagree, but mowing grass is for a lawnmower not a tractor. A tractor with RFM or belly mower is a compromise to try to make a tractor do more and it will never do the job as well as a dedicated lawnmower. Lawnmowers are basically a "one trick pony" but they do that trick very well.

 

[mikester]

I'm trying to decide what the best direction to go with the next mower would be. My current mowers deck just fell apart so I need to decide what to do soon. I was trying to wait till next season before I replaced it but we all now plans don't always work out.

Currently I have about an 1.5 acres of grass to mow. Which at least half is hills but nothing extremely steep. My wife and I plan to clear out about another 1-2 acres to expand the yard and put in a small garden.

My question is what would be better a tractor with a rfm or just buying a lawn tractor? I would love a zt but don't know how well it would do on the hills I have. I'm purchasing a tractor at some point anyways for other tasks but wasnt quite ready to purchase just yet. But maybe if a rfm would work better I should just go ahead and get the tractor with rfm and have everything all in one package. What would you do in my situation?

1.5+ acres is a fair bit of grass to mow.

For me, less time mowing was what I needed. I quoted hiring out the lawn maintenance to save time and the break even point for a new commercial ZT vs contractor was about 2 years. I finally splurged on a dedicated commercial ZT mower and got a larger CUT for the utility stuff. 9 years later I'm still using the same ZT and I have no regrets other than I wish I did it sooner.

If you are looking for golf greens lawn then forget the ZT. Hills and traction isn't a problem after I installed bar tires on the ZT last year.

If you are retired and enjoy spending time riding around on a mower get a SCUT/CUT with MMM or rear finishing mower. Jack of all trades...

 

[MossRoad]

I have been looking at the power-tracs. The pt-425 looks like the tool for around here. Just wanting to find out how it does on my hills. Swapping implements looks crazy easy. Don't want to throw a wrench in your plans, but you might want to look into them.

Power Trac Products

Lnk

Yes, changing the 60" mower on PowerTrac to another implement takes about 30 seconds because I have to disconnect two hydraulic hoses. Non-powered implements take less than 15 seconds and you don't have to get off the seat.

However, there's a few things to consider. First, the 60" deck is currently priced at $1600. For 1 acre, if the OP doesn't currently have a tractor, I'd spend that $1600 towards a cheap lawn tractor, or riding mower that'll last about 10 years, and save money towards a bigger tractor in the future, like he wants.

I'm guessing that a good RFM for a conventional tractor will cost more than $1600, and, like others have mentioned, he'll have to leave it on most of the time if he's mowing every week. That might not be a bad thing. But if it was me, and I was getting a conventional tractor, I'd skip the RFM and get a dedicated lawn mowing machine, or maybe, a tractor that has a drive over mid-mount deck that could be hooked up and removed a lot easier than a RFM. Now we're talking big bucks for a tractor and implements VS a lawnmower right now. It's fun to spend other peoples' money. :laughing:

 

[countrybumpkin]

Another thing to consider is weight, if you have a wet spring a tractor may be to heavy for a yard and you would need to wait for it to dry out some so keeping a nice trimmed yard might be difficult at times.

 

[Gary Fowler]

After using a zero turn, I would never go back to a lawn tractor. Neighbor widow lady has about half acre lot with about have of it covered in building and stashed material. Just after her husband died, me and another neighbor went over to mow her yard using her lawn tractor with 54" deck. It took me the better part of an hour to mow with it and it nearly beat me to death going over her rough lawn. I mowed it with my 52" deck zero turn in just over 15 minutes and my Ferris suspension system really smoothed things out. The neighbor that was with me also has a zero turn and tried the tractor mower for about 2 minutes and climbed off. If you have a lot of trees, flower beds, shrubs and other yard art obstacles, a tractor type mower is just a PIA to use, you spend about half the time just making circles to get the sides you missed.

Dont make the mistake of getting a low budget box store zero turn, they wont last and worse still, wont hold on hills. Also if you have steep slopes or slightly wet areas, get bar lug tires on the mowers drive wheels.