I have a 15 acre total size property with 3 that are grass. The general slope that we are built on is 15-17 degrees with steeper areas that are right near 45 degrees.
Since 1990 we have been playing around with different things, first was a Kawasaki Bayou 300 4x4 ATX with a 54" Kimpex 12HP pusher mower. That was tough! It cut great and had great power, but the weight was so much that going sideways you always had to be turned uphill to fight the pull of the deck, this caused the grass to get tore up and streaked. The ATV transmission could not take the weight and hills and failed 2 times before we gave up.
Sears Garden tractor, 24HP Tecumseh, it was a lower end with small drive axle and 46" deck. It was okay at first, but the transaxle could only do the steeper slopes when first started and the fluid was cold/thicker. The POS engine died after 5 summers of mowing.
2010 Sears Excellerator GT - Arguably the biggest, baddest, and bestest tractor ever to set in a Sears store. This Husky built garden tractor is truly a beast, with a Hydro Gear 730 rear axle and 26 HP Kohler Courage, it has never ending power. But the engine is a Courage (not a contractor grade, rated EPA class C for 500 hours median engine life) and after 7 summers the transaxle is starting to give it up. Where this thing used to crush the hills at speed (8.5 MPH max speed, and it was close even up hills at first!) the transaxle is giving up a good bit of its power now when going up.
I run this Excellerator with the biggest wheel weights I could get, fluid filled rear tires, and chains. That allows me to get up the hills while mowing... often with the front axle bouncing lightly up and down as I balance my weight to keep it on the edge of a wheelie. My property has no flat ground :-(
My local mower/tractor (Town and Country, Rochester PA) shop says that a zero turn will not work on my yard, he knows where I live. He says that his Mahindra Emax or Max 4x4 would work well.
Vernon Del out in Calcutta Ohio suggested a John Deer Garden tractor that makes my Craftsman look like a kids toy.... and it is 4x4. But he also suggested the Massey Ferguson GC1705/1715.
So both folks had a SCUT as a recommendation, and honestly... I have been salivating over the concept of a bucket and backhoe for years. I don't "need" it, but holly cow batman... I want!
So the Massey Ferguson GC1720 turns out to be cheaper than a similarly equipped Mahindra Emax. The Mahindra has teeth above the backhoe bucket that would grab a rock or tree, that looks nasty cool! But overall, I like the overall looks and weld quality of the Massey Ferguson better.
My biggest issue is life expectancy of these $17,000 things on hills like I have. If these can't deal for 30 years living on my hill side, I may as well go back to Sears/Husky and spend $4,000 every 5-8 years on a boring garden tractor. But if these SCUT machines are really so much more robust that they can haul their fat butts around these hills for 100-150 hours a year for 20-30 years... I am very interested.
So my goals are to cut my 3 acres 1 to 2 times a week. I spend 4 to 4.5 hours doing this now with my wife on the tractor while I am trimming and push mowing the really steep stuff. The loader and backhoe are more for fun... I shoot on my property and can use them to fashion a better berm to shoot into. We have a camping area down back with ATV/Jeep trails and get water ruts that are tough to repair... with this maybe I can get down into the woods and back out using the R4 tires?
That Vernon Del guys John Deer massive garden tractor would likely be all I would ever need for cutting alone... but at $12,000 for a garden tractor I can easily start to convince myself that a SCUT with loader/backhoe/mid mount mower is worth going to. Suddenly mulch is fun, cutting trees is MORE fun, I can dig like a child any time I wish! I have a wide/long blacktop driveway as well, but I use a Yamaha Rhino 660 with a 60" Warn plow to remove snow on that, and let me say..... That is a snow moving beast! 11 years old and 900 hours on it, I have only changed the battery 1 time so far. But I can hit 18" wet snow and toss it like nothing with the plow angled. I can not imagine the tractor being as fast as the Rhino for that, so I have no plans of snow removal with a 5 or 10 MPH tractor when I can hit that at 20 MPH on the Rhino!
So let me know what you think about using a SCUT on sloped terrain, good idea or not?
Keep throwing away Craftsman/Husky tractors?
Go buy a boring but monstrous JD Garden Tractor?
Is there a general life expectancy of these various SCUT diesel engines and Hydrostatic systems? Like 2,000 hrs, or maybe 10,000 hours?
The 3 closest brands available to me that are not of the "big 3" are LS at 1.5 hours, Vernon Del at 1 hour away with MF (and JD as well as NH) and finally Town and Country at 10 miles away with Mahindra and Cub Cadet. The 10 miles vs 1 HR vs 1.5 HR is not a huge deal, I would really hope to not be making periodic trips to meet these people.... If these are true working class machines, I would expect to buy it and do my annual fluids/filters, mid season blade sharpening (at 40 or so hours) and that would be it unless something broke.
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