On Wed, 14 Apr 2004 03:30:05 -0400, Gary Coffman
shouted from the rooftop:


What I really wanted, and what I should have bought, was a John
Deere 48 inch front deck zero turning radius mower. That's a hoss,
tough, dependable, and able to do things you'd otherwise need a
trim mower to do (I have one up at the farm).

None of the above. Contractors around here won't use John Deere and
JD's commercial turf equipment is the joke of the industry.
Good tractors, lousy mowers.

A Grasshopper and
a Dixon were also in the running. But I Cheapistaned out and
bought that blasted Toro instead. (Wheel Horse my ass!)

Never heard of Grasshopper. As for Dixon...
The inside scoop is this: Toro and Jacobsen are the industry leaders.
Ford and Chevy. There are some other good machines out there (Stiener
and Husqvarna come to mind) but their support is small and that limits
sales. The rest are all built in a three-sided barn by a bunch of
liquored up hillbillies with a Montgomery Wards buzzbox.

All that venting aside, I agree with Carl that you should buy a
commercial grade mower. Buy it once, keep it forever, you'll be
glad you did. Zero turning radius front deck machines are so far
ahead of tractor style mowers for the average yard that it isn't
even funny. They're so much more nimble you'll get done much
faster, and you can get rid of your trim mower.

Agreed. But don't confuse the 'consumer' zero turn mowers with the
commercial units.

-Carl
"An honest man doesn't need a long memory"- Jesse Ventura