My only real concern with a used commercial unit was that it might have been a fleet mower. Spoke with the salesman a bit and it was a one owner that was bought at same dealer by a farmer with a 'big yard'. He had traded in on a new one with the 72" deck. The cobbled together anti scalp wheel on one side of deck confirmed 'farmer' to me (along with the bar tread tires on it lol). They had all his service records and whatnot.
I wasn't going to get involved in this thread but I'll wade in and give my thoughts and experiences... I think the whole serviceable transmission thing is overblown for the vast majority of home owners and the amount of mowing they do. I get it, it makes us all warm and fuzzy knowing we can change the oil and filter on our mowers transmissions, but for most it's not a necessary feature, especially considering the cost difference between a unit with and without it, which I'll touch on later. I've never had a new ride on mower until the one we bought last fall. I've always thought and still think a mower is a waste of money but a necessary evil, hence the used, mostly home owner, non servicable transmission equipped units I've owned. They all pulled a yard trailer hauling wood, bags of mulch ect. Some ran snowblowers as well with weights and chains plus mowing duty. None of my non servicable transmissions had a failure nore the servicable units I've owned. One in particular, a craftsman, spent the last 3 years pulling a 500 pound roller on 2.5 miles of trails on our property, every week, to crush down the ferns all summer. Before that, for 10 years, my neighbor, who bought it new, used it to mow 2.5-3 acres and pull a yard trailer as well as a leaf vac in the fall. I gave it to my nephew who uses it as his yard tractor now, as my Deere gx335 now is my yard tractor. The majority of my friends and family have home owner grade mowers, tractor style or zero turn. None have had a transmission failures with years of usage. I'm not saying they can't fail, anything and everything can and will with enough use, abuse or neglect. What I'm saying is, serviceable vs non isn't as important as we make it, if being realistic about our usage. I asked my local Toro dealer some questions when researching a new zero turn. He has been a Toro and Echo dealer for over 30 years and is the owner, salesman and mechanic at that establishment. In all his years he's had two premature failures of zero turn transmissions. One from a Time Cutter with "sealed for life" transmissions, the other was a full commercial unit with servicable hydros. The Time Cutter unit was after two years of the guy mowing a very hilly yard with a trailer always in tow holding his trimmer, blower and assorted yard tools. One of the two transmissions failed. He said they guy either stopped towing the trailer or he just hasn't had another failure as it had been 3 years since the replacement. The commercial unit failed because the owner failed to follow proper maintenance and went way over the first service on the hydros. I was going to get a Toro Time Cutter with My Ride suspension after testing my buddy's mower. He's been mowing 3+ acres with his for 5 years now. Ultimately, for me, ride quality and speed were the primary features I need with all my spine BS. The toro Titan with My Ride rides better than the Time Cutter and is noticably faster, so that's what we ended up buying. The servicable transmissions are just a "bonus". As to the price, I did the math before buying. You can buy 4 new non servicable transmissions for the Toro time Cutter and have some money left over vs the added cost of buying a Titan with the servicable transmissions. This didn't include labor as I could change one out myself. This is something to consider if the transmissions are your main concern over things like ride ect. This isn't a buy a Toro post. It's about the transmissions. They all, for the most part, use the same brand transmissions and the cost to buy replacements should be the same. If interested Haftacut , you can come try mine out. I'm probably a couple hours north west of you.
I forgot to mention, I mow 2.5-3 acres a week and it takes 45 minutes. Approximately once a month I'm mowing around 5 with the shooting ranges added in. That takes longer, obviously, but not double because its all straight lines with no obstacles to mow around. At the rate I'm mowing it will take 3 years to hit the break-in on the engine and 6 on the transmissions. I'll be changing everything sooner however.
52-54 hours per season for me. HST juice needs done every 400hrs, so about 7 years between serivices. 1 engine oil change per season. Been getting 100 hours between blade sharpenings. I plan for this unit to 'see me out'. With a solid 2000 hours of servicable life left...shouldn't be an issue. The only way I get somethig else is if I can find a deal on a lower hour F Series.
The toro mows at 8.5-9 mph with sharp blades and does so with a smooth ride. It used to take me 2 hours plus on the deere gx335 garden tractor. Not just because its not a zero turn, because I can't tolerate its ride at full speed. Even 1/2 speed.
A full commercial unit should last any home owner a life time if cared for. I'd hope anyway. Mine is like a farm and rach saw. Lol. It's in between a home owner unit and their commercial units. This one was already more than I wanted to spend, the cheapest toro commercial unit was 5 grand more. I plan on it being my last mower.
I should have mentioned in my long post that, obviously, there is more to a mower than serviceable tranmissions when comparing home owner units to light or full Comercial units. Everything is lighter and thinner the lower the grade. All the price difference isn't in the tranmissions.
I was looking on the kubota site last night. Definitely very expensive. I'm sure you will have no trouble passing that unit on some day, still in operating condition with your maintenance.
I really appreciate your thoughts and am glad you decided to weigh in. My experience with mowers is at both ends of the spectrum. I have used my John Deere la105 bought at Lowe’s for the past 14 years with the manual transmission. Mowers still going, just like the idea of spending less time than I do on the mower. The other end of the spectrum is mother in laws turf tiger. There’s a lot of mower between these two and just trying to decide where I want to fall. Planning to go today and check some out. I’ll take this new knowledge with me.
Sometimes my thoughts and opinions are not the popular one. I had to weigh out the potential "fall out" from posting and If I had the energy to defend it. The offer stands if you want to try out my Toro Titan. I'm up by Muskegon.
Lol. This was a game changer for me. I was seriously considering shrinking the mowing drastically and push mowing. Now, I zip through it and I'm not hating life for three days after. I ran the rear tires so soft on my deere that I had them come off the bead twice. Still rode like poo.
When I got my home, I mowed about 10 acres of grass .. mowed it once a week took about 24 hours. I killed every brand of homeowner riding lawn mower in a year At about 2006 with gas prices reaching $5 a gallon it was $100 a week in gas alone helped “friend” finance Kubota; then brush hog fields 2 x year and saved $$ just mowed 4 acres around house. About 4 hours and 5 gallons of gas.. saved $$ bought commercial z turn (Ferris) because of suspension mows 4 acres in 2 gallons and an hour. My fields are like eatonpcat one is named ol lumpy.
$100/week to mow the lawn! I’d say you had to do something about it! Nice job getting all that time back each week. I enjoy mowing grass, but not that much.
These two comments seem to contradict each other. As I mentioned earlier in this thread, my experience is that serviceability does matter, IMO that's why my Toro Timecutter had Hydrogear trans full of silver oil every 7 years/350hrs. (which BTW, most non commercial grade ZT's have Hydrogear drives, the cheaper/homeowner ones non-serviceable, the "estate owners" or light duty commercial models with serviceable Hydrogear drives) I have zero doubt this would have happened if the small amount of oil in these non serviceable units have in them could have been changed...doubly so if it had a filter (not just a suction screen to plug up) I've had my Hustler (with a very HD commercial drive system) for 8-9 years now and I've only changed oil/filter once (but it may have been changed a time or two before I got it, with 400 hrs on it) and the oil still looks clean/clear/new. I mow about 2 acres and its mostly, but not totally flat...and I did pull a lawn roller 1x per year. I need to contact the fellow that bought my old Toro, see how its held up for him since I put drain plugs in the trans cases the last time I rebuilt them...went with Mobil synthetic oil too (per the dealer) Oh, and I worked with a guy that tends to buy cheap riders from bLowes to mow his 2-3 acres...last I saw him he said he'd generally get about 2 years out of whatever elcheapo model Toro ZT that they stocked before the drives would go out...shop told him they were junk and needed replaced, I assume that they looked like mine inside, silver oil. Now keep in mind, these models usually have pretty cheap engines on them too...but those don't go bad (before the trans failure anyways) my opinion is this is because the engines get the oil changed...but make them go 2 years on the same oil, I bet the failure rate skyrockets!
This reminds me of something from back when I worked at the bike shop... Yamaha had a little 80, and later on 100cc four wheeler...they were shaft drive and first had sealed "lifetime" rear axles (ring/pinion) which failed, a lot! They later on went to a more standard setup where you can change the gear oil, end of problems!
I average 25 mows a year at 20 hours a mow that’s 500 hours! I don’t mow a lawn anymore; I cut my weeds same height. My dad’s father was a farmer and he knew how much work it was to clear, remove stumps and rocks etc for a 2 acre field. Letting a field go back to brush was almost a felony in his mind and often we would use 2 riders and mow it together. Over 20 years ago now
