Posted by John W. S. son of John S. [162.158.79.248] on Monday, April 01, 2019 at 08:35:46 :
In Reply to: OT, Zero Turn Mowers posted by Will [172.68.38.73] on Friday, March 29, 2019 at 18:43:19 :
The best advice I can give is to buy a mower that is easily rated for your needs. If you need the requirements of a commercial duty mower then anything less will end up giving you trouble in time. The flip side is if you do not need a commercial mower, then the cost is just not justifiable.
All of the MTD products that I have seen are geared toward homeowner sales and simply do not hold up to commercial or heavy use. John Deere from your favorite box store is in about the same market. Their commercial line is much better, but truth be told I do not do business with my local dealer anymore due to incredibly poor customer service. I used to do service work on a municipality owned Bad Boy, and they are nothing short of brutal when operating their equipment. That mower was impressively resilient, especially the deck. There were very few, non-routine maintenance problems other than some operator inflicted wiring issues. They also had a smaller Cub Cadet ZT (MTD product) and it was constantly in the shop for broken spindle parts, cracks and tears on the deck, frame, and caster mounts. Again, they put their equipment through the most abusive and destructive environments I have witnessed.
I personally owned a very well used Gravely walk behind and did not do much more than general maintenance to it for many hours of run time. Now I have a Snapper walk behind and after rebuilding literally everything on he machine, it has been very solid as well.
Which brand you buy is less important than the quality of the components on the brand that you buy. Local dealer and service support is also an important factor, especially when your machine is down. Having to drive hours to pick up or order simple parts gets old very quickly.
Best of luck,
John S.