Agri Vehicles Insurance from Greenlands

Author Topic: Ride on mower?  (Read 3486 times)

Possum

  • Joined Feb 2012
  • Somerset
Ride on mower?
« on: July 22, 2017, 04:04:30 pm »
Hubbie's 60th birthday is coming up and I was thinking of buying him a ride on mower as a special present. I have been offered an ex-demo John Deere X125 for £1500. Does anyone have any experience of using one? I cannot find any independent reviews on the web.


It will need to do the rough grass in the orchard as well as keeping down the grass in the paddocks when the sheep are being rotated. We don't need it to produce those smart looking stripes on a lovely lawn as we don't have one of those!

pgkevet

  • Joined Jul 2011
Re: Ride on mower?
« Reply #1 on: July 22, 2017, 06:04:24 pm »
No experience of that particular model but I personally  chose a front deck mower for here. Reasons are that I can get it under low trees by going from each radius, get closer to difficult/narrow ends of my odd shaped lawns and no danger of clogging the side discharges you have on mid-decks when grass is long or damp. With a mulching deck I don't collect grass so no need to keep emptying.

Steph Hen

  • Joined Jul 2013
  • Angus Scotland.
Re: Ride on mower?
« Reply #2 on: July 22, 2017, 06:59:02 pm »
My husband made same choice as pgkevet for the same mobility reasons. Not sure if that helps or not?

Possum

  • Joined Feb 2012
  • Somerset
Re: Ride on mower?
« Reply #3 on: July 23, 2017, 02:22:53 pm »
Hmmm....


Thanks for the replies but the front deck mowers that I have seen are about £3000+ which is a bit more than my budget can cope with. The John Deere has a mulching function which is why is looks like very good value. However, if it is a poor performer generally it won't make a very good birthday present.


Does anyone else out there have any experience?

Still playing with tractors

  • Joined Jul 2012
  • Cumbernauld
  • You can never have enough HP
Re: Ride on mower?
« Reply #4 on: July 24, 2017, 10:06:09 am »
we own and use a variety of grass cutting kit from tractor mounted flails/toppers and finishing mowers but also have a ride on for the garden and access road verges.

our model picks the grass up which for kept areas is best for healthy grass, and It leaves a nice finish. the verges were long when we moved in and it took a long time slowly bringing it down to get it easily manageable. which sounds like your orchard?

I would not use it for any rough areas or paddock / grazing as ride on's are just not designed for it.
Not sure if you have a quad, but for a good all round solution you should have a look at a tow behind self powered flail, which would do all your asking.

The JD ride on's are good kit, but as mentioned before they are a garden only piece of kit.

hope that helps

chrismahon

  • Joined Dec 2011
  • Gascony, France
Re: Ride on mower?
« Reply #5 on: July 24, 2017, 10:18:16 am »
A friend has a John Deere front deck mower, but has found it so unreliable it now never leaves his garage. The steering is also very heavy.


We were also restricted with our budget and ended up with a good secondhand rear ejection mower- a Husqvarna. With a 21HP Kawasaki engine it has plenty of power for the hills. Cuts 5000m2 per hour, which is how mowers are specified here- it's not just the deck width that determines the figure, but the cutting and driving speed. So this machine has 4 cutting blades not two and so cuts twice as fast. The advantage of rear ejection is that cuttings can be collected for tidiness and also to use for mulch around trees- it's very hot and dry here. When you are not collecting mulch a rear deflector is fitted to put the cuttings down and well spread behind you. The problem with side ejection is the cuttings are often thrown onto the cut areas in a pile and that looks a mess which you may end up raking.


In my experience mulching using a closed deck just results in the deck jamming up with grass so, although it can be done with our machine by blanking off the deck grass outlet, we don't bother.


You will need to buy a lifting frame as well Possum, so you can get to the deck for cleaning and the blades for sharpening. Over here they are less than €100.

Possum

  • Joined Feb 2012
  • Somerset
Re: Ride on mower?
« Reply #6 on: August 03, 2017, 10:19:39 pm »
Thanks to you all for such useful info. Good to know that John Deere is good kit although perhaps more useful for lawns. I think i will try out the one on offer and see how it does in the orchard. If it doesn't cope, i will have to think again. :fc:

 

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