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To Vote: John Deere 3320, 2320, ZTrak, X700 Series or Other.

3K views 11 replies 5 participants last post by  mowin 
#1 · (Edited)
Okay, first off I hope this does not agitate anyone, especially for those who have already taken a lot of their personal time to give me their opinions. Although I was thinking that this could be helpful to other newcomers with concerns similar to that of my own. So what I am going to do is try to shortly describe what it is I want to do, then I ask the community to select (in their opinion) which machine will work best for me. If you think there is one that may work better please let me know and I will add it to my list here.

I think the 3320 is going to be the biggest here and can not imagine I would want any larger than that though. Also if you have a second best please let me know and I will put a "1" next to your first choice and a "2" beside your secondary choice. I would really appreciate anyone willing to participate in my little survey here. I think it will be interesting to see where some of you end up and hopefully none of this is against any policy or anything and sorry if it is. Also it would be nice if you gave a description (length is up to you) to as why you made your choice. Well, let us begin gentlemen.......

As most of you know mowing grass for people is on the uppermost portion of my list. I would definitely say that yards are for the most part wide open and around 1-4 Acres in size. I want to make sure that my machine can NOT do considerable lawn damage although I can't see a tiny (and I mean tiny) bit hurting. I would say that in a year if I accumulate 100 hours on my machine I wouldn't be surprised if 50 of them were from mowing.

With this in mind I definitely want to be able to do other things, but considering my mowing priority it might be smarter to put it to the side.... Anyway I would love to be able to offer Snow Removal, Gravel Delivery/Spreading, Tilling Gardens, and anything else you can think that could be done (considerably well) with the machine you think is best for my workload. So I definitely would like to do other things with my future equipment but might need to get my priorities straight according to some of the veteran members here.

John Deere 3320 Votes: Hexa Fox (1),

John Deere 2320 Votes:

John Deere Ztrak Series Votes:

John Deere X700 Series Votes:
 
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#2 ·
Is this going to be your bread winner job? A full time job? A part time gig? Something to just make a couple bucks, kinda like a hobby that pays? If you're buying one of those machines with the majority of your intent to be self employed and profitable, you may need to think about adding more hours. 50 hours to 100 hours per year mowing is not much money to justify or afford the cost of those machines in my opinion.

Another thing I think would help others with your survey is what kind of condition are these lawns in that you plan to mow. Are they pristine lawns that are well taken care of or are they your average every day lawn? This makes a huge difference in what you use. Are the people you work for picky and fussy, are they older retired people who no longer can mow their own lawn, or are they the average Joe who wants their lawn cut? Once again this may make a difference in what you use. Just some food for thought.
 
#4 ·
I may have over exaggerated about my customers a little much. Their yards are actually far from perfect, but definitely in decent shape. With that said I (and my customers) will be able to tolerate some turf damage, but it would have to be on the minor side. By minor I mean any digging the tractor does should be unnoticeable in a few days or less. If I dig and throw turf every single time I go to turn the 3320 then sadly it is not the piece of equipment for me.

To answer your next question I would like to consider this a "side gig" because I will (hopefully) be able to pick up some of the tractors weight if everything is not picture perfect. Which nowadays if you think about it nothing really is. Although I would like to think that I will make a profit off of the tractor (even with the payment). Another really exciting thing is getting it paid off as soon as possible. Then everything is more or less "gravy".
 
#3 ·
My thought is if you're going to be in this as a serious business for mainly mowing go for a zero turn mower. You will not be sorry. As far as your list, as much as I love my 3320 I may say buy a ZTrak. Time is money and when you have the correct tool for the job you can do good quality work in good time. If you also plan on doing some landscaping work, dirt work, and snow removal you may later need to purchase a 3320 or something similar as your business grows.
 
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#6 ·
Maybe you should post a "poll". If go to start a new thread and scoll down near the bottom, there is a check box to start a poll. It will have all of the voting features that you can configure. If you play around with it, it's pretty self explanatory.
 
#7 ·
Here's a thought. What kind of mower would you be thinking of using on a tractor? A belly mower or a mower that mounts on back to the 3 point? I've looked at some 3 point mowers and like anything the price ranges all over the board. I found a King Kutter that will suit my needs more than enough and it is a very good quality product. The price is around $1,550. There are several other brands as well and I can imagine you drop a good $3,000 on a 3 point mower pretty easily. I believe a belly mower for the John Deere is around $4,500 installed? Maybe someone on here who has a mid point mower on their 3x20 series can give you a better clue to the pricing. You would need the mower, mid point PTO, and I believe there is a hydraulic kit of some sort tom move the mower up and down.

I guess what I may be getting at here is you should price out the mower option that you plan on using for the tractor and see how close that money can get you towards a zero turn mower that will work. There's a reason you see people who mow for a living using a zero turn instead of a tractor or riding mower. I do think after you described the yards and people you will work for the tractor would work ok in my opinion. I can also see why you want a tractor, I just think you may have more options to explore. The advantage with a zero turn is you can do any lawn small to large, ugly to super nice, and for people who are not picky or who are very fussy. I think you will get more mowing business with a zero turn.
 
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#8 ·
Thats exactly what I thought about doing. I was going to buy a larger tractor without the mower, and buy a ztr mower. I decided to go with the subcompact for now and see how my needs change in the future.
 
#10 · (Edited)
You need to determine which direction your business will most likely expand. If its mowing, the Z is the only way to go. Time is money, and with a Z you will save lots of time over a tractor. When I started my Lawn care biz, I had a Z and a lawn tractor. The lawn tractor was traded in after the first season.

No need to grow to fast either. Ive seen more then a few LCO's (lawn care operators), get over there heads and spend too much $$ all at once because they thought they had to have all the goodies to get the job done. Ive been doing Landscaping for 17 yrs now, and I still rent equipment when needed. It tuff to make payments on equipment that only gets used a few times a yr...


So, I guess my vote goes to the Z
 
#11 ·
Good point, but if I imagined my business expanding I would probably want it to go in any direction over mowing. Because there are a lot more jobs that are much quicker to do than mowing and can make a bigger profit. Simply because a tractor is the only thing that could do a lot of other things.
 
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