Garden tractors have been popular among homeowners and small property owners needed maintenance. Recent trends have been moving away from garden tractors towards sub-compact tractors and zero-turn mowers, which can provide more options and work more efficiently than many garden tractors. Which piece of equipment is right for you? Neil explains why you might want to consider a sub-compact tractor or zero-turn mower instead of a garden tractor.
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29 Comments
I think you're confused. I never seen anyone use a garden tractor to mow their lawn with on a regular basis. Now, some may have went ahead and mowed areas of their lawns after they bush hogged a field, but mowing the yard was done with LAWN MOWERS. Also, you stated that garden tractor did not come with a three point hitch…. You may want to research that a bit more. What do you think the plows and such attached to when people prepped their gardens, or used plow blades to push snow, or box blades, etc, etc? You're also speaking of Lawn Mower and Lawn Tractor are two very different machines. Lawn Tractors are the same as Lawn Mowers. What you are actually referring to is not a Lawn Tractor, but a Sub Compact Tractor. Society is dumb. The term Lawn Tractor should have never been adopted for Lawn Mower.
What happened was a new simplicity was reaching 10,000 for a garden tractor, Nuff said, but I do miss the day when My 1968 simplicity in 2001 pulled out a ford 8n that was having trouble plowing My brother in laws drive way out, That 10 hp simplicity not only yanked the 8n out of the snow I plowed My bros drive way with it, LOl, Freeking amazing machines they were and built to last forever, Its still freeking running.
Still using 50+ year old Cub Cadets.
I love my 2007 John Deere 728
In the Midwest Garden Tractors still hold there value. Leaf cleanup, snow blowing or plowing, etc… The ZT is a one trick pony. While they mow well you throw in hills or other chores and they don't cut the mustard. A JD x700 series machine sells for at least 5k here(MI) most are closer to 10k so its very region dependent on what sells. I have a Simplicity Legacy and honestly a ZT isn't much faster cutting my yard, plus it struggles if the grass is wet with my hills.
I have a Cub Cadet and a John Deere. They’re the best for tilling in between garden rows, mowing over difficult terrain and using a lawn vacuum. Sometimes, a subcompact is still too big and a zero turn isn’t feasible.
The Deere x700 is a bit overkill. They make a good x500 series with power lift and power steering
Kubota had a nice diesel one with a problematic electric steering. Deere had a 400 series in the 90's that rocked my cousin said. Except for the Deere's plastic cracking issues. They are commanding big money though so your better off with a BX if you want the 4×4, The Massey GC series front blade and blower interchange with the BX just a hose end difference .
Same here, i have a cub cadet 147 with a belly mower and a tiller, and a 1650 for trailer pulling, weed spraying, discing, cultivating, scraping, i used to have a plow for it too, a tweaker stole it and scrapped it. Either way, love my cubs!!!
I tried everything you could imagine to cut my grass. Lawn tractors up to 50", finish mowers behind tractors, even a 60" deck under a B series Kubota. But my Ferris IS2000Z changed my life. What a machine.
If they weren’t junk people would buy them. But they are all china junk.
I love my X595. 4 wheel drive, diesel, 3pt, loader, cab, and more. I don't need a subcompact.
A lawn cart is a must have for the zero turn mower. I am always using mine.
Man, I sure don't want to loose any money, so sign me up for the $25,000 tractor and the $4000 zero turn! I mean, a 30 year old Case/Ingersoll 448 will pull a 6 foot mower behind it easy…and you can buy a mint one that runs great with every attachment they ever made for it for 5 grand….but hey, you're the expert.
i was looking at that McCormick planter at the end it would fit my farmall230 tractor real nice 🙂
as a younger kid, my family had a 700 series John Deer garden tractor with a 60 in cut and it cut the grass just fine with no issues. Wish we kept that tractor
I still like them. But the zero turn mowers seem to be the mower to own these days.
An x700 is darn near a sub compact as far as size and cost. I think a much more fair comparison that was more common in size in 70's, 80's, 90's and up would be an x500 series. They range in the 6,000.00 to 9,000.00 range. We have four garden tractors and one sub-compact 1025r. I think the zero turn has cost them sales more than anything. A sub compact is just a huge jump up in price and in my opinion is not really big enough to do any serious work even with a bucket loader. We have bigger tractors and a skid steer for the bigger jobs.
I spent months wrestling with what to buy to take care of our new 6 acre property. I tried and tried to find a good used machine or even a combination of an older compact tractor and a used zero turn. I didn't want to break the bank, but also didn't want to have two machines to maintain if I could help it. I finally bit the bullet and bought a Kubota BX 2380 with a loader and belly mower. The financing terms are ridiculously good. They practically pay you to own the thing, and you can sell it in 10 years for a premium if you need to. 84 months with 0% financing? Crazy. I couldn't be happier. My only thing I wish I had is the backhoe, but I couldn't justify an extra $5K to get the 23S.
You’re forgetting the death of our wealth. I have a garden tractor (mower). I also have a 60+ year old REAL tractor with FEL that cost only a few hundred more than the mower. No way can I afford a modern compact tractor, especially not to mow my lawn.
I still got my 08 x720 the pto clutch went out in it so it can't spin the blades any more joh Deere wanted 5000$ to fix it, ummm no but I still use it everyday for hauling and getting from One place to another.i 3800 hrs
That zero turns will mow grass more efficiently is a fantasy, they are more productive due to their near zero turning radius but you take that same HP of engine and put it on a properly made regular riding and it'll do more faster. The transmission on zeros and that shitty thin height deck are very wasteful of power. I would take a center rear discharge riding over a zero twice every day of the week. Center rear discharge mowers are effectively more powerful than side transit mowers as well since they're not using 30% of the power applied to the blades to carry the grass from the further blade over to the output chute.
We make some MONSTER zero-turn mowers down here in Florida that simply aren't available in the rest of the country unless you come get em. HP to HP a regular riding will out-mow a zero all day long on open areas and I doubt you'll find a functional mulching deck for a zero.
Zero's are just ornamental lawn care niche machines.
You get into some quirky problems with zeros like when you back up your wheelbase is increased enough that mowing backwards over hills will cut a little shorter and through troughs will cut a little higher. You get a lot more wear and tear on zeros as well. They're compact and difficult to maintain at times. In the end there's no point in getting a riding zero vs a standing zero since the standing is far more maneuverable and easier to work on and compact. I've seen companies use both types and very quickly they end up with 1 riding, 2 or more standing and "gun racks" for trimmers/hedgecutters and rakes on the standings.
Bowlins made an articulated center deck that was excellent and Swisher made those 3 wheel front drives that were incredible for yarding. So there are 3 kinds of mowers that are better than a riding zero turn. Four if you're doing large well groomed areas with your Toro 5 reel.
There is a pretty big cult following of the old Sears Suburban gt. I found one for $200 for my electric conversion project. A gear drive was essential (hydro is inefficicent at transmitting power). Many people buy these for pulling events. In my case, I am very happy with its ability to tow a 3000lb camper around my small urban lot. Anything bigger would not work. Still has a stout rear end and stump pulling low gear. Nothing modern could fit my interest as they are all hydro, and there are a couple small manufacturers of battery powered compact tractors but still too big. (Monarch and Soletrac). Everything in the video made sense, I agree.
Lets tell it like it is. PRICE!! Price killed the Garden Tractor.
What is the McCormick planter next to the cub-cadet. It looks brand new, but I can’t believe it is, moreover why is it sitting on the used lot next to a cub-cadet garden tractor?
A quality garden tractor does everything I need it to do. I think some people get caught up into thinking they “need” the newest and greatest.
I don’t mind if it takes 20 minutes longer to mow the lawn; I’m in no hurry.
Buyers probably got tired of the ever more cheaply built riding mowers and even garden tractors and made the jump Kubota BX and JD 1000 series tractors.
People step away from garden tractors when they all became cheap made and expensively priced there has been no real garden tractors since the time of the Wheel Horse D series, The Speedex S series, The Economy 1614, The Simplicity 700 series, The Sears Suburbans, The John Deere 110,120,140,214,317,318,420. Once all the companies stopped making garden tractors and started selling rebranded MTD junks and tin and plastic overpriced crap is when people stopped buying garden tractors if a company today built a new duplicate of the 50s and 60s Speedexs and all the attachments for them out of the steel that was originally used instead of tin and plastic and at an affordable price guarenteed people would buy them over the subcompacts and zero turns. When you have 20-30 hp briggs and kohlers of today that can't do half the mowing or work of an old 60s,70s 8hp tractor there is a problem. Got a 24hp Simplicity and A Speedex S24 from 1963 with an 8hp cast iron briggs and a 1/4" steel chain drive mower deck around 4ft and the old Speedex mows circles around the Simplicity doesn't get stuck on dew coated grass goes up and down hills along with across hills will pull just about anything it's hooked to. Maybe if crap didn't get cheesy made and built to last more than a year or two people would be buying them but when Cub Cadet,Husqvarna and Sears and John Deere all rebrand junk MTDs and overprice them people are gonna turn away from them but if they actually built something that wasn't throw away junk they'd sell.
My craftsman LT1000 that i got in 2003 is on its last legs. Going to try and save it this winter and fix it but not sure if i will be able. So now i am trying to decide if i get a new riding mower, try and find an old garden tractor for sale or add rear remotes to my Kubota B2650 and buy an offset ditch/ bank mower so i can mow around my pond. That would be a sweet option since i could also cut my 200ft ditch in the front yard. That would save the pain and strain on my ankle that i broke and am missing a piece of. I kinda like having a second mower tho, sometimes my tractor is tied up with other work and is not practical to constantly strip it down once a week to put the mid mower on just to cut grass. Decision Decision