looking for the best new garden/lawn tractor out there.
does anyone have any recommendations <$5K?
not really looking for a zero turn one, it would be nice if it could take attachments just in case future needs require them. needs to be easy to use as well. online reviews don't really help since most of the time people don't write something about it unless its bad. been looking off and on for the last month and learned enough to know I don't know what makes one a great one.
any guidelines people can provide the better, such as:
pros/cons of mower deck width
transmissions
adjustable height of deck
power, what size engine should I consider the minimum?

thanks, any advice is appreciated

Once upon a time it would have been Gravely. They had all kinds of attachments and extremely well made and virtually indestructable. Now everything not John Deere green is pretty much pure junk. The one exception is Kubota. But neither JD nor Kubota are in the price range you indicate. One thing for absolute certainty, ztay well away from Cub Cadet. The old ones were great. The new ones are horrible.

It's a little older but I have a Craftsman (same thing as Husky). It has the Kohler 26hp and the hydrostatic transmission. So far in 7 years it's been close to flawless. The hydro tranny is very handy but it gives up a little power to the manual. My partner has the same tractor with a 24 hp kohler and the manual and it will outpull mine with the 26hp.

I have a sleeve hitch on it and use a homemade cultivator. The hitch has no downward force so it needs some weight added to dig in even a little. However, the weight can make it quite hard to lift. The hitch mechanism is a bit flimsy for lifting very much weight.

I have been using the same Craftsman for 18 years. Did it ever need any repair .... Yes, of course.
However I have always been able to fix it myself at low cost. All in all, its been great to have.

What are you intending to do with it? If it's just for mowing larger acreages, the lower-end John Deeres work very well. I bought a JD D130 this summer to mow my 1 acre grass cover around my house, and it works very well. Hydrostatic trans, 22 hp twin motor, 42" deck fully adjustable, etc. I didn't want anything bigger than the 42" deck because of some tight spots I need to negotiate. So far, I am more than satisfied with the tractor. It is very easy to use, anyone could run one with a minimum of instruction.
It will take a number of attachments, such as snow blade, leaf pickups, tow behind aerators, etc. if needed.
Cost was $1900, but they go up in price and capability from there.
You will have to look hard to find a bad review on a John Deer implement.

Might take a look at Simplicity. There older mowers are built like a tank. Don't know about the new ones.

I'm somewhat in the same boat.

Had a Husqvarna hand grenade an engine on me 2 weeks ago. Kohler Courage 20 single with less than 200 hours. Tractor, engine and mowing was one giant POS from day one. Reviews are all over the place and nothing is cheap.

On the positive side, I don't have to mow a 5x15 foot section of my lawn anymore as the oil killed it.

I read somewhere that as of this year the craftsman mowers are built by someone else now, not Husky anymore

Raven

these are pretty new, anyone ever tried one?
lots of positive reviews, especially on customer service.
any thoughts?

Are you just going to cut grass or are you going to need a tiller or something for the garden?

That's an interesting concept.

I bought an Cub XT3 in June to mow with. I put Ag tractor type tires on it and it does a good job for me. I wish the deck would raise 1/2 more at the top setting but I can live with it as is. Around here the XT3 is the only shaft drive under $5K. The XT3 has a drive system that you can replace the fluid in and has a spin on filter. They are built by MTD.

My "Nothing Runs Like a Deere" JD 300 transmission took a chit at a whopping 242 hours, out of 2 years warranty, mowed 1 acre of grass once a week, never again! I paid $3K for the JD, I just bought an XMark zero turn for $5K, it's a 10 times better mower! I think JD's are now made in China. Good luck.

deeres are garbage, look at simplicity, i love them, and my whole family has them after i had mine for 10 years an abused the [bleep] out of it

You have to get into the 320's before you get the 'better' transmissions.

i've had a simplicity regent 44" deck & 22hp briggs for 6 mowing seasons now. i mow about 2.5 acres of grass and trails. or should i say my boys do. they killed a mtd troybuilt in 9 years but this simplicity is still going strong. i think with bagger i had just shy of $3k OTD. the bagger was a waste of $400 but the rest of the mower is very well built. had to replace a spindle housing this year when a stump bent it up. i'm on 2nd set of blades but thats it.

Not all John Deere's deserve the green paint. simplicitys are good mowers I've got a older model 2001 maked AGCO Allis

My JD LT178 is 18 years old and still mowing grass. Been serviced every year. As far as I'm concerned "Nothing runs like a Deere".

RE just mowing lawns, we mow a couple of strips of about 2000 yards of road frontage and 3 yards, about 2 acres total, sometimes as often as every 5 days. And its not unheard of to mow in January.

We've had super luck with Walmart riders.... bought one in 79 that lasted until about mid 90s.

Then bought a used 80s model that lasted until about 2013 or so and tossed a bolt in a rod, and simply bought a 300 buck replacement motor and put it in place. Going good today.

have a Bad Boy zero turn the wife finally thought it might be nice if she could get all the stuff mowed in one night instead of a couple....

But the wally one still gets work done.

IMHO if you maintain your stuff it generally lasts, as long as it doesn't have a lot of plastic parts like Craftsman chit started putting on in years past.

I bought a used Sears this spring. So far so good. It's a 46" cut, I think 17 h.p. Kohler. I'd have to go out and check to be sure, but I knew the guy I bought it off of and he was real happy with it. Basically outside of oil changes, the only money he put into it in over 10 years was a new belt and he replaced the deck bearings one time. Depends on your needs. All I use it for is mowing the lawn, and moving a little wood around the lot in a small trailer.

I would agree with the Simplicity and the older Deutz Allis, type mowers/garden tractors. My dad used to mow 19 rural cemeteries. He is no longer mowing the cemeteries, but still has the mowers and uses them to this day. He did put new rings on the pistons of one of the engines though. The drivetrain has help up very well.

This is the best garden tractor, but it isn't a very good lawn mower.

I saw a film(video to you young guys) of Roy Roger using one of those to loosen the soil in Triggers pen.

Simplicity is were I would be looking...I just sold one this spring with 400 Hrs never Had a screw turned.....Still running the original Blades and belts mowed 2+ ac a week. Pulled stumps with it, beat the chit out of it. It had the vanguard engine and tough Torque Trans with traction control. never got stuck. You can get them with a Fabricated deck Now.

Do you think a modern day Deere is the same as one made 18 years ago? When Iived in Kansas I had a Hustler ZTR and it was a great machine for the 4 or so acres I had to mow. Again, it was of 1995 vintage so what they make today may well be different.

I grew up in WV, and just about everyone we knew that had any acreage had a Gravely. It was a shame they went away.

However, nature abhors a vacuum and that vacuum has long since been filled with improvements.

BCS America

You buy the tractor with an implement and additional implements are about $1100.

[img]http://www.bcsamerica.com/assets/tt.php?q=90&src=http://www.bcsamerica.com/aire/../uploads/2013/03/PowerSafe-Controls.jpg&w=460&h=460[/img]


Just like the old Gravelys, you can get a rotary plow, roto-tiller attachement, shovel plow, rough-country rotary mower, sicckle bar mower, snow blower, wood splitter, and a metric-schittload of other implements for gardening, snow removal, mowing, cleaning, grading wood chipping.

Just scroll down to the bottom of the page and check out all the attachments by category.

My pick is a John Deere, Ive worked on mowers for 20+ years. Get the better one not the L or D series. Ive got a customer that mows commercial with a X300 that has 1700 hours on it. I have another customer that has 2200hrs on a LX 277 which the X300 replaced.

Of course you have to remember some folks can tear up anything.

Majority of my repairs are from bad fuel and water.

That one looks about as good as our Super A as far as a small tractor goes. Have done a lot with ours. But its never had new paint etc...

lots of great info, thanks Guys I'm open to more opinions as well. needs to be a new machine, will be used for mowing primarily with the possibility of heavier cover, possibly other stuff as well like hauling a little wagon W/ 25 gal sprayer.it will be used primarily around a 4000+ acre private conservation property so it could be used for more than just yard work. I do have a big JD with 3pt mower to do the heavy lifting.

part of the reason I was interested in the raven I linked previously, it might serve lots of purposes around here, only problem is they are so new and unreliable I don't want to be wasting money possibly. on the flip side if it works as advertised with minimal problems it would be the cat's pajamas.

Very nice!
I grew up on a farm, and we had three Farmalls- A D, an M, and an MD. Wish I knew where they are now.

The best deal I've found on a garden tractor that's also a good lawn tractor, in your price range is this:


It's a used Kubota BX2230 with 60" mower deck. It's got a little three cylinder diesel engine with around 24 or so horsepower, four-wheel drive, mid PTO shaft driven 60" mower deck, three point hitch, 540 rpm rear PTO, hydraulic lift on deck, and LOTS of other good features. I've got the 60" belly mower, a used rear blade, a 48" King Kutter gear drive XB series 3pt hitch mounted tiller, a heavy duty dump cart, and a pull-behind fertilizer and seed spreader.

It had 1500 hours on it when I bought it, but the engine, transmission and everything else on it is in good condition. If I'd known what great little tractors these are, I'd have had one years ago.




I've kept my 100 yards of gravel driveway in great shape, mowed my yard and the church yard with it, fetched firewood out of the woods, and put in four deer plots with it this summer. I do wish I had a front end loader for it though.

A friend has one and they had to replace the deck motor controllers.
They said they got a bad batch.

I kind of like that thing because of the gen as part of the machine.

They are fun to drive and haul butt on electric only.
They do a good job of mowing some tall grass.