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What ride-on mower?


Adrian
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We will shortly take possession of a house with a three acre garden, so I need to buy a ride-on mower.

Ideally would like a mower that mulches/recycles so that I don't spend most of my time emptying the collection box.

I've seen the Toro DH210 on the Bricomarche website, but it's quite pricey at 3,500 Euros (more than I think an equivalent model would cost in the UK). Does anyone have any experience to share of this model or one of similar 'muscle for the job'?

Thanks

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That model looks to retail at about £3000 in UK, so this actually looks like one of those rare instances where France is cheaper!

It looks nice, however I personally am not keen on rear ejection mowers like this that use a toothed drive belt to synchronise the blades which have an overlapping sweep.

A client of mine has a Husqvarna that looks broadly similar and....well, lets just say he is a regular client and I have to fix this thing pretty often. However, he does abuse it a bit - it seems to be more for smooth, good quality lawns, where as some of his land is relatively rough. Every single problem is always with the cut deck....slipped or snapped belt (they aint cheap either!), worn or damaged blade mounts, spindle bearings or with the mechanism to raise and lower it.

I own a John Deere 455, which I bought second hand. The deck on mine is ok for mulching, but I have large hydraulic collection box on the back with a suction fan driven by the tractors rear PTO shaft.

I do various peoples lawns with it, ranging from bowling-green smooth to....well...pretty much a cow pasture. It copes no problems.

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Hi Adrian,

are you sure that you want to cut 3 acres of grass for hours each week, and depending where in France you're living, for most of the year? Four legged alternatives might be a better solution! Ride-ons seem novel if you've never had one before, but after a while cutting the grass with them becomes the same chore it always was.

The mower that you have highlighted is recommended for 6000 square metres, half what you want to cut. It is made by American company MTD, as are most of the mowers sold by Bricos and supermarkets despite their different branding and bonnets, and you will find mowers with the same specification and chassis sold a great deal cheaper elsewhere (eg ELeclerc) during the upcoming spring promotions .

On this model the grass collector can be emptied by pressing a pedal from the driver's seat, so you can leave cut grass in piles and pick it up later, there will be an awful lot of it! These mowers don't handle long or wet grass as well as you might think, side ejection is less likely to block, but lawns do benefit tremendously from having the cut grass collected .

The Toro DH210 has an electrostatic clutch, an unessary expense unless you need to cut around shrubs etc in confined spaces.

If you are detemined to keep the 3 acres trimmed, you really need a bigger and more powerful mower .

Whichever one you buy, service it annually and most important - clean rotting grass out of the deck with a karcher, remove rust and repaint every so often, if you don't it will rust through in a very short time and is extremely costly to replace.

Steve

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Sheep is the best brand that I know for the acreage. If you don't wanna keep them yourself (think freezer), ask around and see if one of the local chaps just has half a dozen head that he can loose there to do the job. But make sure that the permissions are renewed each year.

My old neighbour kept my field like a lawn every year with his 6 ewes and watching the lambs was fun.

Otherwise, get a ride on with a caravan behind it because you are gonna be spending a huge amount of time cutting.

And what aill you do with all the cut grass - better let the animals process it in their way.
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Totally appreciate your concerns Steve, and Woolybanana, about using sheep to do the work, but I'm not new to this amount of land - I have a similar acreage in the UK, so I know how long it takes - and it's not that long to be honest. Also, I have used sheep in the past and they have a number of drawbacks.

I've used other machines in the UK - currently a Club Cadet - but I'm just not aware of what models are available in France (nor the best places to buy): the Toro is certainly new to me. I appreciate the comment about rear and side ejection - my last, rear-ejection, mower did get blocked  when the grass was long and wet; the current, side-ejection, machine doesn't get blocked as much but sprays all the flower beds with grass as I go by. So it's always going to be swings and roundabouts.

Thanks for the heads-up about E.Leclerc- I'll check them out. Thanks also for the advice on regular maintenance, but what is a karcher?

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We have a big diesel Kubota, excellent heavy duty mower but doesn't mulch ... I wish we'd opted for the mulcher as, you're right, it would save hours of work.

Another factor .... the blades are directly under the machine which means to sharpen or service you have to lift the machine and detach the mower deck, which is big. That's easy, it's getting it on again and lifting it to reattach which is very difficult - it needs two of you, of whom one must be a double-jointed gymnast with eyes at right angles, to see what you're doing. There's other mowers where the mowing deck is in front of the driver and I'm now thinking that would be much simpler for maintenance.

Just my input. But diesel/Kubota is an excellent tool !
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If the OP is still looking in, I was in a motoculture shop this morning and noticed that they had a range of Club Cadet mowers (same brand as he has now). They're badged MTD mowers too so will have much in common with all the other MTD mowers including the Toro and supermarket own brand ones.

Steve
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