Residential Zero Turn Mowers Buyers Guide! John Deere / Bad Boy / Scag / Toro / Gravely / Bobcat +

hey guys welcome back to the channel if you haven't already hit that subscribe button also hit the like button in this video what we're going to be talking about are the residential Zero Turn Mowers uh we're going to talk about what to look for the differences and the similarities uh the brands I'm going to be going over in this video are going to be bad boy skag Toro Bobcat Gravely Aarons and John Deere I'm not going to really spend a whole lot of time on Toro or bobcat in another video what I would like to do is dive a little deeper into the Toro Husqvarna Hustler and Kubota so hit that subscribe button and hit the notification Bell and you'll be notified when I release a new video I've made a lot of notes here because there's a lot of things I want to cover um there's another video I made about seven months ago where I talked about um there was a John Deere zero turn a little z335e and I pointed out a lot of problems with that mower one good thing about John Deere is they do want to hear back from their technicians over you know where where can things be improved and it looks like they did make a lot of improvements and we'll get into that later on in the video but it still does need some improvements and I you know I I don't really love or hate any of these Brands I like quality I appreciate quality and I don't like it when uh companies start using cheap materials cheap bearings and things like that um companies always make changes I noticed a lot of um comments they were saying on that one video that they had at that same mower they were having a great experience with it and that's great but I need guys to realize these companies chain make changes and they make them often and they do it there's really one reason they do it it's to make more money now there's two different ways they can make more money now they can go though the route to make a high quality product and then it takes time those customers have a great experience with that equipment they build a reputation for having high quality equipment and then you know they get more sales that way that's the long slow route to making more money the quick easy route that a lot of companies take that I don't really like and I'm sure you don't like it either is when they cut Corners use cheap materials they're putting plastic bushings with no grease in place where it needs bearings high quality bearings okay so we're going to go over some of that stuff and one other thing a lot of these companies these different brands use a lot of the same uh components like the engines they're using either a Briggs Kohler Kawasaki the Transmissions are used in tough torque or Hydro guard the PTO clutches or using Warner that you'll even see on a lot of these models that we're going to look at in this video the seats are the same a lot of the things are the same the difference is is where they've cut corners and also the main difference in my opinion what's very important is the quality of the deck for a mower so we're going to look at some mowers that have Decks that are quarter inch thick and some that are about at eighth inch thick and in my opinion that's really important you need and I'll go ahead and say this I think you guys should buy from a dealer and I'll make another video about why that's I think that's better than buying from like a Lowe's or Home Depot buying from a dealer but I don't want to get too much into that because this video is already going to be too long so let's just go ahead and get started and we're going to start off by looking at bad boy all right first up we're going to take a look at bad boy and we're going to take a look at this MZ Rambler and then the MZ Magnum but first let's take a look at this MZ Rambler this is coming in at 32.69 the owner of the dealership he said this is recommended for about an acre and a half anything over that you want to step it on up to the bigger one but just real quick I'm looking at this deck I always like the way these bad boys are made they seem to be they always use thick material look at the thickness of that deck that's about a quarter inch thick if not a quarter inch 42 inch fabricated deck you can easily lift up this foot plate and get access to the spindles the deck now why that's important is you want to be able to clean this and with these Decks that are fabricated they're normally flat they don't have like a Stamped dished Out spot around this spindles like you'll see in some decks we're going to show later on in the video uh in what those decks do is they allow dirt and water and everything to accumulate and they start rusting out and one thing I've always liked about bad boys is just how how much room there is to get to everything notice there's a grease fitting there on that deck belt tensioner there's your grease fitting there for the traction control arms we're using High Hydro Gear Transmissions as you'll see that's pretty commonly used in these um uh residential Zero Turns I just like the way these are are put together they're easy to work on like I said plenty of room easy to keep clean you notice it has a fuel shut off valve there fuel tanks on the left there it's pretty big but the drawback is this has a single cylinder motor I really recommend getting a V-Twin but they they almost knocked it out of the park with this one but with that single cylinder engine um I'm just not liking that that's the brake that engages the parking brake Everything feels really good the seat feels good the controls I just think these are a very good Mower and that that little slot in the back that's great you always want to think about is it going to let water sit on it so this is a 540 cc motor you notice it's got smaller Tire rear tires compared to the MZ Magnum that we're going to take a look at now this one's coming in with a Briggs and Stratton 25 horsepower uh V-Twin motor the you'll also notice that the front caster tires are much thicker wider than than this one so that's going to you know those narrower tires might leave more prone to leave ruts I did not see any grease fittings so these are probably permanently sealed bearings in there and the deck nice and thick flat going to be easy to keep clean bad boys always refer to the frames and the design is simple they're very simple but it works I really like these mowers um you know I did talk to a guy I'll show maybe later in this video he said he had one of a similar one is about five years old 600 hours on it he's on a ranch he has six acres and he said it was doing great for him I just like how you can you know lift up that seat you can reach in there get to that clean the back of that deck I like having the grease fittings in spots these always ride really good I've noticed that the ride quality always seems to be very good on these mowers and I'm just looking around here you're seeing you got a starter solenoid down there on the frame uh there's the clutch clutch wire clutch wiring harness I'll go ahead and take a look now this is the only one I don't know who makes this particular clutch I don't think it was a um uh Warner clutch but there's your clutch stop that's very important this is a hydro gear these are non-serviceable okay the other one was a non-servical serviceable transmission also but I do like I do like this Mower and this one was coming in at 41.79 that's the cash price you can also get I think it was you can get this one in a 54 inch deck and also a 48 inch deck I was just showing you guys the uh Hydro releases now what I liked about this these shoes right here are kind of rubber they're like rubber they're not that hard plastic um like you see on a lot of other ones in the seat had that you know Bad Boy logo on there really high quality and next up we're going to take a look at these the skag Liberty Z's now I've heard nothing but good things about skags from other owners and a lot of these have um three different engine um options the skags also have fabricated decks but one thing I noticed that you don't have easy access to the um the deck and it seemed like a if I remember correctly they are all flat they're fabricated decks easy to clean just like the bad boy um so as I'm talking to the owner of this dealership I asked him which is a better mower the skag or the bad boy and he preferred the skag okay like I don't work on these so I don't have I don't see what the common issues with them are but one reason he thought that these were better was that they all have serviceable uh hydros Hydro Transmissions hydraulic Transmissions they're serviceable which means you can change the oil and the filters each one of these come with different uh like I said engines they're all coming in with well except for this 36 it came with either a Kawasaki or a Kohler the Kawasaki is coming in at five thousand ninety nine dollars and the Kohler was 51.99 and I'm looking around one thing I did like I like the build of it it seemed very high quality instead of paint there's a lot of textured powder coat on the frame which is going to be very durable um you know very resistant to scratches I've gotten stuff powder coated over the years it's you know that that textured powder coat will last a long time uh here's this one has the Kohler engine made in the USA as you can see uh the skag bumper here on the back nice powder coated finish I really like it um gas tank is on the left side as you can see now this one over here actually has a skag motor so they do have on the 42 inch you can get a 22 horsepower Kohler 22 Briggs or a 21 horsepower Kawasaki and they're all coming in well the Kohler and the Briggs are coming in at 53.49 and the Kawasaki engine will cost you uh 54.99 then on the 48 inch you've got lots of deck sizes like I said you got 36 42 48 and then 52 and then I believe 61 inches so on the 48 you can get a 22 horsepower Kohler 22 horsepower Briggs both coming in at 53.99 or you can get that 24 horsepower Scag V-Twin that is 56.99 on the 52 inch you can get a 24 horsepower Kohler or Briggs both coming in at 57.99 or the 24 horsepower skag at 58.99 and on the 61 inch you can get a 26 horsepower Kohler and those are coming in at 62.49 for the Kohler and the 27 horsepower Briggs will cost you the same 62.49 and the skag is just a hundred dollars more 27 horsepower Scag motor 63.49 and I'm just kind of showing you guys the difference um no experience with that skag motor and I'm putting the camera around trying to look at that clutch uh like these are the serviceable Transmissions right there as you can see close up there hydro gear and these are used in some bad boys too in the commercial mowers I'll do another video on that but here's the hydro gear these are the non-servable serviceable hydros on the Bad Boys so real quick I'm just going to cover the Toro the owner of this dealer he did say you know there's our people like Toros he viewed it as he could upsell to a bad boy or skag as you can see this one has a stamped deck so that would kind of put this one I would just eliminate this right away due to that reason only but it does have a better engine and you're pretty much coming in you're coming in at 33.99 for this mower whereas you could get that bad boy MZ Rambler 42 inch deck with a fabricated deck for 32.69 they do have some with fabricated decks this one was coming in at 36.99 and real quick I want to cover at the Bobcat I didn't even know Bobcat made these I'm probably going to come back to this dealer later on this summer and do some more detailed videos on these mowers but this one right here it's got a very heavy duty deck as you can see it's got the grips there for you to step on it you don't have to worry about stepping on that deck and bending it this Bobcat 2000 was coming in at 54.99 has a Kawasaki 21.5 horsepower engine seem to be very well built looked very I think the owner called this kind of like an entry level commercial mower but it's targeted as a residential zero turn very high quality odd looking battery uh uses high uh the hydro gear Transmissions again same engines I believe this one had a Warner clutch on it looked like a good mower looked like it's constructed really well serviceable transmission that's a good thing I'll have to come back and do a more detailed video now one thing I noticed right away that I was not impressed with the Bobcats were these flimsy looking handles they looked very entry-level residential to me and this is the ZT 3000 52 inch deck and it looked awesome okay grease fittings everywhere now one thing I forgot to mention is that the skag and the bad boy spindles are all sealed bearing spindles and the owner he said they have less trouble out of those spindles versus the greasable ones now this one this uh 3000 this was a seven thousand dollar mower I'm not going to recommend you guys spend that kind of money on a residential mower but I just thought this was a cool mower I'd like to throw into the video was not impressed with those handles I could tell those are going to bend easily um okay bumper here not not the most impressive kind of thin serviceable transmission like that it's like some of these mowers have you know it's like nothing's perfect they have you know eight great things and you know some bad things so this is the very common clutch that we see uh from Warner John Deere uses these on other Zero Turns and I showed you guys in another video where you can get that those clutches from PTO direct a lot cheaper than buying them from the store and later on this summer I'm probably going to cover some of these electric ones and some of these side by sides get more uh in depth on some of these commercial grade bad boys they just had awesome inventory here and this was at Apopka mower in Florida I want to thank them for their time and let me take some video of their equipment they sell Toro skag steel bad boy awesome guys uh very helpful and I really appreciated them letting me take this video of their equipment all right guys so as I'm delivering some of my racks uh to some of my dealers I've stopped here at one and um and was this Leesburg Florida um we're in Leesburg Florida and a customer of one of my dealers here was loading up their bat his bad boy uh residential Mower and so we're going to talk with Jonathan he's going to tell us he's really happy with his Mower and we're going to ask him a few questions and see why he likes it so much all right so here's the mower we're talking about and the owner Jonathan has given us the time to uh explain his mower to us so Jonathan how many hours do you have on this mower about 580 hours over five years okay so have you been really happy with it or I've been exceptionally happy with it we have a 37 acre horse farm a lot of paddocks sometimes I have to get in there and bring them down [Music] a shock but this is for about six acres of residential lawn a lot of heavy oak trees a lot of debris falls down and it just churns up everything okay great job so this is a five year so did you buy it new I bought it new and uh really couldn't be happier with it got a few little things but that's typical wear and tear you know the rocker switch for the deck got clogged up I had to replace that some little wheels belts but generally it'll keep rolling so no major no major problems no major issues not at all I had it in here just before the summer season of course in Florida is about seven months the tune up on the on the edge and change the belts blades how to replace a spindle but you know a new one six seven thousand dollars and even for a thousand dollar real big good quality cleanup it's going to give me another few hundred hours okay so how much did you pay for this five years ago if you don't mind me asking okay what's up just under just five thousand okay it was a 500 off in Tractor Supply but what I like about playing wicker here is you know they deal with their dealers exclusive to the brand and they're good service people so even when I picked up at a tractor supply it kind of leaves you a bit stranded potentially so this is a great connection for me yeah and I like I like doing business uh with local people instead of just going up to all the big box stores the rocker switch for the automatic deck which is really handy sometimes get clogged up I had to replace that it was like yeah 100 bucks she said she just replaced an ignition switch yeah and what I like about bad boy is that it's really the real really easy to work on it's simple but it works everything is really simple there's always plenty of room the only drawback that I see to a bad boy is that they are a little heavier but when you're when you're for the for what you're doing that's what you want you want something that's heavy because that's usually durability built to last really clean to have that many hours on it and that old compared to what I see where I work and another thing that I've always noticed on all the bad boys I've worked on they ride so much better than a than a John Deere commercial mower they just seem to just float yeah it's very comfortable seating with the armrests are great I could use a roll bar I think the next model up has the safety roll bar occasionally I think give that some thought as I'm hitting a little bit of an incline but it's very comfortable Louisiana for four hours on a shot no no problem all right next up we're going to take a look at some residential Gravely mowers this one is a 52 inch 2023 ZX ztx I'm sorry very nice mower let's look at the deck thickness I wasn't very impressed right here not a big deal but it's got that little Gap where they folded it over this is a fabricated deck um but as I take a peek and inside I'm noticing you see that right there around the spindles this is going to make a big difference that extra plate right there adds that much more thickness this deck looked like it was about 3 16 inch thick but that's really going to help take the impact if you hit something with that spindle Gravely does something I'm sorry bad boy does something very similar on their commercial mowers add that extra plate there to really help take the impact when you hit something with that spindle so that'll that'll help strengthen up you much rather break that spindle than bend your deck nice flat deck not leaving no pockets for dirt and water and sand and things to accumulate uh plastic covers from the spindles nice seat this is a ztx 48 inch and they've upgraded the owner of this shop said this is a newer newer model even though their same year model this is a newer design one thing I noticed I liked these handles they seem pretty high quality they didn't look like they were gonna they looked better than that Bobcat than that seven thousand dollar Bobcat we right here we got the I believe that's a 23 horsepower Kawasaki fuel tank right underneath the seat so your fuel tank isn't on the side I kind of like that I'm new to seeing that on these mowers or on any mower really I'm not used to seeing that tank design like that now this is the newer one just minor changes but he said they are having some quality issues with the seats on these and I've seen that on certain year model zero I'm sorry commercial mower uh new z-track John Deere's fabricated deck metal spindle cover as you saw there on that deck let's take a look underneath non-serviceable hydros Warner clutch like I said a lot of them use the same components as just the way they design the rest of the machine I looked at this one same thing non-serviceable gradually it looked like a pretty good overall pretty good machine pretty well built I did like it he said they did upgrade the step right here this is the one before where it just has like a smooth right here but then it has just two of these little three of these little flanged areas the this was plastic very hard plastic feeling on that shoot but he said this grip is a lot better people like it a lot better so let's take a peek this deck it's not as thick as the bad boy or the skags it didn't appear to be definitely not as thick as the bad boy now here's an errands uh Edge that seat looks awfully familiar it looks identical to the bad boy seats I would almost bet that they were made in the same Factory so skinny little wheels on this the Gravely had you know um wider front casters this deck was not impressive very thin oh gosh I don't even know if that's that's probably about 3 16 I would guess um wasn't very all that impressed with this one but it did have a V-Twin engine Briggs and Stratton non-server serviceable Hydro Gear transmission and I was trying to see that clutch and I did peek in there and it is a Warner clutch so pretty much the same thing on many of these mowers so it's just like the layout of how they do it another tank right underneath the seat and one thing that's going to make it happen that tank like that where you can get to those grommets and that pickup line if you ever do get trash in the gas tank it'll be easy to clean that tank out but this one right here is 42 you're starting you know cash price 35 basically 3 600 dollars and here is another errands it's a 34 inch cut very narrow um of course narrow little Caster wheels on the front you know oftentimes guys are looking for a mower that'll get into some backyards and this one would do it now notice on the deck how it's got that that dip down around the spindles that's what I don't like this would eliminate it right away for that reason because it's going to just let dirt and moisture accumulate around those bolts of the spindles on the deck it's going to eventually rust out the deck and these didn't really seem to have a quick easy access to the top of that deck 656 horse I mean uh CC motor definitely not horsepower same switch same PTO switch as they all use these seem very flimsy wasn't very impressed I did like how the back bumper goes up pretty high so if you back into something you're not going to knock into the carburetor but I mean a good looking mower but now here is a really nice one that I was pretty impressed with this is an errands it's a 52 inch this one I think I can't remember if he said this one was um a new style but the deck is fabricated the deck seemed definitely thicker thicker material and see how it has the flanges around the spindles this is closer to a probably like a getting very close to a commercial mower but while still being residential and very nice seat little hole there in the back to let water out had actually had a little short roll bar very short but hey it could if you roll a thing over it might save your life see how high this comes up so it protects that if you back into something you're not going to hurt your intake fuel tank right underneath the seat this was this one was uh I liked this one a lot but still had non-serviceable hydros um looks like we got a leak or something right there already so wouldn't surprise me yep it was using the Hydro Gear transmission I wasn't seeing it when I peeked down underneath there but that's the part number it's using nice looking unit and here's underneath the mat they did have some little holes there I would be kind of worried about that accumulating dirt and sand and getting all scratched up and dirty and Rusty I like those metal decks like on the skags but this flat up there that's a lot better it's not dished out around the spindles metal spindle covers but this is what I'm talking about real quick how you can just access the top of the deck for cleaning take like an air compressor and clean all that off real easy this is on that a bad boy MZ Rambler so finally let's take a look at the John deers I came in here to local Lowe's and I was looking for a 330m and they only had this 320m and I was actually pleasantly surprised by how good it looked they've redesigned a lot of things on this mower here are the specs on it got a 21 and a half horsepower V-Twin John Deere engine it says they haven't changed the deck we'll get to that in a moment but they did change the color as you can see uh the older decks are are yellow and the newer ones for 2023 are green I actually think that looks better but in this video we're covering the residential zero turn so let's take a deeper look at this and see what they changed new styling I'm I'm liking it one thing I noticed right away this back right here it's up a lot higher so you're protecting that intake I like that a lot I lift up the seat and I've noticed they get rid of that cover that attracted all the mice so that problem is solved you can keep this thing clean there's the deck height adjuster cam easy to keep clean I'm liking everything that I'm seeing right now um fuel tanks underneath the seat that's a first that I've seen on this mower I wanted to look at the date of manufacture it's uh January 24th of 23. now the old tags would say uh Dom date of manufacturer so as we're looking around here um I want to show you some other things about it I like this they've changed that that foot plate you can lift this up a lot easier instead of having to unbolt it I see no changes on the deck it looks like they're still using those spindles nothing ever seems to have changed except for the color and I'm going to take a look at the thickness of this deck and I'm going to show you guys something because I was actually just recently replacing one of these decks and see how thin that is it's stamped out and I'm going to give you a guys a closer look because recently we had one come into the shop and the owner was saying I wasn't cutting right I'm going to show you if it was this z345m and it's the older stylus Hal still has those plastic bushings in there so let's take a look at the data manufacturer on this unit it was 3 12 21. okay so this so the customer had these old I took the old blades off because I wanted to make sure yes they're wrong style so I put new blades on it and this is a way you can check to see if your deck is bent and you see how The Cutting Edge of these blades are not lining up evenly it's off about a half of an inch so this deck is bent and a new deck was 780 dollars right so he went ahead and ordered a new deck and I'm going to show you guys a close-up I measured it I was just so curious I took out a ruler and wanted to measure the thickness of this metal and it looked to me like the best I could see that it was 3 30 seconds which equals 13 gauge I'll show you a close-up photo so let's head back to the Lowe's dealership look at this newer model I do like they're putting this longer tube they're actually doing this on the commercial mowers too where you can drain the oil a lot easier I like that so I'm going to go ahead and take a look see if they changed anything as far as the hydros and they look to be the same and occasionally we do get a problem out of these e-brakes right here but overall these hydros are pretty reliable and as well as the PTO clutch it's rare to see one going out even on those other year models now here's the big change they include improve these tires these tires look so much better and look at that they're no longer doing those silly plastic caps they've got bearings in there with grease and the grease is just coming out so they've definitely have improved several things they didn't improve the spindles they didn't improve the deck but they did improve you know the design they got rid of that plastic cover I got the better tires on there now this feels great the left the the deck lift felt really good even this felt good the Chute felt better so they definitely have improved I like that when they have the engines with the separate choke lever I I don't like that when the the engines that have the choke at full past Full Throttle overall they've improved everything that I complained about in those other videos except for the thickness of that deck so guys uh here's a look at the brand new John Deere zero residential zero turn all right so let's talk about pricing all right so the John Deere I'm going to show you just a y'all can pause and look at this but the 315 e you're coming in at about 3 200 dollars that 320 M was 3 500 and the 330 m is almost four thousand dollars so you're coming in at thirty nine hundred dollars and I'm gonna give you guys my pick if you're gonna spend close to around four thousand dollars so if you want to compare something you're going to spend four thousand dollars I would recommend getting the bad boy MZ Magnum I really like this mower it had so many things going for it but mostly it's the thickness of this deck it's practically it looks like a quarter inch thick I didn't measure it but I can tell you I promise you that's probably a quarter inch thick that shoot was like a nice rubber I like the it's a fabricated deck grease fittings everywhere this was just an awesome machine I like how you can just lift this up um get easy access to the deck they're easy bad boys have always just been really easy to work on they're simple it works I just like the design like I said there's always plenty of room other mowers like the John Deere mowers have a lot of very very nice mowers I think so this is my recommendation and this is a 54 inch deck on this one now this particular one would cost you about 42.69 you're not gonna have that issue now it's not perfect you know there are some things I would like to see improved uh V-Twin you know one being the cover on the rear the rear bumper I would like to see that higher I do like the Kawasaki this has got the Kawasaki engine very clean I don't like how the wires are all loose and everything I'll probably zip tie those but you kind of Tuck those in but here's that bumper if it were just a little higher to give some better protection if you were to accidentally back into something to something and he'll hit the uh carburetor or the intake of the carburetor and it'll create that's one thing the John Deere has beat over this one you might not realize is it where is that cover came up a lot higher to give you some better protection it's going to stop you I see this happen all the time on even commercial units but if you were to hit um good thing is this is probably instead of being a hard plastic it is kind of like a something that's a rubber so something that comes and hits it's not just going to break it it would probably do this because this is nice it might tear it but it might give and flex and not put a hole in it where you're sucking up dirt seats other things I liked about it was the seat you know hold water it's not going to hold water one thing about those John Deere seats those yellow seats I see them mold easily and they're hard to keep clean I think this one would stay cleaner the foot pedal pedal got these um I like the way just the grip here away over time they grip your feet off to lift the deck I just like the way this thing feels I like the way they run I like the way they ride it feels very smooth so very refined this is my pick for if you're going to spend around four thousand dollars across all the brands and I can guarantee you if you see one other thing you can step on this deck and that's one thing I always tell the John Deere owners not to do don't step on those decks they will bend some people have asked me but this one you're not going to have a problem with it if you step on it so that's going to do it for this video and like I said out of these brands that we covered I would go with that bad boy now in the next video or a later video coming soon I'm gonna go in a deeper dive into the Toro Husqvarna Hustler and Kubota and my opinion might change now if I had five thousand dollars I might go with that skag simply because they had similar decks uh thickness I like the powder coating on the skag and I like that it had the serviceable Transmissions so anyway I hope this video helped you guys out I know it's long um but if you do me a favor hit that like button but most importantly hit that subscribe button thank you for watching and I'll see you guys next time

Channel: Mechanical Mind

Views: 133,241

Keywords: John Deere residential zero turn mowers, Bad Boy zero turn mowers, Bad Boy residential zero turn mowers, best residential zero turn mowers, 2023 residential zero turn mowers, best 2023 residential mowers, Scag residential zero turn mowers, scag zero turn mowers, scag mowers, Bad Boy MZ rambler, bad boy mz magnum, scag liberty z, scag liberty z mowers, bobcat zero turn mowers, bobcat zt2000, bobcat residential zero turn mower, Gravely zero turn mower, zero turn lawn mower, Toro

Id: TBCQixtpu38

Length: 40min 38sec (2438 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 25 2023