My 74 yo Dad and his wife moved from a HOA condo to a new home where he'll be responsible for lawn maintenance and snow removal for the first time in 25 years. Due to it's rural location on a golf course outside of Lincoln, his options for hiring it out are slim, and I think he's looking forward to buying/operating some toys for the first time in many years. Lawn is around 10,000 sq ft, at his age it's too large to use a 22" self propelled deck mower. I am encouraging him to consider a lawn tractor plus a blade to move snow in Winter instead of buying separate snow blower and mower. Two car driveway is probably 100' length, not much area to push snow. The fewer pieces of equipment to maintain for him the better.

Need forum insight on solutions here - I want to consider all pros and cons, and know several of you have personal experience [Ken, Dave] and professional experience [Tony]. Is my idea of lawn tractor and blade a reasonable one? If so, any ideas on make? I know JD is an easy choice, but wondered if other brands were comparable in quality/performance. Thanks in advance, fellas.

I totally get the logic behind having one piece of equipment for both winter and summer use....less storage space needed, only one engine to maintain, etc. However, the flip side of that is the need to switch attachments back and forth. (snowblade vs. mower deck) And while it should only need to happen twice a year, it's still going to involve laying down beside/under the tractor and wrestling steel around. My 74 yr old father said no way, and bought a separate, self propelled snowblower. He much prefers it this way. And if you use non-alcohol fuel, run a good, marine grade fuel stabilizer, and most importantly just start everything once a month year-round, you shouldn't have any running issues even after extended storage.

10,000 sq ft calls for a 42-48" mower deck, depending upon obstacles (trees, flower beds, yard ornamentation), and a must have would a true, hydrostatic trans.

Deere is great, but local support should not be discounted. If the local dealer sells another brand, is reputable and longstanding in the community, you shouldn't overlook their offerings.

It depends on what kind of shape he's in. How active is he? At some point, he might have to consider a lawn service company. Actually I believe about 50% of the people in my neighborhood use a lawn service company for $40 per week. And, I'm not in any kind of retirement community. I think I just live around a bunch of lazy people. But, I guess that's a personal choice decision.

I'm almost that age(72) and just use a self propelled Honda mower to mow about 2/3 of a lawn that size. It's the commercial one and goes for North of $1,000. I've had 3 of them and the last 2 both made it for over 15 years without issues. It takes me less than 1/2 hour. Echo professional model trimmer/weedeater. Get the kind that is easy to thread on the new line.

On both, dump the gas at the end of "the season" and there's no maintenance issues. I like to buy over priced stuff that I can use to work with instead of work on. I hate pulling on a rope.

Tony is absolutely right about local support but I very rarely need it on these products. If he goes cheap on the mower, he will need support and someone to help him load and unload it.

I don't know anything about snow blowers. What are they and why would anyone want to blow on snow?

Tony, my dad has a garden tractor with snow blowing/throwing attachment. Either me or my nephew does the swap every Spring/Fall.

TJ is close enough that he could do the swapping.

When I bought my Cub Cadet LT1050, I bought the optional 46" blade for it.

My main use was cleaning snow around the building and sidewalk. Had 3 overhead doors that seemed to get a lot of snow blown up against them.

The blade initially worked OK with the fluffier snow and before ice developed. Tire chains are a must at that point.

The front building was poorly insulated and we would get snow melt from the roof and then a long ice log (for lack of a better word) would build up at 2 of the overhead doors.

Obviously, this blade and tractor were no match for the ice, so I built a 6' straight snow plow for my Cat diesel fork lift. Now, that had no issues with the ice. The drive tires were about an inch shorter than the tires on my truck, so that got chains as well.

That worked real well and could do the entire parking lot now, so gave the 46" blade to my brother for his Craftsman LT.

He used it until he moved, then gave it to my other brother who retrofitted it to my Dad's LT. My brother lives up there and he uses it all the time.

My Dad is 85. He won't mess with the manual operation plow, but will get out with the self propelled snow thrower.

Anyway, I really didn't like the manual operation of the blade, although it worked pretty decent in lighter stuff. I much prefer hydraulics tho.

The trick to pushing snow with a lightweight L&G tractor is to get on it before anybody else does. Once it packs down, the little tractors are about like a Banty rooster scratchin' in the dirt...going through the motions but not getting much accomplished. Having a paved surface to clear, vs. gravel, helps a lot. Snow is heavy, and like JKB suggested tire chains and added weight will be your best friends.

If conditions permit, I almost always recommend a snowblower over a blade, either tractor-mounted or self propelled. Blowing snow is a lot easier on equipment than shoving it. If the situation prohibits throwing, or if the bulk of the received snow is dry, fluffy stuff, then a blade may be a better option.

How about a primer on who makes what? Lots of names and colors, very few manufacturers once you go beneath the paint.

MTD...Modern Tool and Die, produces the following brands: Cub Cadet, Troybilt, Bolens, White, Yard-Man, Huskee, Ranch King, Yard Machine. And this doesn't include the "house" brands, made for Wal-Mart, Lowes, Kmart, etc. Same part nubers, with an added 3 digit suffix that indicates what color to paint that part...Cub yellow, Troy red, etc.

EHP....Electrolux Home Products, (yep, the vacuum cleaner folks), turn out the following brands: Husqvarna, Sears-Craftsman, Poulan and Poulan Pro. Same part numbers, same equipment with Husqvarna adding a 3 digit prefix to try and claim individuality...doesn't work boys, we know better.

John Deere....lots of rumors, very few hard facts. All of Deere's premium line of L&G is produced and manufactured by Deere themselves. Good stuff, and my most recommended product. And I toured a Deere plant 12 years ago and watched their consumer brand stuff rolling off the assembly line...THEIR line. Can't say these days, however.

Wheelhorse/Toro....Gone. Toro still sells tractors, but MTD builds em'. Interesting side note here however, in that Toro absolutely refuses to mention this to their customers, even going as far as spending extra $$$ to replace all the MTD part numbers with Toro nubers in the manuals....meaning you need to go to them to get belts, blades, etc. Unfortunately for them though, once you get those belts, blades, etc removed they are stamped with the MTD numbers and brand....again, nice try. By the way, this applies to Toro's with steering wheels.... Toro themselves, build their commercial ZTR's, and they are good stuff.

Simplicity, Snapper, Murray.....all owned by Briggs and Stratton. And while the top of the line Simplicity's are superb machines, equal to Deere I would say, Briggs has begun combining assets in an effort to streamline manufacturing. So the lesser priced consumer stuff is pretty unremarkable at best, and downright shoddy at worst.

Spark, if it's already packed down by other vehicles, not much will bust it up. The little LT's will just ride on top like everything else. Now with the Cat, I could peel this stuff up.

It was an amazing fork truck!

County plugged off our driveway at the shop a few times after heavy snows. Plow jockeys couldn't even get in. Fire up the Cat, make a few passes out of the building, hang a left toward the road and bust thru that. Hitting something with something that is rather rigid, moving at a good clip that also weighs +10,000 lbs, yeah, it will make a path.

I wish I still had the Cat, but it didn't like sand

That was my exact question when I married a girl from Iowa.

I also didn't know what a divan was.

I am in the market for similar items. After talking to Tony, I am going with a garden tractor over a LT. I will be mowing a couple acres or so. I also want the hp and capabilities to keep my options open for adding accessories later. I will be going with the snow blower. To me, living where we can have several snowfalls without a melt, using a blade could put me in a situation where I run out of places to push and hold snow while a blower will allow me to get it up, pile it higher and get it out of the way. If I was going to buy an LT, I would get one capable of using either a blade or a blower to keep my options open. Just my 2 cents.

What was the answer?

That a watermelon wasn't supposed to get salt on it
and that it isn't a cantaloupe it's a muskmelon and
that don't get salt either!

Sounds reasonable. What was your answer?

With enough hot air you can melt the snow

Infrared over the employee entrance door to the back shop worked well to keep everything melted. PITA to shovel that corner out every morning with fire code making the doors open to the outside, and that was an emergency exit as well.

No hot air, just radiation.

Interesting stuff, Spark! Don't know about today, but Deere was yanking some stuff out of China about 2005 for some of their big rigs. A company a couple miles from here was tasked with making the parts.

Quite a bit is outsourced. Pretty much, no company builds all of their own stuff. Might be an assembly plant, but parts come from all over the world.

I needed a new battery for my truck. Researching a bit, I found that the DieHard Platinum, group size 65 would be a good choice because I'm installing a 1000 watt inverter. It's an AGM that can deep cycle pretty extreme and has plenty of CCA. While digging around, the Odyssey came into sights. Same battery. Well, EnerSys has the Odyssey for their brand, but make the DieHard Platinum as well, along with a battery for Interstate. These are all AGM batteries.

I had Sears install the DieHard. It was ~$286.00 installed. The thing is, Sears is about 9 miles away, had it in stock and took care of it quickly. The other two had to be ordered, wait a few days. I had to install, then drive back with the core to get my core fee back. Besides, the other two were more expensive, had to pay for shipping, warranty not as good. Still made in the USA.

Well, now I have to get another charger, should it come to that.

Last winter I had to get a jump start. Guy asked me what type of battery it was. I said OEM stock. He said, we'll use this then.

Almost 11 years for an OEM battery ain't bad tho. I can tell you, that one don't owe me nothing

JKB,

Wish I could say I had the same experience with OEM batteries. In 2011 I bought a new Ford Ranger and a new Ford Explorer. I had to replace the batteries in both in 2014.

They don't make them like they used too!

Bill,

I thought the battery in my Kubota took a dump. (L3540) Got on a couple tractor sites and the consensus was if it ain't 10 years old, it's probably something else. Sure enough, it was the ground cable.

Got 12 years out of the original Delco in the Chevy shop truck. Never came close to that before, must've been a fluke.

I was ok with changing them out...Warranty so free!! Both still worked. They failed CCA. Dealer found it on routine checks.

Sprkplug
Lucky , I've never gotten over 2-1/2 yes out of a del I


Pat

Your slurring your typing again Pat. Put that Falstaff down and use two hands!

Quite right about the outsourcing, at least for L&G products that I see. I know of no L&G that produces all of its own engines or transmissions for example. And I'm sure there are other components provided by outside vendors as well. What I was referencing was the internet talk that proclaims Deere's low end stuff is built by another L&G company...I don't know about now, but a few years ago that was not the case. Deere built, or assembled if you prefer, their L&G stuff on their own assembly lines, here in the states.

Tanks lliB

My battery was still somewhat OK, but it discharged over 7 days while sitting at the dealer with only my Garmin GPS lit up.

It got cold as well, which effected the CCA, and therefore would not roll it over.

I knew it was going out, but start it a few times/day to buzz around and it always charged. Plugging in a 400 watt inverter just running my laptop while the engine is not running warned me that it is close to toast. Like ~15 minutes the voltage would drop and the inverter freaked out.

Like I said, that battery don't owe me nothing

Tony,

I have pretty much decided on the JD 500 series. Is there really an advantage to paying the extra bucks for the Top in the series or will the basic 500 pretty much do most everything? The 540 is almost $2k more and has less HP. What am I missing?

Bill

The 540 has a liquid cooled engine, vs the air cooled engine on the 500. That's the big money difference.

Thanks Tony. You are the man! For what I need, air cooled will be fine. That extra $2k buys accessories!

Thanks guys, your feedback was helpful. A snowblower attachment for the front of a lawn tractor might be the way I'm leaning...Tony, I'll likely call you this week to chat at greater length.

TJ,

IMHO great choice! I envisioned your dad pulling out of his garage with 10 inches of wet snow on the ground. My thought was an LT with a blade, chains, weights or whatever would be pretty much worthless after moving about 6 feet!

TJ, another thumbs up for a snowthrower here. I prefer them to a plow.

Great point that can't be emphasized enough. I have a xMark zero turn, and the closest "authorized" dealer is in Dallas, and that's a 60 mile trip. I love it, but how do you or your shop get parts? I'll go with Scag next, because there are 3 quality dealers very close to me.

TJ the snow blower for the lawn tractor is a great ideal I have two only used the 48Inch.its a beast I liked throwing the snow 40feet across the yard its an alsome site to see. 24hp Kawasaki motor on a older Husqvarna tractor. blower is a craftsman.acually and agri fab with craftsman stickers on it.

Derek, I have one that's either 42" or 48" that mounts on the front of my JD 345. I have to drop the mower deck to put it on, but it'll throw snow just about as far.

There's times when I wish I had a cab on the garden tractor because if the wind isn't constant, I'll look like a snowman when I'm done, even with the chute that I can pivot side to side.

That's true with a blade in the wet stuff, and it don't have to be 10" deep with a LT to not move very far. Just depends how wet it is.