I have worked professionally with zero-turn mowers for 17 years now. I have extensively run many exmark zero-turns, a 50" (an early one with exceptionally jerky controls), a 60", a 60" water cooled, and a 70". I also currently run a bunton 50" and a scag advantage 61". I also have lots of experience with gravely walk behinds, gravely riders, many garden tractors of different makes, and I have many hours behind push mowers. I can tell you that precision and quality with NO MISTAKES is what keeps the big commercial contracts, and being fast is what makes you money. Here is what professional zero-turn mowers are good at: turning around fast, cutting both clean and fast, accelerating up and down rapidly. Here is what they stink at: wet ground, weak grass, ditches, tight spaces, any slope over 10 degrees. Zero turns are also exceptionally heavy and have very wide tires which tear the sod when you decide to turn sharp. With that in mind, you use all of the same techniques with your zero-turn as you would use with any other machine while doing the job the same way, except, a zero-turn is limited by the damage that it does to the ground, not by the angle of its steering wheels. Remember that for any set of conditions there is a minimum turning radius which will not cause accumulating damage to sod. Do not turn tighter than this radius. When making a square outside corner, turn around the corner at your beat estimate of the minimum radius, back up at the minimum radius in the opposite direction, and then complete the turn in the original direction at the minimum radius. Turns around an outside corner get wider with each pass, and turns around an insider corner get tighter with each pass. Always keep track of the minimum radius for the area where you are, and "shuttle" the machine around any too-tight turn in the appropriate way to prevent you from tearing the sod. Turning around (180 degrees) at the end of a row necessitates at least TWO shuttles. Three may be necessary depending on the angle (or form) of the edge of the lawn relative to the previous row. If there is a choice between two shuttles and blowing grass into a garden, and three shuttles and keeping the grass on the lawn, it may behoove you to take the extra time (depending on your relationship with the owner/your wife, the thickness of the grass, etc) to keep the grass on the lawn. Never accelerate or decelerate too fast. Professional zero-turns have enough torque at the wheels to break the tires loose at almost any speed. When you spin a tire you damage the sod. Learn to accelerate within the traction limits of the tires, and to judge the traction limits of the tires by feel. This feel will also help keep you from getting stuck in unexpectedly wet grass. If you are going to mow a steep hillside, ditch, or soft ground, get a mower whose steering wheels are not also its traction wheels. Otherwise you will quickly find yourself stuck in the middle of a wet lawn, or slid down a hill into a ditch with two brown tracks giving witness to your mistake for most of the mowing season. Most likely, you will also leave another set of tracks when you back your truck onto the grass to pull the machine out. There is also a significant roll-over risk when operating a zero-turn on slopes. If you must operate on slopes, walk the ground first to judge its condition (wetness, softness), install the rollover bar, fasten your safety belt, and only mow directly up or down the slope. Also, mowing decks have nerfing wheels to prevent you from scalping the ground when it is not perfectly flat. These will save your butt when you make a mistake. However, no ridged mowing deck can properly conform to large discontinuities in the ground. You must think about where the blades are going to cut, and then maneuver the mower to prevent scalping. This is most important around ditches and grass covered berms. Lastly, zero-turns are not as durable as a professional riding tractor. You can expect no more than 3000-4000 trouble free hours out of a professional hydrostatic system, while an engine may last 6000-8000 hours if you take good care of it. A professional riding tractor will usually last twice as long as its engine. The big advantage of the zero-turn is that it boosts your productivity, especially when you are mowing many small lawns in a day, or if you need to constantly work around many odd landscape features. Remember, if you want good results with a zero-turn, you need to discipline yourself and learn how to use it. This is no different from any other technology (for example, old farm tractors).
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Today's Featured Article - Tuning-Up Your Tractor: Plugs & Compression Testing - by Curtis Von Fange. The engine seems to run rough. In the exhaust you can hear an occasion 'poofing' sound like somethings not firing on all cylinders. Under loaded conditions the tractor seems to lack power and it belches black smoke out of the exhaust. For some reason it just doesn't want to start up without cranking and cranking the starter. All these conditions can be signals that your unit is in need of a tune up. Ok, so what is involved in a tune up? You say, swap plugs and file the points....now tha
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