I'm thinking about getting a lawn/garden tractor. My requirements are that it must be able to hook up to a snow plow blade, and be decent quality while cheap.
My yard & driveway are quite small, but I have health issues so am looking for something I can drive around. Any recommendations on brands/models would be appreciated.
Thanks, Phil
It might be helpful if we knew how much snow you normally get at one time. 3 inches or 3 feet?
Cheap means cheap and disposable, prone to parts failing, no local service available, poorly engineered. Pushing snow is very hard on equipment, keep that in mind. Do you want to spend $1000.00 and have it fail in 3 years, or spend more and have it last 20 years. Don't buy a lawn tractor from a big box store, go to a garden specialty store, where you can touch, operate and test it out, and where they have service facilities, they are often cheaper than the big box stores.
For example, I once sold a 22 year old John Deere lawn tractor for more money than I got for a 12 year old Oldsmobile Station Wagon, the start-up costs were considerably different for the two.
There lies the rub.
Nothing runs like a Deere.
I live in Michigan, so we get a good amount of snow. But the area I'd plow is small, 20'x20' , a parking pad, and I'd plow b4 it got too high.
John Deere preferably from a JD Dealer
You've got to be kidding!
I work for JD, and I'm not a believer in our product. If you only knew.
There is much better equipment on the market, for less.
enlighten me, a bit
-- Oren
A push plow is not a good idea. I have used a much larger farm tractor with a push blade. The first problem is that once you have pushed the snow over to the edge of where you want to clean, the snow is there and you cannot just keep pushing, either the engine will not have enough power or traction. Once it freezes in place then you find the next snow starts to build up in the area you want to clear. Without a bucket that can lift and dump the snow, you will find it frustrating to clear with just a push blade. I see everything that is happening here in Canada with pick-up truck plows that clear store parking, eventually most of the parking is taken up with stored snow that they cannot move. Doesn't matter if you do little bits or a large drift that forms overnight, the result is the same.
Don't waste your money get a snow blower. Or a tractor with a blower.
Don't know about the "for less" part, but Kubota makes lots of models that are built well
Or costs more...
Joe
Push blades are ok but you eventually run out of place to push the snow. A snowblower is much better. As for cheap and quality, get a good high quality machine used. There are plenty of people with good used machines for sale that are just looking to upgrade. A used Ingersoll, John Deere, Kubota or New Holland would serve you well. I have an old Ingersoll with a snowblower and lawn mower attachment and it will run forever. It was
20 years old when I got it.Quality and cheap are contradictions, an oxymoron if you will. If you don't want to bust the budget, find a good used Wheel Horse garden tractor (PRE TORO) and both a snow thrower attachment and the dozer blade attachment. It takes about 20 minutes to go from one to the other, and you will have the best of both worlds, a blade for light snows, and the thrower for the heavy stuff. Don't sweat the fact that a Wheel Horse snow thrower attachment is single stage instead of a two stage blower. The huge diameter chute, and the narrow center "paddle" of the auger make the Wheel Horse single stage thrower very efficient and very hard to plug. Also, those old cast-iron Kohler engines used in the vast majority of those tractors are almost impossible to kill if you keep them full of oil.
Phil wrote:
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