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Garden / mowing tractor any built these days with a horizontal shaft engine

99% of the time I agree with you, and yes, I don't see many Zero turn mowers with a bagger.
However, been seeing a neighbor using a commercial Zero Turn (I think Kubota, but he won't stand still long enough...) I see it has a very different bagger, with a clamshell grass chamber, it hinges open at the top, to dump.
I see him mowing a 5 acre field as well as the yard around the house every week, seems to be working well.
He has had various other Zero Turn mowers in the past.
Those baggers appear to be new last year. At least $10k. I tend to trust kubota, but their pricing is even steeper than deere. When I bought my last deere, 5 years or so ago, the kubota dealer told me not to buy kubota if I needed to bag, but I think that’s changed.
 
Bill D beat me to it...but not all Horsepower is the same.

My Cub Cadet riding mower has a 22HP Kohler gas engine. My former Kobuta L2350 had a 23.5HP engine. Assuming the first 22HP were equal...those last 1.5HP's must have been Clydesdales because the Kubota would do about 50 times the work of the Cub.

Portable generators are kind of like that now too. My first generator was a Coleman 5K watt with something like 6,250 surge watts. The last generator that I bought was a Honda 2K watt that is only rated at 1,600 running watts and the 2,000 watts is surge watts. I guess we have the new improved version now.
 
To be fair, the parts I've had to purchase are consumables. Gage wheels/spindles, blades, deck belt, fluids, and the annual maintenance kits, etc. No breakdowns thus far. JD fluids are not any higher priced than aftermarket and there is guaranteed compatibility.

What aren't cheap are the accessories/attachments, but they have just about anything you could ever want to bolt on to your lawn mower - plows, snowblowers, 3 pt. hitches, rear PTO kits, cabs, sprayers, tillers, the list goes on. Makes for a very versatile machine if you only want to maintain one engine.

Another vote for the Deeres. I have a 2000 445 AWS. It has a 22 hp water cooled horizontal shaft Kawasaki, full hydraulics front, center, and rear, front and rear pto, hydraulic 3 point hitch, and all wheel power steering. All implements are shaft driven. In the 22 years I've owned it it's needed almost nothing other than normal maintenance. The biggest expense so far has been new tires. They all rotted to the point they would no longer hold air.

Granted replacement parts can be expensive. The best part however is that they are still available for models built in 1966 which was the first year lawn & garden tractors were offered.

It's extremely hard to know the true cost of these machines by just comparing list prices. When I was looking I made a spread sheet with the 12 brands I was most likely to purchase. The JD's were not on the first draft since I thought they were too expensive and out of budget range. After looking closely at what was included on each machine it was apparent that the lower priced machines had far fewer of what I considered "necessities" in the original price. By the time all the "necessary" options were added the JD's started looking more attractive.

When all was said and done there were several "lower priced" machines that actually exceeded the price of the JD when all the options were added in. The final question was how long the machines were supported. I called several dealers looking for parts for 10 year old machines. Some flat out said parts were no longer available, while others went through catalogs finding an original part number had been superseded several times, and the newest version would require modifications to the machine for proper fit. That's when I decided the JD was the best bang for the buck.
 
Yes when it comes to Zero-Turn mowers, few offer a mower with a designed in Grass Handling System. Most just use an after-market catcher.

Here are the few US mowers I have found that have the Designed-in Grass Handling Systems. The only two US manufactures that have a factory High-Dump catcher that I have been able to find are Walker and Toro, and I did an in-depth High-Dump search last year as I needed to replace my late 1980's Walker.

Here is the Walker Mower that originated the built in (up to 10 bushel) Zero-Turn Grass Handling System. Notice that the mower deck on the Walker has the easiest access to the mower blades
T27i-C48-left-tilt_900.png

And the Video of the Walker Grass Handling System


This Toro H800 (22 Bushel Catcher) at the everyday low price as of November 2021 was $40K. It follows many European designs and is not a true Zero Turn.

TORO PLH_800_FRONT_LEFT.jpg

Video of the H800

Toro and Exmark also have a smaller 10 bushel units fashioned after the Walker but not quite a Walker.
z-master-74312-direct-collect-8000-deck-up-694x594.jpg


Non Designed-in Grass Handling Systems.
Now this is typical of the rest of the Zero-Turn mowers with an after-market solution.
Notice all the external hoses and blowers that effectively remove the Zero-Turn capabilities on one side of the mower!
Perhaps they are Nascar Mowers, left turn only for going around trees and shrubs.;)

PRO 3B Power Bagger for Kubota Z400 KommanderPRO Series.jpg

Kubota Video


Now if you are looking the Ultimate mower without a grass catcher, then perhaps this GPS tracking mower may be the one!
Perfectly straight mowing lines a quarter mile long perhaps longer! Almost completely self driving!!

CubCadet_ProZ972SSurepath_7.jpg

And a couple Videos.
Video 1
Video 2
 








 
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