Reply to Thread

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Message: <blockquote data-quote="vvvvvvv" data-source="post: 2767963" data-attributes="member: 5151">This.I'd been mowing my 3 acres with a 1995 John Deere STX38. With a 38 inch deck and 11HP motor, it took ~5-6 hours to get a good cut. I'm pretty sure those motors aren't designed to run like that constantly. My grandfather had bought it in 1995 and it had been doing city yards until 7 years ago when I threw a rod on a 46" Murray with 16HP Briggs that was 18 months old (wasn't even going through thick stuff or bogging down either - just suddenly stopped and started dumping oil around an object protruding from the case).This year, I gave that STX38 back to my dad and bought a John Deere X320 with a 54" cut and 22HP Kawasaki. There wasn't anything really wrong with the STX38 - it had a ground short in an area where the wiring is buried and I just really didn't have the time to mess with it. I took it as my sign to finally step up to something the right size. The X320 has no problem going through stuff taller than it, and I can do the entire 3 acres in 90 minutes and ~2/3 tank of gas.As for CVT vs Hydrostatic, I prefer hydrostatic. CVTs are much cheaper to produce overseas which is why you see them in the big box store mowers like the D series. The hydrostatic is smoother and you don't have to worry about missing a shift into forward or reverse. Tradeoff is less efficient on power transfer and sensitivity to heat.</blockquote>