Quote:
Originally Posted by spdrun
Looking at the Wiki, Grasshopper appears all American-made, no Chinese garbage.
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I cut about 3.5 acres with a Grasshopper 722D and I've been very impressed with the build quality. When you hit something with the Grasshopper you're going to break whatever you hit and not the mower. This may or may not be a good thing depending on your environment.
One other factor to consider is the style of the deck. The 700 series Grasshopper line has a floating mower deck that sits out in front of the operator. This can come in really handy when you're mowing under fences and around low hanging trees since you can position the cutting deck under obstacles. Later versions of the out-front deck will actually pivot 90 degrees up to make cleaning and blade sharpening very easy. The downside is that the out front deck throws up a lot of dust and takes up more room in your storage shed.
My mower uses a Kubota 722 diesel and the fuel consumption is outstanding, I've been averaging 8 hours of mowing time on around 5 gallons of fuel.
New versions of my mower are in the 13-14K range, I bought mine used with 750 hours for less than half that amount, I've now at 870 hours and the only mechanical issue I've had with mine is the mower deck belt broke.
Lots of commercial operators use Grasshoppers and many have multi-thousand hours on the clocks and still are used daily. Highly recommended in my book.