I am looking at riding mowers for the house I am buying. I used to drive Toro front mount riding mowers for five summers and I really liked them. Front mounts are typically large commercial mowers and were not cheap when new.
Has anyone driven both a front mount riding mower and a zero turn mower to compare them? One guy I talked to has three front mount mowers and he said he tried a zero turn and hated it so he keeps driving the front mounts. When I drove the Toro front mount I could get really close to stuff even though it was a 72" deck. I am a bit concerned about buying a used front mount though the Toros were really durable when I used them. The ones I drove had between 2,000 and 4,000 hours on them although I used an almost new one the last year or two. I would probably prefer the water cooled motor as a small engine with 1,800 hours could be pretty worn out. (We had one of the small Toro Groundsmasters with the Briggs engine that seized at about 4,000 hours. Luckily, my employer had already purchased a replacement and they scrapped the old one.)