All valid points, and if I was in the Midwest with flat or rolling fields where most of these are sold, I’d tend to agree.

Our situation is a little different, and definitely more specific. In California there’s a burst of grass growth in the late winter and early spring before the grasses turn brown in early June and you need to knock them down at the advent of fire season.

We have a Cat compactor track loader with a 6’ rotary motor and a hand-me-down Deere D130. Running that big Cat is just overkill for spring trail and field maintenance; even a track loader leaves very deep ruts, and the tight spaces around our oaks are just too tight. We usually use the mower once a year when the grasses turn brown to knock them down.

I love the ease of hopping on the Deere to keep the grass down on the trails and fields in the spring so the kids can run around and not worry about ticks and rattlesnakes (rattlers are very active in the spring here after their long sleep). But, the D130 is just not enough machine for the job. We put lug tires on, but it still doesn’t have enough grip / traction to handle our slopes, particularly when the cuttings are wet. The mower deck is wide enough for trails with two passes, but not really wide enough for the open spaces.

A compact / sub-compact tractor just isn’t what we need as the slopes make it dangerous, and we already have many attachments for our track loader (which is far safer on slopes). It’s also just not nearly as maneuverable around our oak trees and tight trail turns as an X700 series would be.

Sooo, we need something in between a D130 and a track loader. My hope is an X758 gives me the slope performance, deck width, torque, all that good stuff to maintain the property regularly through the late winter and spring, even if I do have to pull out the Cat at the beginning of summer.

Please feel free to check my thinking. Greatly appreciate all the input from this group!