Farris ztr`s any opinion

[ranger rick]

farris 61" what do you think of it?

[kutnkru]

My objection to this machine is the deck style.

When your decks are squared rather than rounded where they meet the traction unit, I have found they loose vacuum, thus overlapping becomes more extensive and production dwindles.

______/ = no good

Just my thoughts.
Kris

[fdew]

I have a Ferris 61 in and I love it. Look under that squared deck and you will find round shrouding. I vacuumed leves with it this fall and it was awsome.

http://www.ferrisindustries.com/product.htm

Frank

[Richard Martin]

Ferris makes an excellent machine. Ferris's only problem is that there aren't enough dealers around. The ride quality of the Ferris is unmatched in the industry thanks to 4 wheel independent suspension. Ferris was also the first company to offer hydrostatic drive in a walkbehind.

Kutnkru, I want to add a little to what fdew wrote. There are 2 kinds of decks, formed and fabricated. A formed deck is made from stamping the deck shape out of one piece of steel. The fabricated deck is made from welding pieces of steel together to form the deck. If built correctly both decks can produce very good vacuum. This is because there is baffling added to the fab'd deck. Almost all fabricated decks come with baffling in the rear. The best decks come with baffling in the rear and the front. Take a look under and Exmark and you'll see what I'm talking about.

[luckylawnboy]

I had a pro Cut Z, for about 3/4 of the season last year. I decided to sell it and get me Dixie Flatlander. The ferris does extremly well on hills an articulating ground. I just think it lacks the blade tip speed and deck design to cut well. The cut on my Dixie is twice of what was on the ferris. It rides nice. You still get a rough ride, you justr don't feel all those little clods of dirt and small bumps. Hit a hole, or some thing like that and you will get reminded that your back on a ZTR.

[Eric ELM]

Richard Martin and Fdew, I was wondering how many hours you have on your machines. The reason is, the independent suspension has a lot of extra wear points and I was wondering how they are holding up after 2 or 3,000 hours of use. Is the independent suspension greasable?

I have never seen a Ferris around here and I can't imagine anything smoother than my new diesel Chopper. I know tires have a lot to do with the ride of a mower, the bigger the better. It has 25 X 12 tires which ride much nicer than the 22 X 11 tires on my old one, plus the extra 200 lbs it weighs, 1200 total, helps hold it down to the ground.

Blade tip speed and baffles in the right spots of a deck is the key to a good cut. I agree with Luckylawnboy, the cut of the new DC's is great.

[Jet boater]

Hey! 1,200 lbs! There IS a mower that weighs as much as my SST.

[Greenkeepers]

I agree w/ Eric-

I know a guy who just bought one for his house. It's a nice machine and the ride is nice but that nice ride costs some money to fix when something breaks. Plus I like my exmark's cut better :)

[Richard Martin]

Eric,
I don't have a Ferris, I had a Woods which was built under license from Ferris. My review of the ride was based on a test drive. Admittedly it was not a long term test but the ride was sweet.

[SMB]

Could you get parts from a Simplicity dealer?

[fdew]

I need to clarify, I have a Ferris Pro cut 22 (A three wheel rider) I joined this discussion because the decks are the same but I cant speak to the reliability of the IS I can say that I bought my 3 wheeler from a man who had one IS and was selling my machine to buy a second. Before Ferris he had used Scag.

I think you could buy most parts from a Simplicity dealer but you would need to be clever. Simplicity cheapen the IS a little by putting there own deck on it when they sell it under there own name but they also sell the Procut 22 under there name and that uses the same spindles ETC as the is. (To my knowledge, the only change they make on the pro cut 22 is to substitute a B+S Vanguard 20 hp engine for the 22 hp Kohler

BTW my Procut 22 has just over 1000 hrs on it. I have replaced the tires and the seat (I added a full suspension seat. Other then that it has been trouble free.

[kutnkru]

Maybe we had a bad batch of machines, but We had to overlap what I would call extensively with a Ferris and with the Exmark we have virtually "eliminated" the overlap.

When I saw one of our foreman (using a Ferris52w/b) out-cut by a laborer with an Exmark 48, I knew something wasnt right. We just use 'em not design them and it wouldnt be the first time I was off the beaten path - LOL!

Was just my observation.
Kris

[Runner]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Richard Martin
[B]Eric,
I don't have a Ferris, I had a Woods which was built under license from Ferris.


Richard, (or anyone else who knows), Are the Ferris and the Woods ZTR's about the same machine then? I never noticed!

[Richard Martin]

Runner,
At one time they were but not now. The Woods machine is an exact duplicate of your Gravely Pro 300. They both come off the same production line at Gravely.

I noticed in another thread that you said that you have modified your Gravely's deck. What did you do to it? I have a Pro 150 50". I have cut the discharge chute back 3" (it would dig into the ground), completely removed the deck baffles and replaced them with better, stronger, better welded baffles which go almost all the way around the deck, added triangular gussets to the front of the rear baffles (see an Exmark deck for reference) which cured the clumping, replaced the blade belt tension spring with one that has 6x more tension, replaced the very weak stock mower frame with the much stronger factory reinforced frame (why don't they come with this frame?), put 15" drive tires on it (increased speed from 5.2 mph to 6.0 mph) and replaced the 14 Kaw with a 17 Kaw.