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Official Scag Tiger Cat II thread. Picked ours up today

141K views 443 replies 52 participants last post by  lambdin 
#1 ·
Once the grass gets going I will give a full review on this machine. For now I can only give initial impressions. From what I see I am very impressed. Everything is laid out very nicely and easy to operate and get to things. The foot platform is bigger than the previous tiger cat. The deck adjustment is much better with the pin on top instead of the side. The rear tires are very large for this frame size mower. The suspension seat is far more comfortable than I was expecting. The 2 Gravely 460's I had before had awesome air ride but the actual cushion in the seat itself was VERY firm. This scag seat has a very soft cushion and the suspension has a ton of travel and is easy to adjust. The trim side of the deck has a tremendous amount of overhang which I love. I missed that about the Gravely 460 which had almost no trim side.





















 
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#3 ·
Nice pics bro. How is the leg room between your knees and the joysticks. It might help to know how tall you are too. I have always been way too cramped on the std TC and could never raise or lower the deck with the sticks in the drive position because the right stick prevented me from moving my leg to do it, and that was on a TC with the sticks in the top setting for height. I am really interested in how this mower works out for you.
 
#4 ·
I am 5'10 and it seemed like i had enough room. I didn't play around on it much so i will check that out for you friday when i am back down at my parents house. This new model also has an adjustable peg for the deck lift instead of the old flat non adjustable pad of the older model. Same peg setup that our 460 had. Has 3 holes you can put it in.
 
#7 ·
Once the grass gets going I will give a full review on this machine. For now I can only give initial impressions. From what I see I am very impressed. Everything is laid out very nicely and easy to operate and get to things. The foot platform is bigger than the previous tiger cat. The deck adjustment is much better with the pin on top instead of the side. The rear tires are very large for this frame size mower. The suspension seat is far more comfortable than I was expecting. The 2 Gravely 460's I had before had awesome air ride but the actual cushion in the seat itself was VERY firm. This scag seat has a very soft cushion and the suspension has a ton of travel and is easy to adjust. The trim side of the deck has a tremendous amount of overhang which I love. I missed that about the Gravely 460 which had almost no trim side.





















 
#9 ·
I kid you not my uncle bought the old style tiger cat 61" last year with the 26.5 kohler efi. I know most will question this and I would to had I not seen it with my own eyes. That mower religiously gets .75 gallons per hour. Which honestly makes sense beings the 27 kohler carbed same mower (I've owned several) get right at 1gph during normal every week growth. I'm impressed with these pics. To the point that I'm headed to the dealer to check the exact mower out myself. Weren't the old pumps 10cc?? This mower be a little quicker? I was dead set on another turf tiger but I don't know now. Like what I see
 
#18 ·
9500 plus tax. The dealer split the 3% fee they charge for the 0% for 48 months special financing. Grand total was 10,200 I believe after tax and the finance fee. Payment is 216 a month as we didn't put anything down.

Going to take the 1400 profit from selling our Gravely 460 and fix a few things on our old lazer.
 
#25 ·
Hey bro, I really appreciate you making that for me.Thumbs Up:clapping:

I am gonna have to look at one in person and see if they will set the foot peg at the front hole like you mentioned. that may be just right for me. I just don't want my hand getting wedged in between the stick and my knee all the time. yeah, I've found they start a lot easier when the sticks are in the outer poosition:laugh:
 
#26 ·
I keep hearing how great the velocity plus deck is in deep or wet conditions. Our Gravely's cut nice in ideal conditions but the discharge is horrible in deep grass and it clumps like hell in wet grass. So pretty much all spring every year I cuss and double cut every lawn we have. I have a 160 with xfactor and had two 460's with the xfactor 1 and 2 decks. They throw the grass down and out only 1 row instead of blowing and fanning it out across multiple rows. OEM blades, aftermarket blades, G6 and 5 blades, baffles on or off made no difference in the way ours discharges. I just couldn't deal with that again this spring. I have high hopes for the velocity plus deck. If it can reduce the amount of double cutting I have to do I will be thrilled. Also the kohler efi was under powered on the 460 due to the power hungry ZT5400 hydro's. Hit a hill and it would slow to half speed.
 
#35 ·
Can you tell if the tiger eye thing says which safety switch goes bad for a no start condition? Can you unplug one switch and tell if it says it's bad?
 
#39 ·
A bit hard on the XF II deck.....

I run Exmark hi lifts on my PT260 with no baffles (throw those damn things off). Clippings dispersed MUCH further out and better than using the stock blades. When it is soaking wet, yes there are a few clumps but the deck never plugs up. I can more than tolerate it's wet grass performance. Much more so than my Toro Z with the Turboforce, that deck is worthless in wet grass.

My brother runs a Cheetah and a Vride and he says those machines also throw wads when lawns are soaking wet.
No deck out there does everything the best.
 
#40 ·
A bit hard on the XF II deck.....

I run Exmark hi lifts on my PT260 with no baffles (throw those damn things off). Clippings dispersed MUCH further out and better than using the stock blades. When it is soaking wet, yes there are a few clumps but the deck never plugs up. I can more than tolerate it's wet grass performance. Much more so than my Toro Z with the Turboforce, that deck is worthless in wet grass.

My brother runs a Cheetah and a Vride and he says those machines also throw wads when lawns are soaking wet.
No deck out there does everything the best.
This is one of the truest statements one will ever read concerning mower decks, and how certain ones fit different cutting scenarios better than others, many times depending on what area of the country you may live.
 
#46 ·
Grass is not growing very much in the lower Piedmont of NC only 15 miles from SC, so my guess is Maryland is even further behind. The air temps have warmed but the ground temperature has not risen all that much, and this is what promotes growth. I talked with a lady in Maryland this week and she was telling me they were calling for snow flurries in her area this weekend. We are not quite finished with winter, but my guess is we are very close.
 
#52 ·
I just buzzed through 11 lawns. Of those one of them was pretty deep already. All I can say is WOW. I purposely mowed that lawn (about 1/2 acre) as fast as the tiger cat would go. It did not leave any debris on the lawn what so ever and I could not find any stragglers standing anywhere. It also leaves very nice stripes.

Ok so here goes. Initial impression after first use. The seat itself is very comfortable. The cushion is much softer than any other mower I have ever used. The suspension works very well and the isolators do there job nicely keeping vibrations out of the seat.

I have used many mowers over the years. This TCII is VERY easy on the turf when you turn. Easier than any machine I have ever used. It also goes front forward down hills without sliding and tearing the lawn like my 460's would do. Now on the flip side of that it is lite in the nose and would not go up a super steep incline that I normally cut with the 460. The front tires come off the ground so I am going to have to add a little weight to the nose.

The EFI Kohler seems plenty powerful for this machine. Everything is still very tight and new so I expect the power will increase a bit more after it gets broken in. My 460 with the same efi kohler was very weak at first until everything broke in. This one is much stronger right out of the gate so once broken in it should be way more than enough power.

That is it for now. 2 weeks from now we will be cutting all of our lawns and they will all be growing like crazy so I will go into more detail once I put it through it's paces.

 
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#58 ·
I just buzzed through 11 lawns. Of those one of them was pretty deep already. All I can say is WOW. I purposely mowed that lawn (about 1/2 acre) as fast as the tiger cat would go. It did not leave any debris on the lawn what so ever and I could not find any stragglers standing anywhere. It also leaves very nice stripes.

Ok so here goes. Initial impression after first use. The seat itself is very comfortable. The cushion is much softer than any other mower I have ever used. The suspension works very well and the isolators do there job nicely keeping vibrations out of the seat.

I have used many mowers over the years. This TCII is VERY easy on the turf when you turn. Easier than any machine I have ever used. It also goes front forward down hills without sliding and tearing the lawn like my 460's would do. Now on the flip side of that it is lite in the nose and would not go up a super steep incline that I normally cut with the 460. The front tires come off the ground so I am going to have to add a little weight to the nose.

The EFI Kohler seems plenty powerful for this machine. Everything is still very tight and new so I expect the power will increase a bit more after it gets broken in. My 460 with the same efi kohler was very weak at first until everything broke in. This one is much stronger right out of the gate so once broken in it should be way more than enough power.

That is it for now. 2 weeks from now we will be cutting all of our lawns and they will all be growing like crazy so I will go into more detail once I put it through it's paces.

The smaller hydraulic system on the Tiger Cat will leave you more usable power than the 5400 traxaxle, this is the main difference you are noticing power-wise, but the V+ also pulls less power than any deck in the mower market. It cuts the grass and rids itself of what was cut immediately, the grass moves out of the deck basically as fast as it comes in, this in itself also requires less power than a deck that processes the cut grass into shorter clippings.
 
#54 ·
Once things really get going I will try and make a few videos. I am going to get a mount for my Sony AS100V action cam and maybe start doing videos for a youtube channel or something. Many of our lawns are somewhat crappy so I dont take a ton of pictures of lawns we cut. Only the nicer ones. Our customers seem to like to let landscaping over grow and tree's to get to big and it ends up choking out the lawn.
 
#56 ·
LOL I am loaded with small sticks again this spring! If I can get the mower here one weekend I will make video of it cutting my lawn. Mine grows better than any lawn I have ever seen before and I freaking dont know why!!!! I only put pre down in the spring. No fert at all last year. Normally I only fertilize it in the fall when I aerate and seed. But the MFER grows out of control!
 
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