Tell me how to drive my zero turn mower

I hang my head in shame because I need driving instructions! I have a dealer demo Toro Z Master at my place for the weekend. I'm 99% sure I'm going to buy it. Now, I can manage to drive just about anything but have to admit this is the first ZT I've ever driven. Well, I did back my uncles out of his garage once and my son took over from there and has run that one ever since. I used it yesterday and today and I do like it a lot. But, both my boy and I are leaving a lot of divots when turning. More so than my uncles exmark Quest, the only other one we've run. I ended up breaking lands like I did with the lawn tractor rather than going straight back and forth. Is there a trick? I've seen those lawn care guys just a whipping around trees and poles, but we manage to smear all the grass off all the way around.

When you are "smearing", you are either stopped on one wheel, or dragging the wheel doing the pivoting. Slow down on your turns, keep both wheels turning at all times, even if one is in reverse.

The tires are the difference. And Ive found the dry ground under the grass will tear up much easer than moist. If you pull back hard enough to spin the tire backwards while turning it will dig also. have the inside tire moving slowly forward while turning and it will do much better.. lugged tires are a must if you have a grade to climb and turn on but turf tires work ok on level yards and do less damage. I thought I needed a zero till I got one. It doesnt do that great around obsticles and my yard is too steep to turn on. I ended up going back to my tractor style and do a lot less spinning and it doesnt take that much more time on my half acre.

I worked for a very wealth guy in high school and he always made me make a three point turn and would have a cow if he caught me not. Just ease into your first third of a turn then back up for the second third the get the last third as you take off. Take a little more time but still a lot quicker that a traditional lawn tractor

Your slipping one tire. Your making one tire be just about clear topped and pivoting on it. You need to slow the outer tire down and speed the inter one up as you turn. This will make it a larger radius turn but will not divot the grass as much. The trouble is too many guys are used to running a skid steer loader on hard surfaces or where they do not care if they tear the heck out of things. So they naturally run the Zero turn the same way.

Also if the tires are very aggressive they will do this on any type of sharp turn. So you will need to make three point turns.

This zero turn divot issue is common. If you look at many yards you can just about tell which ones are mowed with a zero turn. There will be a dead strip around each tree where the grass is devoted every time it is mown.

I got rid of my zero turns and the yards are already looking better as the skid marks/divots are not there anymore. It takes me 10% loner to mow now but my back is twice as good after each time so I am still ahead.

I'm thinking that Toro has a high/low range selector. Are you running it in the low range when mowing?

Also they don't do well on grades. If you're trying to keep it going straight on a side slope, it's going to slip the back tires.

I suspect it's the mower. I have a Bush Hog made zero turn and have no issues at all. I test drove a JD and it had really tight low travel controls and it was too easy to lock up the wheels and even reverse them and they'd spin. Really tore up the grass as your describing.

Call your dealer, seems to me I read something about being able to adjust the sensitivity and throw of the hydraulics.

Never rotate on a stopped wheel. The inside wheel must be rolling either forward or backward, or you'll make a scuff mark. It's that simple. You'll figure it out pretty quick. Now if you have flowerbeds on a hillside, you may have a situation that can't be fixed.

I mow my yard with a Toro Z Master and have no issues.
It has cut my mowing time to less than half what it was and
I don't run it much faster than I did my Farmall Cub.

Maybe slowing down on the corners will help until you get
used to it but the only "trick" I can think of is to not stop
a tire. Just run the controls gently and fluidly.

These things turn very easily. You don't have to yank on the
handles. Ease them into doing what you need them to do.
It took me a while to learn how to use mine too.

BTW, there is almost NO reason to back a ZTR.
If you're still backing it up, practice more! 8)

(quoted from post at 19:22:41 09/05/15) I hang my head in shame because I need driving instructions! I have a dealer demo Toro Z Master at my place for the weekend. I'm 99% sure I'm going to buy it. Now, I can manage to drive just about anything but have to admit this is the first ZT I've ever driven. Well, I did back my uncles out of his garage once and my son took over from there and has run that one ever since. I used it yesterday and today and I do like it a lot. But, both my boy and I are leaving a lot of divots when turning. More so than my uncles exmark Quest, the only other one we've run. I ended up breaking lands like I did with the lawn tractor rather than going straight back and forth. Is there a trick? I've seen those lawn care guys just a whipping around trees and poles, but we manage to smear all the grass off all the way around.

Click to expand...

Get a demo on an articulating mower with the mowing deck out front - Husqvarna makes some

When turning, do not pull the inside wheel's control lever all the way back to stop. You want that wheel to keep rolling. Practice a few slow turns and watch the inside wheel to get the hang of it.

A few divots or skids in the lawn are a small price to pay for the amount of time a zero turn saves mowing a lawn. I can't imagine going back to the old Cub cadet riding tractors. I would have to add another day to the week to get the mowing done. And the tractors are so unreliable compared to the zero turns it's unbelievable. And it don't matter what brand, they all s@ck.

I've had my zero turn for a year and a half, and I'm still learning. The main thing is to never turn on a stopped wheel, but that's only part of it.

When making a square turn, I go past the corner, then back up quickly and make the turn while the mower is coasting backwards.

To avoid digging around trees and posts, drive past the object, then back and turn to take another pass, repeating as many times as necessary.

If you have a soft spot where wheel might spin, speed up before crossing then slow as you hit it to coast across the bad spot.

I was having that problem too, and as others have said, you can't pivot without a divot. What I do is get started turning with the outside going around then just slowly back up a little with the inside. It is still fast, and still zero, and usually the turn point is not noticeable. When turning around things like trees, I vary my path a little each time, which you should be doing any way I alternate between a front to back and a diagonal pattern, and occasionally take the other diagonal.

my neighbor has had one for years and kept tearing up my fence.
finally started spraying extra round-up on his side to give a wider strip of bare ground.

If you go back and forth, you will windrow the grass clippings. Cutting in a rectangular pattern, you can cut the clippings over many times, no windrow of dead grass. I like the rectangular pattern over the back and forth.

My wife mows back and forth with our Toro and never damages the grass in any way. And she's finicky enough about HER lawn that heaven forbid there be a blade of grass harmed or out of place.

I admit she's a lot better with the ZT than I am, 'cause usage of it is about 99% hers and 1% mine. She does all the mowing except for what I do with a tractor and shredder.

davpal. I will agree that the zero turns mowers are fast. As for durability. I would disagree there. A good quality rider will last as long or longer than a zero turn. One big difference is there are few 20 year old zero turn mowers. So most zero turn mowers are newer than the used riders out there. Also the new riders are much faster than the old Cub cadets or JD 200 series riders. I have owned both and currently went back to the riders. Many of the ZERO turn mowers are commercial units too so you need to compare them to commercial quality riders. That is what I have the JD 728s are a heavy duty unit. The LA series you get at Home Depot is a totally different cat.

In the fairly flat plains area her in Northwest Iowa most farm mowers are zero turn. The steepest slopes we have is road ditches that sometimes aren't even THAT steep. My Grasshopper with regular turf type tread tires does fine for the mowing I do but it gets a little hard to control on a slope. Also, if you want perfectly straight lines when you mow it takes more concentration with a zero turn. I mow most of my lawn at a 45 degree angle and I like my lines perfectly straight but sometimes wanting perfection and attaining perfection are two different animals. If the ground is soft after a good rain the pivot wheel will chew the grass so around corners of buildings where I pivot in the same place every time I have to be a little careful if I don't want a bare spot there.

A friend mowed my lawn with a diesel kubota ZTR. He was repaying a favor. I mowed his lawn while he was on vacation and I wouldn't take any money from him. So without asking he mowed mine when I wasn't home.

I didn't have the heart to tell him his job looked like crap. There was a strip of dead grass then clean looking, then another strip of dead. He was going so fast you could tell the grass was whipped instead of mowed. I can make my grass look the same, whipped, if I put it in 3rd gear and go 6 mph. I use 2nd, 4 mph, Looks great. Way better than any flying ZTR.

Neighbor on the other side same thing. They think it goes a good job just because they go flying, whip and scalp the lawn.

I have worked professionally with zero-turn mowers for 17 years now. I have extensively run many exmark zero-turns, a 50" (an early one with exceptionally jerky controls), a 60", a 60" water cooled, and a 70". I also currently run a bunton 50" and a scag advantage 61". I also have lots of experience with gravely walk behinds, gravely riders, many garden tractors of different makes, and I have many hours behind push mowers. I can tell you that precision and quality with NO MISTAKES is what keeps the big commercial contracts, and being fast is what makes you money.
Here is what professional zero-turn mowers are good at: turning around fast, cutting both clean and fast, accelerating up and down rapidly. Here is what they stink at: wet ground, weak grass, ditches, tight spaces, any slope over 10 degrees. Zero turns are also exceptionally heavy and have very wide tires which tear the sod when you decide to turn sharp. With that in mind, you use all of the same techniques with your zero-turn as you would use with any other machine while doing the job the same way, except, a zero-turn is limited by the damage that it does to the ground, not by the angle of its steering wheels. Remember that for any set of conditions there is a minimum turning radius which will not cause accumulating damage to sod. Do not turn tighter than this radius. When making a square outside corner, turn around the corner at your beat estimate of the minimum radius, back up at the minimum radius in the opposite direction, and then complete the turn in the original direction at the minimum radius. Turns around an outside corner get wider with each pass, and turns around an insider corner get tighter with each pass. Always keep track of the minimum radius for the area where you are, and "shuttle" the machine around any too-tight turn in the appropriate way to prevent you from tearing the sod.
Turning around (180 degrees) at the end of a row necessitates at least TWO shuttles. Three may be necessary depending on the angle (or form) of the edge of the lawn relative to the previous row. If there is a choice between two shuttles and blowing grass into a garden, and three shuttles and keeping the grass on the lawn, it may behoove you to take the extra time (depending on your relationship with the owner/your wife, the thickness of the grass, etc) to keep the grass on the lawn.
Never accelerate or decelerate too fast. Professional zero-turns have enough torque at the wheels to break the tires loose at almost any speed. When you spin a tire you damage the sod. Learn to accelerate within the traction limits of the tires, and to judge the traction limits of the tires by feel. This feel will also help keep you from getting stuck in unexpectedly wet grass.
If you are going to mow a steep hillside, ditch, or soft ground, get a mower whose steering wheels are not also its traction wheels. Otherwise you will quickly find yourself stuck in the middle of a wet lawn, or slid down a hill into a ditch with two brown tracks giving witness to your mistake for most of the mowing season. Most likely, you will also leave another set of tracks when you back your truck onto the grass to pull the machine out. There is also a significant roll-over risk when operating a zero-turn on slopes. If you must operate on slopes, walk the ground first to judge its condition (wetness, softness), install the rollover bar, fasten your safety belt, and only mow directly up or down the slope.
Also, mowing decks have nerfing wheels to prevent you from scalping the ground when it is not perfectly flat. These will save your butt when you make a mistake. However, no ridged mowing deck can properly conform to large discontinuities in the ground. You must think about where the blades are going to cut, and then maneuver the mower to prevent scalping. This is most important around ditches and grass covered berms.
Lastly, zero-turns are not as durable as a professional riding tractor. You can expect no more than 3000-4000 trouble free hours out of a professional hydrostatic system, while an engine may last 6000-8000 hours if you take good care of it. A professional riding tractor will usually last twice as long as its engine. The big advantage of the zero-turn is that it boosts your productivity, especially when you are mowing many small lawns in a day, or if you need to constantly work around many odd landscape features. Remember, if you want good results with a zero-turn, you need to discipline yourself and learn how to use it. This is no different from any other technology (for example, old farm tractors).

I get in a hurry and whip the grass some too. It just depends on the mood I'm in and how much work I have to do. It depends on how tender the grass is too. My Grasshopper does it's best job no faster than 2.5 to 3 MPH. It still cuts it off at 4 MPH or whatever wide open is but it's not quite as neat. My neighbor bought a commercial zero turn that has a mid-mount deck, I don't know the name of it but it flies. It goes so fast he drives it up the road to his various farms and gets there as soon as he would of he loaded it on a trailer or sooner. One thing I did to help the grass chunking problem with my Grasshopper is to put a wood shim under the hinge of the grass deflector to get it up in the air a bit. Now it throws the clippings out instead of down and out. If I had all kinds of time and could mow every other day I wouldn't have to mess with the grass chute but!!!!!!!

One more thing, you can usually pivot in place without damaging the sod, but there is no way to transition from a true pivot (where both wheels are moving in opposite directions, and for the purposes of this discussion, neither is turning at less than its minimum radius) to a turn (both wheels moving in the same direction at different speeds) without forcing one wheel to turn at less than its minimum radius at some point in the transition. Yet, pivoting is still very useful for getting into and out of tight spots, and for saving time when conditions are favorable. To keep from tearing the sod with a pivot, bring both wheels to a complete stop, pivot, stop both wheels again simultaneously, and then go.

Great explanation with lots of good info. Thanks.

Geo-TH,In my ZTR NEVER leaves a windrow. Ever.
I can run mine at 12 MPH and it won't leave windrows.
It would mulch everything at the speeds those blades spin.

What it will do at that speed is miss the Buckthorn or other
stringy weeds and pretty much make you feel like you've been
beaten up! I run mine at about 8MPH. No issues there.

Mine is a 25 year old Toro Z-Master. I bought it from a
landscaping business for less than the price of a box store rider.

It was used commercially and has its fair share of battle scars
and "on the go" fixes. I've had it about five years now and mow
three to four acres with it.
The hour meter stopped working before I got it at about 6000
hours. At this point it has more than paid for itself.

Same grass, different mowers. Pictures tell the story. I own both yards, tenant mows his with ztr.
NOW WHO'S LOOKS THE BEST?

Everyone tells me how nice my yard looks, can you see why?
I use a woods rm660 and a Jubilee.