G2160-R48S "Direct Shoot" Garden Tractor

[KarlS]

Purchased this new at beginning of last season. Sold my 5-yr-old under-powered Simplicity lawn tractor with power bagger because it wasn't up to the task of mowing our hilly horse pastures (two acres total) and once in awhile our 3/4 acre lawn. (I have a similar lawn/hill as the prior poster; I've slid down my hill several times on my Simplicity, so I usually leave the lawn mowing to a "pro"). My compact New Holland 4x4 with ag tires, loader, and bush hog I continue to use for "heavy lifting" chores is inappropriate... it tears up the lawn and pasture in the turns. My Kubota dealer convinced me this was the right machine for my needs, instead of just getting a new belly finishing mower for my New Holland. He says it's a "commercial grade" mower; he's sold more than a hundred copies of it to our local school system's grounds maintenance department.

Here's my dilemma. The tractor portion of this new Kubota machine is most excellent; more than I could've hoped for. Plenty of power and traction to get up the hills, terrific power steering, "lazy me" hydraulic grass catcher dumping, and perfectly-sized tires for falling into and out of hoof holes. But the mower stinks! It's a 48" deck with three blades, one of which turns counter to the other two (which are mounted in the center and left side).

The biggest annoyance is the almost-one-inch gap between the side-by-side same-rotating-direction blades, so I have to overlap between rows. And this is with brand-new sharp blades. This amounts to really having maybe a 30" cutting swath. The other annoyance is how quickly the inside of the deck gets caked-up, even with dry grass. Cleaning the deck requires disassembly from the tractor linkages and rolling it out from under the tractor. :banghead3

Today, it took me over 3 hrs to mow one acre of pasture. And that doesn't include the time it'll take me tomorrow to disassemble and clean the deck.

I'm guessing this is just an engineering quirk, the norm for a commercial-equivalent mower, and I should learn to live with it. Or, since there's no blower power assist for the catcher, the fast clogging is a "feature".

I think I've learned my lesson, and I won't replace this machine unless I can bring an appropriate candidate mower to my place and try it out first. Thinking maybe I should've "gone Green" instead of orange? :1106:

Thanks for letting me vent. :fing20:

...Karl

[ducati996]

Are they the correct blades? Not sure what else I can say besides bring this to the attention of the dealer and/or scapping the bagger aspect part of it.

Duc

[Jim_WV]

Karl, like Duc, I have to wonder whats going on with your machine and would also suggest talking to the dealer. Something is just not right with the blades. The grass buildup I can understand if you're bagging, thats always a hangup there. If you could get the problem figured out with the blades and the cutting correctley, I would try cutting with out the bagger and see if that does'nt clear the grass under the deck build up problem.

Take care and good luck.
Jim

[KarlS]

Guys,

Thanks for your ideas.

Yes, they're the right blades. I have a second set from my dealer so I can put on a sharp set and then have the other set I just took off to get back to the dealer to sharpen and have ready for the next time I need them.

The dealer's already looked at the set-up once. I don't have much faith in the dealer, though. When I bought the machine, they broke off the left-hand-thread bolt for the blade that spins opposite the other two, and the dealer had to order and install a replacement spindle before delivery. Then, the first time I used the machine, I had to stop the mower quickly when it started to make a noise I thought was a dry bearing. Turned out I discovered they didn't put one of the cone washers on one of the blades when they put them on, and that blade was spinning free. I'd go to another dealer, but the next closest is more than an hour away in each direction.

As far as mowing without the bagging,... yes, I've tried that, too. I bought the Kubota chute for this machine when I purchased the unit. Of course, the dealer didn't know how to put the chute on when you removed the bagger, so I had to experiment on my own to figure it out. The results were the same with the immediate clogging.

Anyway, I had always heard such good things about Kubotas, which is why I bought this one. Perhaps it's the mower deck design with the center discharge instead of the usual side discharge.

If you will excuse the bad pun, "It's just not going to cut it." (sorry. couldn't help myself). :00000057:

...Karl

[kchatwin]

I don't have any suggestions for you, but your experience does not sound typical. I've got the same deck under my AG-20 ZTR and the cuts great and the discharge is very even (I don't bag). Like you however, I have noticed that this deck accumulates more deposits under the deck than did my 38" Cub Cadet ever did. I attribute that to the deeper deck design. Overall, I've been pleased with the ZG-20; it cut my mowing time in half. I can mow 1.25 acres in an hour flat.

[kchatwin]

Correction to my previous post. My deck is a side discharge deck, not the direct shoot. All my blades spin the same direction.

[KarlS]

It may be the side-discharge is the way to go.

I spent an hour this morning "OOF!!"ing the deck out from under my unit. I replaced the 3 not-too-dull blades with newly-sharpened/balanced blades, lubricated everything, and "OOF!"ed the deck back under the unit. I still have the same issues after spending almost six hours in the seat mowing today. Sigh.

...Karl :00000060:

[Dan Lovell]

This might sound really dumb, but are you sure the blades aren't on upside down? I have some stuff from SEARS that you spray on the blades to keep grass from sticking, but i can't find it. It's here in the shop somewhere :goodl:

[Ingersoll444]

Well I know nothing about them, but welcome to MTF Karl, and Kchatwin!!

[KarlS]

Hi all. I apologize. I completely forgot about my post last spring and haven't updated it. Here's the latest.

After more scrutiny while mowing my pastures last season, I discovered most of the unsatisfactory mowing was because my pastures, unlike lawns, have lots of thick, stalky, weeds. With the turf/wide tires on this unit, the stalks were being rolled flat by the front tires, then didn't have time to spring back vertical by the time the mower blades got to them. So, I went back to the dealer and ordered a set of "high lift" optional blades. I put those on a few weeks later, and that seemed to help quite a bit. :woohoo1:

(And, yes, it's really clear which is the "up" and "down" sides of these blades... the lift bend is so prominent that the blades would burrow into the ground below the bottom of the mower deck if I put them on upside down). :duh:

Unfortunately, the mowed material still sticking badly to the underside of the mower deck is still a problem, but, again, I think that's more of an issue mowing stalky pasture weeds than more-dry, smaller-blade, lawn material. :banghead3

Thanks, again, for your interest. Cheers!! :thanku:

...Karl

[mhb@ufe]

There must be a problem with your mower if your not getting a good cut. The build up of material could be the material you are cutting but you still should get a full even cut without leaving strips. If you can't get help from your dealer call the customer service number in your operators manual. If you need to, insist on a service rep coming out to your place and see what's happening. Kubota has always shown that customer satisfaction is important and I can't believe they would expect you to live with unsatisfactory performance from your mower.

[Hawk521]

I bought a used (98 hours) G2160-R48S about 6 weeks ago. My lawn is not very weedy and I get a great cut. Mostly fescue and some invasive Bermuda grass. Cut is smoother than the 38" Honda Harmony mower I was using. And I've never noticed any uncut grass between blades. The blades do overlap a little bit as the middle blade is slightly forward of the other two. Even cuts in a fairly tight turn seem to be reasonably complete.

While I would expect some clogging issues with wet grass, my experience so far with normal moisture grass has been quite good. Mows great, dumps so easy its almost fun. My hope is to use it for leaf pickup in the fall. A set of those hi-lift blades might be just the thing too! :)

Happy in North Carolina!

[KarlS]

Hawk521, you're gonna love your G2160-R48S for picking up leaves in the fall. That's where mine really shines every year. Enjoy!!

...Karl

[JimM]

I'm thinking about ordering a G2160 Direct Shoot before the end of the year deals expire and want to ask folks how they still like their tractors? I have a small tree farm in south Florida and the grass gets tall and wet down here in the summertime. What I have mainly is Argentine Bahia and other assorted grasses that'll get about a foot tall with the seed stalks getting to about 3'. My current mower (Husqvarna clone) is totally useless at bagging grass. If the grass is over 3'' tall or even damp, it'll clog the grass tube in no time. I use the clippings to mulch the trees and at present I can only use the grass catcher in the winter months. I've read just about everything about the Direct Shoot I can find and I'm ready to take the leap. Only problem is that no one around here keeps them in stock and it will have to be a special order. No way to look at it or test it out on the property.

That's where your help will come in. Anything and everything you can tell me good/bad/indifferent about your tractor will be greatly appreciated! I especially need to know under what circumstances your grass chutes or mower decks have clogged. Thanks in advance!

[Hawk521]

Jim,

I have enjoyed my G2160-R48S in the few years I have owned it. Runs great and bags my clippings and leaves well. I did change the blades to the "high lift" set that Kubota offers - as my primary need was getting up oak leaves in the fall. It vacuums them up with gusto! And dumping the hopper is so easy I sometimes volunteer and gather up leaves from several of my neighbors' yards.

As to 3' tall grass - well, I have no idea about that. If the grass is such that it readily shreds into a fine mulch it may work okay. But if the grass is really tough and tends to remain full length after being cut I'm guessing that it could be problematic. The discharge chute is only about 2 feet long and is fairly large. I've not had any complaints about the way the chute handles the discharge. My discharge chute has only clogged up when I have stuffed more than will fit into the hopper. It has driver accessable levers you can use to clear the chute that have worked well for me. But I have no experience mowing anything higher than 8 to 10 inch fescue.

The one minor downside I experience, especially with the high lift blades, is the generous amount of dust that the system stirs up. On dry days my wife says that sometimes she loses sight of me in the dust cloud! I'm convinced the dust is inevitable for any strong vacuum system unless the hopper could be enveloped by a dust proof jacket. It definately warrants shaking the dust/dirt out of your work clothes and a good long shower after getting up leaves! :)

Good luck with your decision.

[KarlS]

Hi Jim,

I think this set-up would be good for your application.

It works better with (even tall) grass I have on my lawn than with the tall/thick stalky weeds in my pastures. Like Hawk, I've not mowed 3' high grass/weeds with it myself. If it's that high in the pastures, I use my PTO-powered bush hog on the back of my Boomer compact tractor.

I find my issue with my Shooter is more of a Kubota engineering/design issue, with the wide lawn/floatation front tires set inside the width of the two outside mower deck blades. My types of weeds are run over by the front tires, and then don't have a chance to rebound before the deck then comes over the same spot to mow. I, like Hawk, found I minimized my gripe by purchasing an additional set of the optional "high lift" blades, and then going back over the same areas at a 45 degree angle to the first run, just like the pros do on a lawn.

I've never had a problem with tall or wet grass/leaves getting blown from the mower deck through the chute into the rear bag. As Hawk mentioned, there are two levers in the blow path, one mounted on the mower deck just at the front of the deck's chute, and another just in front of the bag at the end of the chute. Pushing either lever from the driver's seat clears the path if it ever gets clogged. I use the rear push lever to gauge when the bag is almost full; when the lever has some resistance, I know the chute is getting clogged because it can't move any more clippings/material into the bag.

For your application, having the hydraulic lift so you can just back up to a tree and then dump your clippings around the tree(s) as mulch, you'll be golden.

Oh, in response to Hawk's mention of the dust kicked up... I agree. They don't paint 'em orange for nothing; otherwise, you'd lose 'em after walking away without washing the thing. :Orange_tr

Of course, as always, your mileage may vary.

Good luck! :thThumbsU

...Karl

[JimM]

Thanks for all the great info!

I talked to the dealer late Friday and he's sharpening his pencil on price and trying to see if there are any left available - he's saying they are being discontinued due to lack of sales.

I'm also extensively searching for a used one, but I'm guessing it'll be a minimum of 1000 miles away.

jm

[Kbeitz]

An easy fix would be to buy a Woods finish mower deck for your tractor... My Woods deck works great...

[Hawk521]

http://www.equipmenttraderonline.com has a couple of G2160s for sale. One at $5700 is in Texas. The other one is cheaper but may be in Wisconsin. Not sure about whether these have baggers - but I think the one in Texas does.

[KarlS]

An easy fix would be to buy a Woods finish mower deck for your tractor... My Woods deck works great...

Good idea.

It may come to that. When I got this Kubota, I was hoping I could use the one unit for both mowing (and picking up leaves in the fall on) the flat areas of the lawn, and also use it to mow the 3 acres of pasture in the summer without the bagger.

My Ford/New Holland compact tractor with loader has all wheel drive and ag tires, so it'd be fine for the pasture with a Woods PTO or mid-PTO finishing mower, but I couldn't take it on the lawn. :crybaby:

...Karl