[Barksdale]

When looking for a new mower I looked at a base line of close to it as the sallet demanded it. I went online to the cub cadet site looked up their units looked at their XT1 42. The specs said it had a k 46 transaxle. That fit what I do, and I now know its limitations. I could not find one locally and the nearest dealer was about 75 miles away. I found one at a Home Depot about 40 miles way and they agreed to no delivery charge. The other day I was looking at the tag and it said the trans was a tl200. Well, I called MTD, spoke to a support rep (very nice BTW) and told him the story. He said the dealer units which are a few dollars more do come with the k46 and the big box units come with the tl200. Live and learn, I guess. He also said that they have four engines they put in their units Kohler, Kawasaki, Briggs and the Cub Cadet engine made in China. Fortunately, mine has a Kohler. Only the Chinese engine has the inteli power. Overall I like the unit also, just now I know I have to be it more careful about usage than I expected,
No Green machine gloating, please.

 

[Alien5044]

Cub Cadet ZT's seem to change mid production. My 2021 ZT2 Ultima 60" was advertised as having Hydro Gear ZT 2800 transmissions, a high "residential" model with some capabilities including filters and an expansion tank for viewing and confirming oil level.

Well, I bought one from HD whose ads were same as Cub Cadet's, and hauled it to my rural home only to find no expansion tanks!! After hassling with HD and getting a 10% discount for what they said was an error in their ads, I found that Hydro Grear had made a production change to the ZT2800 in 2021 going from expansion tanks to an internal expansion tank with just a breather for ventilation. Same trans, just different expansion tanks.

What I learned is that you have to look at the model numbers and the serial numbers on your machine's transmissions and go back to the manufacturer to get the corresponding manuals and information specific to that series of serial numbers. For the ZT 2800 transmissions, Hydro Gear had as I recall, a couple dozen versions of manuals depending on which serial numbers you had.

One season done, and so far all is good, except I have to crawl under the machine to verify proper oil levels, and was advised not to remove the breather vent by Hydro Gear. Only use the fill port for filling and checking.

 

[Barksdale]

Cub Cadet ZT's seem to change mid production. My 2021 ZT2 Ultima 60" was advertised as having Hydro Gear ZT 2800 transmissions, a high "residential" model with some capabilities including filters and an expansion tank for viewing and confirming oil level.

Well, I bought one from HD whose ads were same as Cub Cadet's, and hauled it to my rural home only to find no expansion tanks!! After hassling with HD and getting a 10% discount for what they said was an error in their ads, I found that Hydro Grear had made a production change to the ZT2800 in 2021 going from expansion tanks to an internal expansion tank with just a breather for ventilation. Same trans, just different expansion tanks.

What I learned is that you have to look at the model numbers and the serial numbers on your machine's transmissions and go back to the manufacturer to get the corresponding manuals and information specific to that series of serial numbers. For the ZT 2800 transmissions, Hydro Gear had as I recall, a couple dozen versions of manuals depending on which serial numbers you had.

One season done, and so far all is good, except I have to crawl under the machine to verify proper oil levels, and was advised not to remove the breather vent by Hydro Gear. Only use the fill port for filling and checking.

learned the same lesson. was not cheap.