Hey, it is Jonathan Pototschnik. The question, is what is the best lawn care equipment I can buy? I have answered this before in some other videos, so you might look back to some earlier ones addressing my lawn care equipment purchases and preferences. Here is what we like to do. Go do your own research and talk to the vendors in your market. I like to buy all of my lawn care equipment at one time, right now during the fall, and spend the money before the end of the tax year. Be sure and shop this deal to multiple vendors to get the best deal on your landscape equipment.
I will tell you we are loyal to our vendors, very loyal, as long as they take good care of us. Generally we will not move vendors unless the deal is just unreal. We care about the deal we are getting but ultimately it is the service that they provide that is the most important. Which gets me to the next thing.
When you are making your landscape equipment decision it has to depend on what is available to you in your market. We use Scag Turf Tigers. If I was in a market where the vendors did not sell Scag Turf Tigers, or I did not see a bunch of Scag Turf Tigers being serviced at my service facility, I would not buy a Scag Turf Tiger. What is most important when you buy your lawn care equipment is that you can get it serviced quickly, they stock the parts, and that whoever is going to be doing the service can get you in and out fast. Speed of turnaround when you need a repair is just critical.
We like Toro 21 inch mowers, self-propelled, with Honda engines. We like Scag Turf Tigers. We do not use a lot of walk behinds. The walk behinds we do have are Scag. I probably would consider going a different direction there simply because we do not like the braking system.
We use Stihl for most of our small lawn care equipment…our blowers, hedge trimmers, and weed eaters. We have used Red Max off and on over the years. Those are the big brands we use. We predominantly buy one brand. All powered the same. All same model.
We do something that is pretty unusual. We sell a lot of our landscape equipment off every year and buy new equipment for one main reason.
The reason we do not keep our equipment and run it into year two and three most of the time is because down time is very expensive, repairs are very expensive, and maintenance is very expensive. It is far cheaper for us to sell off the equipment, buy all brand new equipment that is going to have very few service issues for the year and do that year after year. Two years is the max we run any lawn care equipment. A lot of equipment we only run one year. That is just our personal strategy.
6 Replies to “Best Lawn Care Equipment To Purchase And How To Decide What’s Best For Your Company”
Hi I have a question I am looking for a truck and I am thinking about ford ranger is this the best choice of truck
They are a good choice if you run small crews taking care of small properties. I like Ford Rangers a lot; however, they are small and therefore have limited uses.
HI..thanks so much for sharing your of knowledge of the landscape and lawncare business. Here’s my dilemma: I really like the Toro 52″ zero turn and found a fairly good deal. My brother prefers the less expensive 48 in. Exmarx Pioneer on sale as well. The diffence in price between the two mowers is about $1000. One of the reasons that I like the Toro is because of the frame. It is more solid, smooth and welded into one unit as opposed to the Exmark. The Exmark has numerous sections, with lots of bolts, chains. I’m concerned about parts eventually rusting and or needing to replace. My brother likes it simply because of its cheaper price…mainly because we are just starting out. What do you think is the best choice?
I can’t say for sure. We have been happy with Toro… never bought Exmark. We stick with Toro and Scag. I like the bigger deck. I’d talk with your local preferred vendor. You want to buy something they deal with frequently and stock parts for. I’d lean towards the Toro… but again, I have no experience with Exmark so my opinion only has so much value.
What is the custom bed you have made for the ford rangers? Do you also pull a trailer behind that set up?
We have the beds custom made by a trailer manufacturer about 20 miles north of Dallas, TX. We do not pull trailers behind the rangers.