Strengths Tight turning radius. Ease of changing oil, spark plugs, filters.

Weaknesses Dealing with the mower deck. Every JD engineer who designed this machine should be made to do maintenance on the mower deck and then taken out and oiled and feathered. Have to remove the mower deck, (no small task) to grease the middle blade, re-seat or replace the belt, and sharpen the blades. The manual makes it sound easy but accomplishing some of these tasks is very difficult because of the physics of the combination of alignment, lifting, and spring strength. Blades wear out quickly. The fuel level is impossible to read on the tank once it gets dirty. Should have a gauge.

Overall Not worth the money and aggravation factor if one does their own maintenance. Having to get a dealer to handle the mower deck could get expensive very fast. Back to Kubota for me. Should have a rating category below for ease of maintenance