Seems like we're missing a marketing opportunity here, folks  – Plenty of men can't afford an ATV (or at least can't justify the expense to their wives), but if it can also mow the lawn...well then, it's not just an expensive toy, is it?

Sure, there are hang-on lawnmower attachment kluges that use their own gas engine, but how come nobody seems to be pushing an ATV with a built-in PTO and hard points for hanging a mower deck underneith it?

Honda makes excellent ATVs. Honda makes excllent lawn mowers. Why doesn't Honda make an ATV that also happens to be an excellent lawn mower?

good point.  I'm still waiting for Honda to attach weed eaters to a civic.



-HS

because it would take away a bunch of ATV capabilitys. First an mower deck takes away all of the atvs Ground clearance and to be a decent lawn mower and not rip up the turf it needs to have some type of turf tires on it and there goes your off road preformance. And an ATV with a 3 Point hitch and a pto is a Garden tractor! hell throw in a loader and you have this...

[url]http://www.kubota.com/bx1500.cfm[/url]
A BX 1500

Besides there are plenty of hillbillys out there who use thier lawn mower like an ATV they put mud tires on the back and put a hitch on it. Then they wonder why thier murry only lasts them 2 seasons

[b]OregonShooter[/b], I think you misunderstood me. The lawnmower deck would only be attached to the ATV [i]when you were actually using it to mow your lawn[/i]. The rest of the time, the ATV would look pretty much like any other ATV (plus a power takeoff point and a few brackets where the mower deck attached).

As for the tires, you could either settle on a compromise tire tread that gave some traction without putting huge pleats in your lawn, or your could sell an optional set of quick-change wheels with more aggressive tires mounted on them.

IMO, this vehicle wouldn't necessarily have to match the performance of the most hard-core off-road ATVs currently on the market – All it would have to do is provide enough off-road capability to make it attractive to folks who don't currently own one.

The reason has to be cost. What's a decent ATV sell for 5-7K? That along with say a tow behind mower probably another 1-1.5K is pretty expensive compare to the average lawn tractor. For that kind of money you can find a better piece of equipment to handle your property chores like a commerical mower and still have money left over. BobK

I can see it now, a Yamaha Banshee with a deck mower mounted to it.
Great if you want to mow your lawn at 100 mph...

Well, it's true that a tow-along mower with its own gasoline engine might cost an extra 1K or so, but it shouldn't cost nearly that much to mount a mower deck underneith the ATV, using the ATV's engine to power it.

IMO, using a separate engine to run a tow-behind mower is just plain goofy – that's two engines to keep fueled and maintained, several hundred extra pounds of weight, and a lot less manuverability. You might as well just buy a separate riding lawnmower! However, if the lawnmower attachment only adds, say, $500 to a $3500 ATV, [i]that's[/i] a purchase that plenty of folks could probably talk their wives into...

A complete riding mower is only about $1000. Thats as much as just the mower portion of your setup.

i have seen a few atvs pulling mowers in my neck of the woods, great idea

Since when is $500 as much as $1000? Who's your math teacher? [;)]

Also, consider that a $1000 riding mower doesn't have nearly the engine or drive train quality of your average ATV. At that price point, we're really comparing apples to oranges.