Thoughts on the 147?

[Cubcadet_107]

I'll throw in my 2 cents here.

The way I see it, these old Cubs are in no way obsolete. There are many, many people not just in the US but in other places around the world who make it their hobby to fix these old machines up and keep them working. There are also many companies, some of which are forum sponsors, who make the parts we need to keep them going. And don't forget, we're sitting on an entire forum dedicated to these old machines as well as the new ones, with many many members who own and/or collect old Cub Cadets.

So are they obsolete? Heck no. If they were, this forum probably wouldn't be here today.

As a side note to the OP, I like my 147. The frame cutout for the larger engine is unique and kinda cool, plus the big k321 is nice. Mine is an oddity in the fact that the Previous owner painted it red. The 1X6 1X7 series in general is my personal favorite series. Hope you have fun with yours.

[Gompers]

Originally Posted by R Bedell

I agree. The "planned obsolescence" of that MTD junk is all too real. The OEM's want the public to buy a new Lawn Tractor every three years. Looks like the IH Engineers had a better idea of "value for money spent".

You can't really compare a modern cheap LT to an old very expensive GT fairly. They are two entirely different things. Fair comparison is probably RERs to ZTRs, XT1/2 to IH LTs, XT3 to like the 482/1100 low end IH GTs, and everything bigger than the XT3 (i.e. Commercial Zero turns and SCUTs) to the IH/MTD GTs/SGTs. You'll find the same or better build quality in the modern stuff as you'll find in the IH stuff, and you'll be paying similar prices for a lot more capability.

I don't think it's planned obsolescence so much as it is a different way of buying stuff. You can buy an XT2 for the (inflation adjusted) price of an IH RER. The XT2 is miles and miles better than the RER, and will probably last longer to boot. But you aren't expecting a $2k machine to last 40+ years of service. If you want that, you can still go buy a commercial quality machine that will last, but you're going to have to pay 10k+ for it, which is what the old cubs cost as well.

Originally Posted by cooperino

Ill agree to disagree. As far as doing a better job in cutting grass goes. The OP mentioned a Murray 12HP. Which is a lawn tractor made specifically for cutting grass. The Lite weight deck that will likely rot out in 5-7 years is a piece of junk. Rarely do they maintain level because of the inferior deck hanging parts that wear prematurely. My 126, 125, and others all cut better than my Cub cadet bix box store LT ever did and I feel that tractor was built better than any Murray Ive ever seen. The tractors I mentioned "126,125" that are 40 plus years old still have the original decks. With properly sharpened blades they cut great! After cutting there would be no way of telling if it were done with my 125 or a new zero turn other than wheel track maybe.

As far as monetary values go, You really can not compare old prices VS new machine prices. After all, The OP was not comparing old VS new. But for argument sake, As you said a SCUT could price up to $9500. It may work easier or be more comfortable. However, I can save a lot of money investing in a 147 and attachments to do most if not all the work a SCUT of similar size will do.. In fact I could buy several cubs and attachments for that kind of money.

I really just felt "obsolete" was not a term that described our old cubs well.

Obsolete to me means, unrepairable, not functional, cost prohibitable, etc.

If It were me in the OP's shoes, I would sell the Murray, Hope to get 100 bucks out of it and put it towards fixing the 147!

Again, the Murray 12 HP is probably a 1-2k tractor that's not really designed to last, and you get a new one every 5 years or so. A deck that lasts 5 years and 1 day is over-engineered for that specific use case. You sell the old one for a few hundred bucks and go buy a new one every few years. If you do the math, you generally come out ahead with that method $$$-wise than you do buying a super expensive machine and letting it depreciate away.

A 1997 2182 cost nearly 18k new in 2021 dollars. It's worth maybe 1200 today on a good day in good shape? Yeah you got to use it for 24 years, but if you would have bought 5 2k LTs over that time and invested the remaining money in an index fund you'd be sitting on 50k+ in the bank right now. Is it worth nearly 60k to use a 2182 for 24 years? Maybe. If you need the 2182 to do something that the LT couldn't do, but if you just bought it to mow, that's a pretty expensive lawnmower. That's not to mention that the warranty for the 2182 ran out in the year 2000. So you've been mowing for 20+ years without a warranty, while the LTs generally have 3 year warranties a pop.

I'm not arguing that the old stuff isn't built better, I'm just saying it's 50 years old and the same reason that most people don't use 50 year old stuff isn't because it's not still capable of doing what it was designed to do, but that new stuff does the job "better". "Better" can mean more quickly, more comfortably, doing a better job at the task etc. The 50 year old machine is never going to do a job any better than it did it when it was new, generally speaking. A Pro-Z is going to mow better, much much faster, and way more comfortably for the same price as that 50 year old machine would have cost then (obviously a lot more than it costs now though).

You really can compare new vs old prices if you adjust for inflation. You can't honestly tell me that a 147 will do what a BX series kubota will do. For what a new, fully equipped 147 would have cost, you can get a BX1880 Kubota with a 54" deck, a Cat-1 rear 3 point, legit hydraulics, 540 PTO and 4wd. It weighs more than 2 times as much as the 147 to boot. Can get that for around 12k (give or take) today. A 147 w/ 48" deck was was 1630 in 1970, which is 11,492 today.

Most people don't want to have 6 GTs hanging around to do most of the work that a single SCUT can do, even if it is significantly cheaper. I'm not saying the 147 is a bad machine. It's just something that's generally "outmoded in design, style, or construction" which I think is a fair description of pretty much all GTs tbh.

It's just not a category of machine that makes sense for most people anymore. For light duty lawn work, the LTs are perfectly fine, and zero turns work a whole lot better for just mowing. Most folks don't really keep gardens anymore, and if you've got enough of a garden to want a GT to take care of it, a SCUT is often a more cost effective option, once you take into consideration attachments and capabilities, not to mention resale value.

To be clear, I'm the guy with 6 GTs hanging around the house that I enjoy. The fact that I'm posting about this on a message board dedicated to Cub Cadets also means that I'm not "most people", for whatever that's worth. I like the 147. I would never tell my "normal" friend to buy a 147 over almost anything modern if they just wanted to mow the lawn though.