I have an acre of lawn and an equal amount of new pasture needing to
be cut this year. I also need to tow a small manure spreader every
day. Now, a new 20 hp Murray sells for $2000 at Home Depot, while an
older, yet well-kept 1996 15 hp Ford can be bought for $2200 at my
neighbour's farm across the road. He says the Ford is a better
tractor, able to change oil and filters, etc. What do you think?
km

That depends. Is the Ford a lawn mower, a garden tractor or a compact tractor.
Does it have an aircooled Briggs? A standard transmission. all of these were
made under the Ford name. The compact tractors will have water cooled diesels.
These little Japanese tractors are excellent but I doubt you will get one even
10 years old for that price.

Most of the Murrays (and MTDs) are primarily lawn mowers although there is an
ocassional garden tractor model. They are decent cheap mowers but even the lawn
and garden tractors are not much for pulling loads. Expect gearbox and bearing
problems if you pull many heavy loads and that includes the Ford lawnnmowers as
well as Murray and MTD.