First, thanks to everyone for the info. I am pretty sure I will be at the dealer tomorrow for the x500. I am sure at some point I will be pushing some snow, and I do want the locking diff for the hill I will be mowing. There has been some thought of getting the mech tiller, so the 500 leads me that way too. And I do plan on keeping it for awhile, so who knows what I might wind up doing. I would rather under use the x500 and keep it for 15 years then have the x340 go to an early grave from over use. And since the other rule of thumb on here seems to be buy as much tractor as you can afford, I will cough up the extra 1k. Again thanks guys. I am sure I will be lurking and possibly asking more questions in future. After all this is my first tractor. The gravely 260 z-turn I had was a loaner from a buddy who had a lawn service. It was his backup and I got to use it as long as I stored it. He lost one of his prime mowers last fall so here I am buggin you guys.

At 2-3/4 acres my property is just slightly larger than yours and like you, I have lots of trees. I also have some hills and other obstacles to mow around. I settled on a GX335 which I believe has been replaced by the X500 series tractors. I wasn't sure that I wanted a deck as large as 54" but the salesman told me I would not regret it and on my sixth season of mowing I'm so happy I took his advice. I think that the fact that the larger deck sticking out a little further away from the tractor actually makes it easier to mow up close to trees and such. And it also cut over an hour off the mowing time from the tractor I had before which had a 48" deck, though it wasn't only because of the additional 6"......it was just faster and more maneuverable too. I got the mulch kit too with Gator blades and love it. It allows me to trim close to anything from either side of the deck. The locking differential really helps me on the fairly steep hills and also when I use the JBJr. scoop for moving gravel, dirt, bark or whatever.

my2014 X300 transmission just died.,.,,.230 hrs on it.,.,i mow approx. 1.2 acres and use the 44 inch snowblower.,.,.,i was told by dealer that J.d new of this transmission issue early on and then rebuilt/redesigned the tranny in the newer versions in 2018.,.,realizing that the 3/4 axles were borderline strong enough for the snowblower attachment.,.,.,$1,200 later.,.,i'm mowing again.,.,,.if your going to add attachment to any tractor maybe 3/4 axle should be avoided.,

All the X-5xxs have K72 Trannys, except the new X500s have K66s. BTW you can find this information yourself on the JD website. Just look under residential Lawn mowers, find the X500 line and check out the parts list. It doesn't show which tranny it has in the spec sheet, but if you follow the parts list to the power train you will find where it lists the complete tranny.