yeah you'll have to cut more often with the mulch kit. You can't let it get away from you. If you do you'll have to cut it twice or thrice to get rid of the clippings. And even then it's going to bog the daylights out of the engine as it takes a little more power to mulch than to side discharge.
The advance chute is kind of a joke. It's not a mulching attachment it's only a discharge blocker so all of the clippings are then forced to the plate and they tend to fall out and leave a line of clippings behind you, espeically if it's taller or if it's even remotely moist. I tried one of those. Kind of a gimmick. It works ok with leafs but a mulch kit is so much better in almost every way; other than it's semi-permanent. I put a BUNCH of advanced chutes on bad boy and kubota mowers and I can't think of anyone who was truly thrilled with them. I took a few off too and put mulching kits on. Had one customer who was on the fence, and I invited him over to my house after hours and had him get on my mower and cut my yard with the mulching kit. They were sold on it, and had me install a kit on his the next day. Best part is, he mowed my entire yard for free. Yes I reminded them of the downsides to mulching, more fuel usage, have to cut more often, no moisture, keep the blades sharp.
One thing I'll mention. The Z231KW-42 uses the cheaper zero maintenance "non serviceable" transmissions. They are NOT designed to pull any kind of a load, so with that said, when you're pulling your sprayer, keep the RPM at maximum, and try to keep the load on the transmissions low. They'll tell you when you are working 'em too hard by whining more. The Z231KH-48 and Z251 both use the bigger ZT3400's as I recall, fully serviceable, still a residential style transmission but at least you can change the fluid and filter "easily" on those. Not so much on the little Z231KW-42.
