Well, it is more of a tool than a toy.

On Monday, a lady posted that she was giving away an electric lawn mower. She indicated that it had a small mechanical problem, but that it "sort of" worked. I told her I would take it. I figured I would look into fixing it, and if I couldn't, I would get rid of it.

I picked the mower up from her on Tuesday. She gave me a quick run down of how it works, how you charge it, and what was wrong with it. I loaded it up and drove it home. It looked like a nice mower, but I wasn't sure if the "broken" part would be something I could fix.

When I got home Kim helped me unload it. Once we had it out, we decided to give it a try. The thing started up on the first try. We were kind of shocked. We stopped it, and on the the second attempt it failed like the lady had described. It took me all of five seconds to see the problem, which is not really a problem. It is more of an annoyance, at best.

There is a lever on the right side of the handle that you must press down to start the mower. The mower cuts off when that lever comes back up. There is a second lever on the handle that you pull towards you before depressing the starter lever. This second lever is much like the gas lever on a typical mower.

So, here's the problem...

When you pull the one lever toward you and then depress the starter lever, there is a small piece that shifts over to block the starter lever from returning to its original off position while the second lever is engaged. When you let go of the second lever, the blocking piece shifts back to its original position and the starter lever is allowed to return to its off position. The "broken" part is that sometimes that blocking piece does not shift over into the blocking position. The solution... Jiggle the handle, while holding both levers down, until the blocking piece engages.

I was able to mow my entire yard and the thing never turned off once. As far as I can tell, there is nothing else wrong with the mower.

Someone mentioned that those mowers are usually pretty expensive. So, I looked it up online. I found that the mower I got for free sales for $400. When I told Kim that, she said, "Well, it looks like you got a good deal."

Does anyone have any experience with electric lawn mowers?

Labels: indiscriminate