Ego Power

After 23 years my gas lawn mower died. It would not start this srping no matter what I tried. I was not entirely surprised that my gas mower would not start after 23 years. It had been giving me trouble last year and while I am kinda handy a mechanic I am not. After many hours of trying to get it to run I came to the conclusion that it was time to move on to a new mower and the search for a new mower began.

I had thought about getting a new electric mower a few years ago but just could not do that as long as the mower I had still worked. That was no longer the case so I started looking at new battery powered mowers on Rona and Canadian Tire websites. I quickly discovered that the decision regarding a battery powered lawn mower was going to be a larger decision than just a lawn mower. It was a decision about what entire tool line I would be buying into and using for several years.

As you can probably tell by the title of this post, I ended up purchasing an EGO Power lawn mower from CanadianTire. Why did I decide on the EGO Power line. A few reasons:

1. One battery platform across all tools. The same 56v battery runs the entire line of tools. Many of the other brands had multiple battery platforms. 40v, 80v etc etc. I go to buy a new tool I just want the batteries that I already have to work in the new tool.
2. A good range of battery powered tools including the whole multihead system. I am also very interested in a new snow blower and the EGO line of snow blowers will just work with the batteries I new have.

The exact lawn mower I bought was the EGO POWER+ Model LM2114 21-in Push Lawn Mower that came with the lawn mower, the 6.0Ah Battery and 320W charger.

Things I like about the mower

It is light. Compared to my old lawn mower it is light. Easy to push, easy to turn and the whole thing just feels light.

It is easy to use. Charge the battery, pop it in and go. No gas to worry about, no smelly exhaust. Just makes it easy to mow the lawn.

It is quiet. This is probably my favourite thing about this new mower. With my gas mower I had to wear ear plugs when I mowed the lawn. Not anymore. I can even hear when someone calls me from the house using this lawn mower.

Things I dislike about the mower

It is a lot of plastic. You would think moving to an electric mower might be “better for the environment” but considering the majority of the mower is plastic I doubt there is much benefit to the environment. There are some metal parts but the main lawn mower deck is all plastic. I know one of the things I like about the mower is how light it is, and the reason it is light is because of the amount of plastic that makes up the mower. You can get EGO mowers that have metal decks but for my small yard I decided the extra cost was not worth it. I already know this mower will not last as long as my last. That is just the reality.

The bag has the same flaw my old gas lawn mower had. I swear that the mechanical engineers that design push lawn mower bags have never used a bagger on a lawn mower because they all seem to have the same issue. The back of the bag needs to be supported at the back to improve the grass being loaded into the bag as you mow. On my old mower a simple zip tie fixed it, holds the back of the bag up and the grass easily fills the bag. I used the new EGO lawn mower without the zip tie at the back to hold the bag up and sure enough the bag would only partially fill and occassionally not fill at all and I would have to stop and clear out the bottom of the mower to get the bag to fill properly. Since lawn mower engineers can’t seem to fiquire this simple thing out, plan to add a zip tie to hold the back of the mower bag up.

Support

Even though I bought the EGO lawn mower new I ended up having to call support about 1.5 weeks after I bought it. I went to mow my lawn for the second time with the mower and battery was dead. Like really dead. No lights when you press to button on the battery, nothing. I put it in the charger for hours to see if it would charge and nothing. I call support the next day and had to go through all the checks they asked for and sure enough the battery appeared to be a dud.

Getting through to support was not a huge issue, hearing support was a whole other story. The echo from their call centre was horrible and I had a horrible time hearing the support persons instructions because all I could hear was the other agents in the call centre. Other than the conversation being very difficult to hear I was able to get a new battery sent.

It took a week to get a new battery, a week I think my neighbours were wondering if I would mow my lawn again, but once the new batter arrived I was able to charge it and mow the lawn as before. I have since used it again and have not had any issues. If you live in a more major centre than I do you probably would not have to wait a week. Just the reality of living in Saskatchewan and parts being shipped from southern Ontario.

Overall

It has been a good move to the EGO lawn mower. I am hopeful that the decision to go with their battery platform will pay off in the long run with the purchase of a snow blower in the fall or winter (depending when I get tired of shoveling). I am also interested in getting a inverter for some emergency power options and having the same battery platform that works on all these tools I hope will pay off.