After four months of ownership, around 40 hours of usage, the self propel motor unit on my Ego 21″ Self-propelled electric lawnmower (Model LM2100SP) failed. Before this failure I was very happy with its performance, and although it was repaired under warranty, the procedure took longer than I think was reasonable.
Ever since I purchased the mower, I have been monitoring the Ego community forums, and I knew that reaching a customer support representative would sometimes take extended hold times, and I had heard that taking a mower to Home Depot for repair could be an extended procedure, so when my self propel motor failed, I was relatively well prepared on how to handle the situation.
August 29th, 2017 – The self propel motor fails. I finish mowing my front lawn pushing the mower by hand (which makes me realize that paying extra for the model with the self propel motor was the right choice.)
August 30th, 2017 Time to call customer support. After re-charging the battery, and letting the mower sit overnight to cool, I tested it again (yep, still no motion) and then called Ego customer support early in the morning (to avoid a long wait on hold.). I only had to wait a few minutes on hold, and then a helpful customer support representative walked me through a few simple questions (yes, my mower blade would turn on and spin, so the battery was good, and the folding handle interlocks were correctly latched, etc…) to verify that the drive motor had actually failed. After that, she “made a note in my file” and told me to take it to Home Depot.
What I wish she had told me: 1. Home depot will charge you a $20 deposit, just to look at the mower (and you authorize up to $150 worth of repairs upon drop-off). They will refund this deposit to you if the work is covered under warranty (mine was). 2. You can only take the mower to a Home Depot that has a tool rental / repair clinic (call first to check). 3. The Home Depot repair clinic doesn’t have their own EGO batteries for testing, so be sure to leave your battery in the mower. [This makes sense in hindsight, but I was hesitant to leave 7.5 AH battery that costs $400 to replace at HD, so this required me to make a second trip back to HD with the battery a few days later.]
Also, after talking with her I received an email from Ego that stated my “case had been closed” (this is the case associated with the phone call to Ego only…but the wording of the message didn’t inspire confidence.)
Because I had heard horror stories about the Home Depot repair clinic taking a long time to repair EGO mowers, I made sure I called them every week to check on the status of my mower, just to make sure it hadn’t fallen into any cracks. I also posted an update every Monday on the ego customer forums, which may have also helped things behind the scenes.
Sep 18th 2017: They are still checking on the mower, but the HD technician felt that they could repair it locally instead of shipping the mower to Atlanta.
Sep 25th 2017: In progress, waiting on a part which usually takes a week or two (presumably the motor/gearbox unit).
October 2nd 2017: HD is still waiting on the part. [After this update to the Ego community forum, April from EGO said that they were tracking the shipment and that the part should be arriving at the HD store within a few days.]
October 9th 2017: HD claims to still be waiting on the part. [I mentioned this on the Ego community forum.]
Finally, on Thursday night (Oct 11th), Home Depot calls me to tell me the mower is ready for pickup. Because the home depot with the repair clinic is 12 miles away from me, I delay pickup until Saturday.
So, it took Home Depot / Ego about five weeks to get my mower repaired, and this was with me keeping on top of Home Depot and making sure that Ego knew what was happening at each step. Reading several other reports on the ego community forum makes me believe that my experience was actually on the faster side of things, as 8-10 week delays are not unheard of if the mower gets shipped to Atlanta for repairs. I paid $180 to a lawncare company and took a break from mowing my yard, but there are at least three other options to keep mowing if you find yourself in this situation.
Take advantage of Home Depot’s 90 day return policy
Many others in the Ego forums have bought another Ego lawnmower and used it while theirs was in for repair, returning it under HD’s 90 day return policy once their mower was repaired. I felt that this action would be ethically questionable, but after waiting five weeks for HD to repair my mower, my ethical resolve is beginning to weaken, and should the mower fail again, I will seriously consider this option.
Buy a second mower
I did consider buying a second Ego mower (and keeping it), mostly as a way to purchase a second 7.5 Ah battery (it is almost as cheap to buy the battery and mower together as to buy just the battery, plus you get a “hot spare” mower). Other than the fact that you have to store the 2nd mower, this does have certain advantages. If one mower fails, you can just switch over to using the second mower while the first is in for repair. And, you get the advantage of having twice as many batteries and chargers. Unfortunately, at the time Home Depot was not offering the same $50 discount on the mower as when I initially purchased mine, otherwise I may have done this. [My wife points out the questionable logic of using the failure of a product to justify the purchase of a duplicate of the same product…]
Burn hydrocarbons
Of course, you could also buy a cheap used gas mower and several gallons of gas for less than the $180 that I paid for lawn care service, and probably be able to resell it at almost the same price you paid when finished.
Final Recommendation
Due to the fact that my self propel motor failed after 4 months of ownership, combined with a 5 week repair time, I can’t recommend the EGO electric mower to everyone. At least with a gas mower your options for repair are numerous and much faster. However, if you have decided that you will be going with an electric mower, I still think that the Ego line has the best performance. (I have also posted a review of the mower.) I also own the hand-held leaf blower and chainsaw from their Power+ line, and have been quite happy with them.
Update:
The new self propel unit installed by Home Depot failed again (after 9 more months of usage) but I’m much happier with how Ego handled the warranty repair (via a direct replacement), which you can read about here.
2nd Update: Ego has started to produce updated 21″ SP models that have a new self propel unit that matches the one found in their dual battery (premium) mowers. Look for a picture of a phone on the box (see this video for details: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtLkT5X4MQw )
3rd Update: My self propel unit failed a 3rd time, but this time the replacement I got looks different, so I think I may have the new model now!
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Outstanding description of the same problem that just happened to me. I will follow his advise. Fortunately I’ve keep my old Honda mower, that can limp along until the Ego 21 is repaired.
thank you so much, great description and advise.
Good summation–in my case I was able to talk HD into swapping out the broken mower for a new one. I have not tried to the new one yet-hopefully it will be fine.
Nice! Were you close to the 90 day return period?
Did you happen to notice any “warning signs” before the motor failed? I purchased mine in June of 2017, used it several times during the summer/early fall 2017 mowing season, pulled it out for the first mow of 2018 in early May, and noticed that the motor sounds a bit off, not sure how to describe the sound, but it seems to me like it needs some grease/oil in the gears, like they’re rusty or something. (sorry, wish I were better with words). Also, it seems to run slower (in terms of movement, the blade seems no different than when it was new.) Could be nothing, or my imagination, but I feel if I keep using it, it will soon fail completely, and that “feeling” led me to search to see if others had experienced the same issues.
I don’t remember any warning signs before it stopped working. It was powering along fine, I released the handle and pivoted the mower to a new direction, and when I pushed it back in nothing happened. It MIGHT have slowed down right near the end before I released the handle, but if it did it was only for a second before the total failure.
Mine started making same noise 3 months ago, quit self propelling 2 weeks ago, same conversation with Ego as mentioned above. Found a 3 minutes clip on google that showed removing cover, unplug a plug, insert 4 inch piece of coated copper wire in to female side of plug, tape it in place and amazingly the self propel worked. Heading to get wire now. Will see if it works.
Jerry where is the video on Google
I have some input on this thread that, as a Home Depot repair technician can help shed some light on the repair procedures. Some repairs can take as little as a single day, while others can take weeks or even months. The reason? We have a “batting order” that we must follow concerning all repairs in the store. In the tool rental department, we have to work on fleet (rental) equipment first, customer-owned equipment comes next, and finally, store-owned (returned equipment). There are a million factors that can determine your repair time, not just a few but I will list some common ones. If you bring something in for repair during a “busy” season, chances are there are a lot of fleet/rental units that need repaired before your unit can even be touched. There may be several other customer owned units in for repair that were brought in before yours. Usually we try our very best to give you some sort of lead time as to when we will be able to evaluate your unit and, should the need arise, how long it might take if it has to be sent to the main repair center for extensive repairs. Most HD Tool Rentals only have 1 repair technician. This person is solely responsible for maintaining hundreds of fleet/rental units, as well as, customer owned and store owned units. It may not be the best situation for the customer at all times but we do our best to take care of them in the timeliest manner possible. We only charge $18.95 evaluation fee that is refunded if the tool is covered under warranty. The maximum repair limit without contacting customers for approval is $100, not $150 as stated above. I just wanted to give a little further insight as to the repair process because I feel the original poster was a bit misleading and did not know all of the factors involved in a single repair. As for mowers, I would personally never buy an electric mower period. The best buys are anything with a Honda engine! Disclaimer: NOTHING SAID HERE REPRESENTS THE HOME DEPOT
Thanks for your explanatory comment. I’m sure that the service technicians work hard and do good work given the constraints they are under. (I don’t believe I ever talked with the actual Tech, just the front desk guys.) I’m relatively sure that the paperwork I signed (Orlando FL) said up to $150 without approval, but I could be mistaken and perhaps it was only $100.
I am also a repair tech at the home depot, in Golden, Colorado, and while I am sure not all Home Depot’s do this, at my store, we don’t agree with the policy of you authorizing $100 at the time of check in, so we cross that part out, and call everyone with the estimate before ordering any parts.
I have an EGO LM2102SP mower which started smoking at rear gear box area assuming propeller motor failure which is out of warranty purchased 6-6-2017 Home Depot. Do you think it’s feasible to repair & would a repair have to use an old part w perhaps same failure problems in the field or could it use a new propeller motor that has resolved these failure issues? I’m not sure how much the ACE Hardware service center will charge to fix.
I don’t know if you can even buy parts from Ego if you are not an authorized service center. Unless you have a donor mower to get parts from, the authorized repair centers are probably your only bet. (Or pick up a used mower from someone, I see them posted for sale relatively frequently now.)
Well, I can’t help but add my experience(s) as well. My self propel motoer died after just 6 lawn mowing uses. It gave no hint of failure, it was working fine one second and the next nothing. It required a 2.5 hr. wait for Ego cust. srvc. to call back. I had to take it to a HD with tool rental/repair. I dropped it off and two weeks later called to find out the good/bad news. They had to send it out to AZ for repair and it left on 5/30. On 6/28, I called the HD repair number Ego provided to check on it. “Still in transit” I was told! How can it be still in transit for 4 weeks I asked? I was to find out the next day that it had been lost in transit and that I was to be given a HD money card for the amount paid. The good news is that it’s now $100 less than I paid. The bad news is that I have to decide whether it’s a really bad mower or my typical consumer karma at work. Also, I’d put a high-lift bagging blade on it for $20 and it was on it when I turned it in. They are supposed to compensate me but we’ll see.
Also, the warranty manager at HD in Atlanta, GA., admitted that they need to find a better way to keep track of these when they ship them for repair! Ya think!!
So, now I ave to decide……..give it another try or take my $$ and buy a Honda.
FWIW – After mine was repaired, the SP motor has been working just fine for almost a year now.
I had a similar situation with a couple of twists – My complaint (albeit not as well documented):
After one season of satisfactory performance, the throttle on my self propelled mower is stuck at 100%. I have a hilly yard and this issue results in an unevenly mowed lawn and a poor overall mowing experience. When I first called EGO, I was told to take it into Home Depot for service and warned by EGO rep that I may be told by HD that it may be 4-6 weeks. He said that it usually would not actually take this long and I should call EGO back if HD holds to that timeline. When I called back in to EGO, I was told that 4-6 weeks is an accurate estimation and expectation of service timeline. When I complained about experience and service lead time, I was told my case would be “escalated” to which I received a confirmation email. I subsequently received a call from HD saying that they were not equipped to fix the issue and my mower would need to be sent out of state where I would now have to wait 9 weeks to get my mower back. I’ve had very few issues w/my previous mowers and when I did, had reasonable repair lead times. What do I do for nine weeks? I didn’t pay $500 for a mower to pay someone else to cut my lawn. I feel that if EGO is going to sell a product nationally, there should be an adequate service network in place.
Post update: when I picked up my (not repaired) lawn mower, The console was not properly screwed back in and as a result of not noticing this right away, I lost at least one screw. I submitted this review on EGO’s community website which, after EGO reviewed and required editing, was accepted, confirmed and subsequently removed. Also, although I have a case # and documentation, my account is showing no cases when I log in.
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Hello all.
I purchased a Power+ 21″ Self-Propelled Mower with 7.5Ah battery and rapid charger
Product:
NLM04170317392
and, the same thing. worked for a season then the self-propelled started to only work in slow mode. I did all the recommended lubrication, battery’s (I have 2) both work in my other EGO products and both draw the same results in the mower.
EGO said to bring it back to Home Depot for repair. I did. After paying the next door neighbor over a $120 to mow my lawn for 6 weeks. Yes, 6 weeks!
The mower came back still not repaired. Same issue. This is nuts. I’m on hold with them now for 26 minutes so far. I’ll keep you updated
Update from May 28th 2019 at 8:52 am…..
So I had EGO on the phone and explained the issue AND the lack of repair issue I had at Home Depot. They checked out out while I was on hold then came back and said the were sending me out a new mower. Said I should have it within a week to 10 days.
I’m satisfied with EGO.
I’ve had my EGO Self-propelled mower for a year now and the self-propelled function is stuck on the fastest speed. After hearing the nightmares of trying to get it fixed I will probably just live with it and push it. Too bad though because it really is a nice mower and better than gas.
I’m sorry to hear that. I use the fastest speed for my lawn (it’s a big lawn) but agree that it’s a quite brisk walk and some people may not want that much exercise! My suspicion is the issue is with the sensor in the handle of the mower (or a broken wire?) and it might be easier to fix than a full Self Propel unit failure. You may consider taking it in for repair in the winter when it’s not the mowing season depending upon your location.
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Same experience as the first gentleman so expertly described. Took mower to HD after continued failure to start (50 mile round trip) . . Had for 4 weeks , HD statement found nothing wrong. Got it home….did not start. Called ego support and to their credit sent me new mower . Love product ,but something must be done for better repair service ….more locations and less time for repair. Can’t have a mower down for 6-8/weeks at height of cutting season. Control panel Parts must be more durable. If replacement mower does not give me at least three years , I am done
Where can I get parts, relays?
I am unaware of any 3rd parties that sell Ego replacement parts, but I believe they do have some authorized service centers. I would suggest you contact Ego customer support directly to ask about parts availability.
After reading the above comments, I’m not even going to try. It’s going to the curb and going back to gas. I’m stuck on slow speed and don’t have time for this crap. I had reservations about it when I went to purchase the mower. Well, lesson learned. Anybody can work on a gas mower!!
I bought a reconditioned Ego 21″ self propelled 3 weeks ago I cannot get through to customer service because of the corona virus , the self propelled will only work on high speed no matter where I put the speed lever ( slow or fast ) can anyone help or should I just return the mower.
I would suggest returning/exchanging the mower as the easiest way to get a working model.
I’m an elderly lady who thought the self propelled Ego mower would be ideal so I bought it last week. It starts no problem but the blade does not spin. After reading all these complaints, I’m returning it today. I don’t even want to try and troubleshoot then have the same issue down the road.
Hi,
I just wonder, if the self propell break, you can still push it right? So if some one doesn’t want to go to process of fixing the self propell , they can use it till the cutting season over then send it off.
Is it possible?
Yes, the SP model works just fine as a push mower even when the self propel feature fails (it doesn’t really add extra drag, just doesn’t move the mower…) I’ve mowed my lawn a few times in “push only mode” which made me really appreciate the self propel feature ;>
Hi, Jay!
Thanks fir your great posts & clear explanations. Also, thanks for taking responsibility for helping other people who have questions.
My EGO is at least 6 yrs old, maybe 7?, and I never registered the purchase. My self propel feature has gone, and that’s the only problem I’ve had so far. I concur”¦.I also feel that this convinced me I made the right move to buy the self-propelled model, lol!
Fortunately it’s Labor Day, so I have time to think about my next move”¦..Great suggestion s here!! Be well”¦.
MaryEllen
I wish I had read this before buying mine. I just failed today and is out of warranty. So I embark on the same course as you all. Wish me luck. I have been very happy up to this point with this mower and I got is so that I could lower my carbon footprint. So now I have to find someone to mow my yard in the meantime. Thank you for a very concise and thorough description of your experiences.
Self propel feature went out last mow and also out of warranty. I’m not going to bother having it fixed base on others experience. Back to a gas model.
3 months old and self propel feature is out, and I can’t even get anyone on the phone. Ridiculous
I’m in the same boat. The self propel stopped propelling today, and this after really liking the mower. I just got it in March, and it is a great mower when it goes. I managed to finish the last bit of the yard by pushing the mower, but I’m too old and it’s too hot out there to push the thing. It is lighter than my last gas self-propelled mower, but not light enough for an old guy like me. I called the helpline number but it just went to a recording.
Update: EGO returned my call today. They listened to the problem and are shipping me a replacement mower. That is about as good as it can get.
It still takes 7-10 days to ship a new mower, but much faster than waiting for Home Depot’s service department.
Just made the call to EGO and while waiting for call back found this blog post. My LM2100SP is stuck on slow speed and no throttle control when engaged. I always thought this self propelled drive felt (and looked) kind of flimsy. Glad I went through the hassle of registering all my EGO stuff.
That is probably an issue with the handle based speed control lever, and not the self propel unit itself. But it will require a service call to fix….
I left a call back request and they didn’t call back. I took the screws out the handle to see if I could see anything obvious. The green plastic handle is mating up with the rheostat ok and even when I turn the rheostat directly by hand the speed won’t change. I didn’t want to get too crazy unsoldering the rheostat to check it because what’s the point if I can’t get parts. I don’t like how this is going with this delay in even reaching customer service. Supposedly EGO is going to Lowe’s and what am I supposed to do if I got it at HD? I paid this crazy price for this mower and I only have used it for where the lawn tractor can’t get. So it’s very lightly used. Oh boy.
Call early in the day and wait on hold, don’t trust the callback option. (May be a break in the wire, but if it’s under warranty, you want them to fix it for you….)
Still can’t reach them. But I noticed if I retract the handle to a certain spot, I have full control of speed. Fully extended slow only. As I push handle about halfway down, I have full control. Even at it’s minimum. I’d say there is a wire either pinched or broken inside the insulation. When I took the upper console apart yesterday, I could see how the insulation looks pinched from the slit that’s cut out to stow the wire. But it didn’t look like it would have been cut all the way through. I’m thinking it’s in the wiremold or at the junction in the middle of the handle assy.
It’s in the wiremold or whatever the black plastic sheathing is called. When I bend it around the speed works as it should. And now, the blades won’t turn. This is pissing me off.
Out of the clear blue, I had the same problem come up today while mowing … all of a sudden the mower would go so full speed and sometimes come back to the set point. The mower is about 4 years old and has been flawless up to this point. After reviewing this thread, I took the upper console apart and found the conductors running across the width of it to the potentiometer about as tight as a banjo string. Everything appeared intact but seriously stressed. I spliced in some additional conductor on the three wires but that did not relieve the problem. As stated by JPD, positioning the collapsible handle in certain spots seemed to remedy the problem. I concur that probably one of the three small conductor that go to the potentiometer is most likely broken someplace in the wiring harness and finding the “sweet spot” on the handle position allows for continuity to be restored in that conductor. I also disassembled the interlock switch assembly at the point where the handle collapses. Nothing was obviously cut or broken but the two multi wire conductors had some very dramatic dents in them due to the tight space and lack of any slack.
Rather that attempt to replace the entire wiring harness, I elected to fully extend the handle and then securely tie wrap the wiring harness to the handle arm. It now runs at the set speed and the speed is fully controllable, at least for now. It is a bit of an inconvenience to have to store the mower with the handle extended but I can handle that much better than a runaway speed control!
We will see how long this fix holds up. I have always been a little skeptical of the rather extreme flexing of the wiring harness that has to occur when collapsing the handle.
Another update: So the replacement mower got here on 5 August 2020, only 6 days after talking to them. I was pleased. They said to call them so they could schedule the return pickup, which I did, and I left a message. Then, after a couple of days, to expedite the process, I went ahead and called FedEx to schedule the pickup myself. I didn’t like having that giant package sitting around on the porch. It was picked up on the 11th, so I have a replacement mower and I hope it works longer. Of course, this is August in Texas and it is going to be 101°F today…the grass isn’t growing and I’m not mowing.
I had mine fail in September. After reading this post I decided to wait til I cleared my leaves to call Ego. I called. they are sending a new mower. Great deal!
I took off the handle cover and a small spring jumped out at me. I think it goes under the green button but I’m not sure. Anybody have the manual. It’s NOT the spring that’s on the self-propel engage. Thanks!!
the spring goes under the white piece which pushes down on the switch to engage it when the start (green ) button is pressed.
I purchased my Ego self-propelled mower in October 2018. Everything is great except last summer I began to hear a grinding noise each time I would engage the self-propelled drive. I sprayed with WD-40 thinking that was all that was needed since there really is nothing mentioned in the manual on what to do. Trouble Shooting doesn’t address this situation as well. This summer I am having the same grinding noise. I have not contacted Customer Service yet as I bought my mower from Home Depot but since that time HD has quite selling Ego products and I see that Lowes is not selling this product. But will Lowes honor purchases prior to when they took over Ego from HD?
As long as you registered the mower with Ego when you bought it, or still have the home depot receipt proving you are the original purchaser, Ego will honor your warranty (using Lowes as the service provider). You’ll have to call Ego’s customer support number before you bring it to a Lowes. (Depending upon your location they may send you to a different authorized reseller/service department).
Lowe’s does not handle repairs. EGO sends you to a third party company that for us was 20 miles away. They said it would be 4-6 weeks to fix. I called a second location and they told me that while they are an EGO authorized repair location, neither of their services techs know how to repair EGOs. What the heck?? The back left wheel fell of while I was mowing. Not happy at all with this and won’t buy another EGO mower.
I bought a ego self propelled mower from Home depot in May of 2018. It ran just great until spring 2021. I went out one day and went about starting it to mow the lawn for the first time this year. I had made sure the battery was fully charged etc. The mower started and then crashed. The green light turned red like I had a dead battery. I took the battery out and put it on the charger. Fully charged. I put it back in the mower again. Now the mower would run at the slowest speed and cut the grass fine but so slow it was driving me crazy. Well a lot of things took place from this point. I ordered a new rheostat or whatever that circuit board switch is called from Amazon. I put it in my lawn mower and nothing happened. Still the same problem. To make a long story shorter, I ended up buying another ego self propelled mower from Lowes. Now I have one that runs just fine and a very slow one. I want to get the old one fixed but try to do repair work myself. But here is where I am stuck. The problem is not in the rheostat that is connected to the speed control knob, so where is the problem. If things go well with my new mower, it will last at least 2 or 3 years. But I don’t know this and did not know that these electric mowers would have these kind of problems. Now I am a little frightened about the future. I like my mower, it is much quieter than gas. I don’t have to worry about keeping a storage of gas etc. I also have a ego snow blower and plain air blower that does a terrific job. If anyone out there can tell me what needs to be replaced to get the speed control fixed on my older mower I would sure like to hear from them.
You may have a broken wire somewhere between the “rheostat” and the speed controller. You’ll need a continuity tester to check that.
I have a similar and opposite problem …
I purchased my EGO LM2100SP in April 2018 and it ran perfectly until May 2019 when the speed control stuck on high. Since I only use the speed control to get up a steep driveway, I didn’t contact EGO Customer Service.
Last week, after mowing my back lawn, I got 2 passes done and all of a sudden the motor went into hyper-speed. I shut off the mower, started it back up again and it went directly into mach-3. I finished the lawn (with no worry about missing a blade of grass or if I’d have to move the grass back in the bag).
I pulled the mower out to do the back lawn today and, again, warp speed!
Not sure if anyone else has had this problem? Or if it is safe to run this motor at supersonic speed?
Not safe–I am an elderly lady and had the unfortunate accident of my ego taking off when I flipped the clip for the handle. I got thrown across the mower onto the cement driveway and broke my hip. I laid in 98 degree temp for about an hour before the neighbors found me.
I’m sorry to hear that. The handle clip is part of the mower interlock (in that the mower will not move or spin the blade until the handle is extended and the clip is in place).
It sounds like the throttle was already engaged (or failed closed) and when the clip was put in place it energized the system and the self propel unit took off.
Question: Was this on an older mower with the green handle you have to push upward to start the self propel unit, or one of the newer “Select cut” ones that have the “touch drive” system?
My Ego 21″ Self Propelled Mower had its back / rear left wheel lock up. It is stuck in the self propelled mode and if I try to just push the mower by itself. Is there a way to fix this issue so the wheel rolls again or a way to disengage the self propelled transmission thus the mower is just a push mower?
If you are covered by warranty (original purchaser, registered with company already or still have original receipts, within 5 years of purchase) you should call Ego for a warranty repair.
If you are NOT covered by the warranty, you can simply remove the self propel motor and driveshaft unit and the rear wheels will “free wheel” making it into a push mower.
Jay,
Thanks for the prompt reply.
I am no longer covered by its 5 year warranty. Is there a video or instructions as to how I can remove / disable the self propel motor and its driveshaft? Will it need a new axel?
I don’t have any documentation like that available. I believe the rear wheels have internal axles (at the center) which are separate from the drive shaft (that goes into them near the outside edge, so the driveshaft gears will engage with a ring gear built into the inside rim of the wheel).
So I suspect the wheels will work perfectly without the driveshaft at all, but you will have to disassemble things on your mower to find out for sure. [I suspect that you could just take an angle grinder and cut the drive shaft right after the support bearings next to the wheels to completely disconnect the drive shaft and self propel unit from the wheels entirely without having to disassemble anything, but for your specific problem (gear stuck inside the wheel) this may not fix things.
Take a look at the photos on this post:
https://www.summet.com/blog/2021/05/16/right-wheel-locking-on-ego-21-self-propel-unit/
That shows the gears at the end of the driveshaft that go inside the wheels.
my ego self propelled has quit, read all you posts.
my ego self propel is stuck on high speed and wont adjust lower what can i do.
Sounds like the speed control handle has lost connection with the motor controller. Either a broken wire somewhere in the handle or a problem with the speed control mechanism itself.
We bought our ECO 21″ self-propelled mower in 2016. It worked great for 4 years. We loved it! No gas, no filters, no oil changes, no spark plug, less noise, plenty of power, etc. The self-propelled part has always worked just fine. But last spring the motor that runs the blade started going to about half speed occasionally. Then it would suddenly power back up run right again. Battery was fully charged. Sometimes it would go back to full power if I pulled the battery out & snapped it back in. Sometimes it would start working right again all by itself, sometimes not. I struggled with it all last summer. I thought maybe the battery connection was faulty so I used electrical cleaner on the connection. Same problem. I tried WD-40 on the connections. Same problem. I swapped in the battery for our 56V EGO weed trimmer (which still works fine). Same problem. Any suggestions before we go buy a new mower would be appreciated. Thanks.
You get a 5 year warranty on the mower, but bought it in 2016, so it sounds like it has had this issue since 2020 and is now out of warranty.
It sounds like perhaps the blade speed sensor (used internally to send extra power to the mower when the blade gets bogged down in heavy grass) may be malfunctioning. Assuming it is out of warranty, I’d suggest you open it up and check for a sensor (not sure if it is integrated into the motor, or mounted on the top shaft) to see if you can find something wrong with it, clean it, etc… I have never opened up that part of the mower, so I don’t know exactly what you would be looking for.
That was quick, thank you. The speed sensor you refer to may very well be the culprit. I wasn’t aware they had a sensor. It sounds like it goes to either about half speed or full speed, no ‘in between’ or ‘very slow’. It keeps mowing. I always tip it up on the back wheels a bit when I start the blade motor so there’s no load & it seems to me it used to always go to full speed right away, but lately it goes full speed right away sometimes & half speed at other times – under no load. There might not be anything wrong with it at all & it just didn’t need full power. Maybe the first thing I need to do is let the grass get extra deep in a few spots & try it again late next week. See if it speeds itself up in the deep areas. If it bogs down enough that it won’t cut & doesn’t speed itself up I’ll see if I can get to that sensor you mentioned & try to clean it. Thanks again for the quick response!
I don’t know for 100% sure that it has a speed sensor (it could be sensing the current draw from the motor to detect the blade getting bogged down…..) But I strongly SUSPECT that it has a speed sensor on the motor due to its behavior when going into heavy grass. [It slowly ramps up power as the blade gets bogged down (I assume to maintain a consistent cutting speed) and then when it gets back to low grass it slowly winds down power back to a more economical level that keeps the blade going at its “regular” speed. On my mower that blade motor is a brushed DC motor, so it would almost need a blade speed sensor to do that. (If it was a brushless motor the speed sensing could be done by watching the current draw on the different coils, or via a hall effect sensor built into the motor…but with a brushed DC motor, I would expect the speed sensor to be a separate “add on” unit. Good luck figuring out what is going on.
Well, like I said it’s either spinning full speed or (what sounds like) half speed. It’s not gradual, it goes to one speed or the other very quickly, that’s why I suspected a bad connection. Oh, & if I bounce it up & down by pushing down on the handle & bouncing it on the ground a little sometimes it will speed back up. It sounds like it goes from getting the full 56 volts to getting 28 volts (or whatever) like a switch was flipped, it seems to do it randomly. I’ll try it again next week & see what it does. Also, it moves along at a constant speed regardless of how fast the blade is spinning. If it keeps mowing I’ll just ignore it for now, if not I’ll replace it with ‘something else’. I don’t need any more aggravation. Thanks for your help.
Our 2016 Ego 2100 self- propelled has just started making an unusual whining sound only when engaging the self-propel feature. Its an additional and totally different sound than the normal operating whirling sound. It doesn’t seem to perform differently but sounds like it is straining to maintain the drive feature. Any ideas at to what this might be would be very appreciated.
No idea what exactly is making the noise, but a quick and easy bit of maintenance to try is to remove the rear wheels (pop off the center covers with a screwdriver, then use a 1/2″ wrench or socket to remove the bolts to get the wheels off. Clean out any gunk with a paper towel, and then add some synthetic grease all around the visible gears. Re-install the wheels and see if it fixes anything. Can’t hurt, might help.
Bought an Ego late July 2023 and it died 2 weeks after the 90 day Lowe’s return window. Nothing. Battery is fine. Red / Green flashing. Ego service sucks. Hold times are long. Call back is 1-2 days later. Repair center > 30min from my home. Finally convinced them to let me take back to my Lowe’s store. Still waiting for a finish time frame…
WARNING — DO NOT BUY!!! — WARNING — DO NOT BUY!!!
I bought an e-go lawn mower at Lowes and used it successfully on my small yard for about three summers. Then last summer, the day relatives were arriving, it wouldn’t start, so I panicked and ran back to Lowes and purchased another mower, hoping to get the old mower fixed at a later time. I used the mower for about six weeks before winter arrived (in Alaska), and stored both mowers in my heated garage for the winter.
Charged up the battery this summer, pulled out my new mower – and it wouldn’t start. After checking with Lowes I called e-go. An hour on the phone with rep, and he determined both of my mowers had “manufacturing issues” and if I could provide store receipts they would honor the warranty. I don’t have original receipts and Lowes could not provide POP, and alternate. There appear to be no e-go repair shops in Alaska. I have replaced the earth friendly battery operated failed machines with a gas-powered lawn mower. No more e-gos for this retired, senior citizen.
It is unfortunate that Ego will only honor their warranty if you have previously registered the product and provided your original purchase receipt (or can prove you purchased it originally yourself). They do have a 5 year warranty on the tools (3 years on the batteries & chargers) but they are very militant about ONLY offering it to the original purchaser. [vs following the tool from the date of manufacturer….]