Look at the bright side. You bought into an electric, saved the world and got back a small rebate from the environmental group.

OK..back to the real world....

Cut your losses, don't have a heart attack over this. Life is short, buy a real mower...maybe get a used 2 cycle Lawn-Boy. lol

Give it a last choice of cigarette, place it against the wall and.. ooops forgot, not being politically correct. Seriously IMHO, the electrics are not worth spending a lot of time or money on.

After spending more than $600 between the cost of the mower and the repair, I'm posting here so others can read about the potential trouble.

I feel Black and Decker owes me an explanation for the breakdown of the mower and for the service people they recommend.

For many years I had an electric mower which worked well. However that had a cord to it.

Canguy , what is your experience with electric mowers?

At one time I repaired B&D, Sunbeam, and GE electrics. Almost all except B&D have disappeared and the latter are too inexpensive for repairs to be cost effective. They are also hard to repair properly.

Thanks for that piece of knowledge. I guess it's why the repair shop kept mine for 3 months last year and didn't properly fix it this year. They don't want to handle them!

If B& D cannot fix it properly, they should give me a refund.

I've visited some Consumers' complaint sites, too.

Years ago I had a very reliable corded electric B & D which never needed more than a blade sharpening. It was not new when it was given to me by an elderly neighbor. Too bad the new ones are not built for endurance.

Since gas powered mowers pollute at a higher rate than automobiles, I felt I was doing something to cut down on that.

Years ago B&D built twin blade mowers. Some had bearings in the motor and blade spindles. These ones were easy to service and lasted a long time with a little maintenance.

A couple of thoughts about your electric lawn mower. First off, an electric mower is really not a low polluting way to cut the grass unless you are getting electricity from a wind turbine or solar cells. And those sources have financial and environmental costs. Chances are that some if not all of the electricity you are putting in the mower comes from coal fired generators which produce notoriously high amounts of pollution. Secondly, the process of converting coal (or some other energy source) to electricity which is then transported over sometimes great distances to be converted to 12vdc entails energy losses throughout that process. Finally, electric mowers are notoriously underpowered and those that use batteries may not have enough reserve to do the job all at one time.

A gas powered mower is in my experience a far more flexible and reliable way to cut grass.

Buy a goat, that way when it breaks down you can just eat it!

Sorry, my zoning won't permit a goat.

The power plants have controls on their emissions, while the lawn mowers don't so it should be a cleaner use of energy.
I'm going to borrow a friend's watt meter to check how much energy is used. I think we need something scientific rather than conjecture.

"The power plants have controls on their emissions, while the lawn mowers don't so it should be a cleaner use of energy."

To an extent power plants control emissions, but they are terribly dirty and inefficnent ways of converting energy from one form to another and transporting it. Think about the entire process of burning coal to boil water to spin a turbine to drive a generator and the zillions of miles of lines and power stations to get that energy to your wall plug.
"I'm going to borrow a friend's watt meter to check how much energy is used. I think we need something scientific rather than conjecture."

Don't forget to measure the energy put into the transformer and the battery in addition to that consumed by the motor. And don't forget to measure all the upstream costs as well.

It is indeed possible to come up with a scenario where electric powered mowers appear to be clean and green and efficient if you ignore the costs, pollution and energy losses incurred in the transformation of the energy stored in coal to eletricity at the plug.

Carol,

I would suggest not buying a mower of this type and try to search for an old corded Black & Decker from way back when... they are scattered here and there, but you should be able to come across one.

My hot sheet for you:
8010 / 8008 - 18" Deluxe Single Blade Electric Mower
8018 - 18" Deluxe Flip-Over Handle Electric Mower
U273 / 8020 / 8021 - 18" Deluxe Dual-Blade Electric Mower
U274 / 8040 - 22" Deluxe Dual-Blade Electric Mower
8035 - 19" Dual-Blade Rear Bagger Electric Mower

~Ben