Stale petrol left in the tank over winter gums up the carburettor and corrodes the fuel system, the single most common reason a mower will not start in spring. A proper end-of-season service takes about an hour: sort the fuel,…
Look closely at the grass a day after you mow. If the tips are shredded and pale rather than cleanly sliced, and the whole lawn has taken on a yellow cast, the mower is tearing the grass instead of cutting…
Few things kill the momentum of a Saturday mow faster than a cloud of smoke rising off the engine. It looks alarming, and it is easy to fear the worst. The good news is that a smoking mower is usually…
A mower that buzzes hard through the handles after a full summer of cutting is not just uncomfortable to push. The shaking is the machine telling you that something spinning underneath it has gone off-centre, and left running that way…
A self-propelled mower that has stopped pulling itself is one of the most common late-season complaints, and it almost always strikes now, when thick, damp growth puts the drive under the heaviest load of the year. Most people reach straight…
Your petrol mower runs fine for ten minutes, then loses power, bogs down and cuts out. You yank the cord and nothing happens. Twenty minutes later, once it has cooled, it fires up first pull and repeats the whole cycle.…
The battery is the single most expensive part of a cordless mower, and how you charge and store it decides whether it lasts five years or fades in two. As the cutting season winds down and the mower heads for…
A mower that started first pull in June can refuse to fire after sitting through a dry summer, and stale petrol is usually the reason. Grass stops growing in a drought, the mower goes untouched for weeks, and the fuel…
A mower that drags through four or five pulls before it catches, splutters under load, or dies halfway across the lawn is often carrying one cheap, worn-out part: the spark plug. It sits on the side of the engine under…
A mower that will not start, bogs down in thick grass or blows dark smoke often has one cheap, overlooked fault behind it: a clogged air filter. It is the first thing a small-engine mechanic checks and the last thing…
