After raking up nearly 40, 55 g bags of leaves last year and the fact that I'm not getting any younger, I decided to upgrade my mower to one that would specifically handle the task. After reading the many reviews, I decided on the Honda HRX217K5VKA. However, unless I'm not doing something right, I wasn't too happy with it's second time performance yesterday for handling either tall, wet crab grass (8" high) or a coating of leaves on the ground from one of my trees.
I deliberately allowed my one section of the yard, plagued with crab grass, to get a little higher than usual just to test out this new mower. After it reached about 8", I hauled out the Honda and proceeded to mow it yesterday. It was quite wet and thick. The mower started off ok, but it stalled several times and I had to restart. There seemed to be grass building up and stopping the blades. I had the setting two notches away from total mulch. After I stalled and restarted it 3-4 times, I got the job done but actually proceeded by not using the self propel (I just gripped the blade bar and let the self propel grip alone). What was I doing wrong here? I would have thought it should have plowed through this section of yard without any difficulty.
I'd also like to find out the ideal set up for leaves? I know I didn't do this right either, again not moving the setting --two notches away from mulch. Leaves were ground up somewhat and redeposited, but certainly not to the level I read about in the reviews.
I did not use the bag for any of these tasks. Perhaps I should have, not sure. Just trying to keep things simple and figure this all out before the leaves really start coming down.
Thanks for any help,
Jon
I deliberately allowed my one section of the yard, plagued with crab grass, to get a little higher than usual just to test out this new mower. After it reached about 8", I hauled out the Honda and proceeded to mow it yesterday. It was quite wet and thick. The mower started off ok, but it stalled several times and I had to restart. There seemed to be grass building up and stopping the blades. I had the setting two notches away from total mulch. After I stalled and restarted it 3-4 times, I got the job done but actually proceeded by not using the self propel (I just gripped the blade bar and let the self propel grip alone). What was I doing wrong here? I would have thought it should have plowed through this section of yard without any difficulty.
I'd also like to find out the ideal set up for leaves? I know I didn't do this right either, again not moving the setting --two notches away from mulch. Leaves were ground up somewhat and redeposited, but certainly not to the level I read about in the reviews.
I did not use the bag for any of these tasks. Perhaps I should have, not sure. Just trying to keep things simple and figure this all out before the leaves really start coming down.
Thanks for any help,
Jon