Disposable Lawn Mowers: Sunjoe

A few years ago, I bought a 28-volt Sunjoe mower for my wife to use for trimming and mowing around fruit trees. Got it at Home Depot. The day before yesterday, my grandson was trimming with it, and it just stopped. I began diagnostics with my multimeter, and it has 28v at the battery and 28v going into the motor controller. So I decided it needed a new motor controller. I searched and searched to no avail. Finally, I got in contact with the company and was told that they do not sell internal parts. Great! A truly disposable mower! They suggested I contact a repair shop, so does anyone know of a repair shop where I can get this part? The part# is SMV 879705, 28 VDC 25A. There is also another # 171009-0602.

Welcome to the world of cheap electrical stuff that the OEM never intend us to repair just to fill up our landfills and keep their factories humming along.

The only thing I can say is welcome to the world of battery operated tools where the companies have no intention of supplying parts past the warranty period, and if it fails under warranty we will just refund your purchase price, providing you still have the original receipt.

I chuckled when I read the OP's dilemma in finding repair parts for his electric lawn mower. I just bought a Honda electric lawn mower and I can purchase every little part from Honda to keep it running forever. Honda publishes a complete parts catalog for every one of their products as well as a detailed shop manual. So, the problem isn't that the OP's mower is electric, but that it's cheap and sold by a company that does not care about service after the sale.

MowerMike said:

I chuckled when I read the OP's dilemma in finding repair parts for his electric lawn mower. I just bought a Honda electric lawn mower and I can purchase every little part from Honda to keep it running forever. Honda publishes a complete parts catalog for every one of their products as well as a detailed shop manual. So, the problem isn't that the OP's mower is electric, but that it's cheap and sold by a company that does not care about service after the sale.

Click to expand...

Agreed. Not only can you buy every part on the Honda battery mower from the same extensive network of Honda parts dealers, but most of the mechanical parts on the battery Honda are the SAME PARTS that are used by the gas Hondas. So not only are they widely available, but they are well made, reliable and reasonably priced.

fbirch said:

Agreed. Not only can you buy every part on the Honda battery mower from the same extensive network of Honda parts dealers, but most of the mechanical parts on the battery Honda are the SAME PARTS that are used by the gas Hondas. So not only are they widely available, but they are well made, reliable and reasonably priced.

Click to expand...

The same dilemma with many off brand battery outdoor power equipment such as trimmers, blowers, and chainsaws. Try to get someone to work on battery Ryobi, Craftsman, Troy Bilt, etc. handheld stuff. Also try to get parts other than some basic items. It all ends up in the landfill.

Tiger Small Engine said:

The same dilemma with many off brand battery outdoor power equipment such as trimmers, blowers, and chainsaws. Try to get someone to work on battery Ryobi, Craftsman, Troy Bilt, etc. handheld stuff. Also try to get parts other than some basic items. It all ends up in the landfill.

Click to expand...

You seem obsessed with the problem of getting service or parts for battery powered OPE, but the fact is that most repair and service is on the engine of gas powered OPE. Electric motors do not require repair or service and brushless motors last almost forever. Cheap equipment is problematic regardless of whether it is powered by gas or electricity. Although most of my OPE is electric, I do have some quality gas tools such as my Echo PB-2520 blower, which is 8-1/2 years old and has been totally problem free. OTOH, my next door neighbor bought a Craftsman B2000 blower with a half-crank design, and it fell apart within two years. Failure of cheap tools is mostly mechanical in nature and is the same regardless of power source. I try to avoid crappy brands like Ryobi, Kobalt, Black + Decker (Craftsman, DeWalt) and Sun Joe. I favor quality brands like Honda, Milwaukee, Makita and Echo.