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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

Jon I said:

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?

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Don't think you did anything wrong, but sure reads like the conditions of the grass (eight inches tall and wet) were too much for any mower. How much did you expect to cut off?

The only thing I would double-check is the engine speed; the VKA does not have a throttle, so it starts and runs a maximum speed all the time, which should be about 3,100 rpm. A small engine tach would measure this, or you could have a Honda dealer inspect and test the mower to be 100% sure.

For leaves, move the green Clip Director knob to the next-to-the-last notch, so it is almost in the full MULCH position; this will retain the leaves inside the mower deck until they are finely chopped up, at which point they will be drawn out and either into the grass bag or downward back into the grass. You may need to try different settings to get the desired result.

Ok, thanks, Robert. It wasn't a horrible challenge (the 8" grass) because it certainly cut it better than ANY prior mower I've owned in the past would have, but just the difficulty noted.

I'll give the almost full mulch position a try; leaves are starting to fall so it won't be long before another test. I may try using the bag this time though, but won't if the leaves aren't too thick.

Jon

Jon, I have the same problem. I just mowed at 2.5 inches high with a few leaves on the Fescue grass in mulch mode.
I did not want to put the bagger on...Just as last year, the mower did a poor job on the leaves. It might have cut them a little but it just left a mess. I had to get my blower out to get rid of the leaves. The 217 mower I like a lot of things but it does not mulch leaves very well. Watch how much of the leaves are spewing out the sides... You have to bag them....I was used to my Toro Recycler which could mow a ton o leaves down to powder in one pass. I will be selling this mower and going back to the Toro Recycler or Super recycler machine in the spring.