Moving from FWD Gas to RWD Electric Dealing with Walking/Turning

[NismoZ]

I have the weed eater and hedge trimmer products from Ego. They are excellent and much better than the old tools they replaced. The only reason that I have not bought the new Ego 3rd gen mower yet is because its RWD. I've only had FWD craftsman mowers my whole life, so I have developed a routine with walking and turning. The best I can describe is is with this video at 4 minutes in:

This guy pushes down to lift up the front drive wheels and pivot on the back. Its faster to cut a yard like this rather than to cut back and forth while turning off the drive wheel, making a 180 turn, then engaging the drive wheels. Obviously this guy still does it like I do, even with a RWD Ego, as you can see the wheels still spinning that hes pivoting on. I guess the unit is so lite that it works.
Anybody have an feedback on making the switch and walking/turning routine?

 

[MowerMike]

If you have a flat lawn, you really don't need self-propel, because the mower is very lightweight. You can buy a push version of the EGO mower.

 

[tom3]

I've had several of both types and if you REALLY need a self propelled mower you need the rear wheel drive. I'm with Mowermike on this one, the lightweight push mower for an average sized city level yard is probably the way to go.

 

[dougmacm]

I've got 2 40V 21" Deck Greenworks mowers, one is self-propelled and the other not.

If you have any hills, you like to bag, or if it takes you more than 30-40 min. to cut your lawn now, you may want to go with a self propelled and just teach yourself / get used to how RWD is designed to work. Leaving the drive activated and doing burnouts on turns like the video is only going to wear the tires and drive system out faster than normal.

As the others said, the pushers are so light weight and if you mostly mulch instead of bag then you may not miss the S-P. My lawn takes about 70 minutes with the 40V Self-Propelled mower. I purchased the pusher first for an office with a real small (15-20 min) yard, and for this it is absolutely perfect. Ran it at home a couple of times just to try it out … bagged with it once just to try that out too. Mulching with it is OK if it is not too hot out and bagging was not as bad as I thought it would be as bag got full, but would not want to make a habit of it. The S-P came up later on Amazon for a price I could not pass up so I bought it for home.

I've only used push or RWD mowers for the past 45 years. I think there was a time where I used someone's FWD mower and it was really strange to me but could have gotten used to it where I can see it not being as easy switching from FWD to RWD.

Doug

 

[wo_ic3m4n]

I agree with Dougmacm, I have the self-propelled eGo 56v mower and I love it for my lawn. I have learned to stop the self-propelled drive at turns, and just make them manually. It's so light that it's very easy to turn with mulching and bagging while the drive is not engaged, then you just reactivate the drive on your next pass, and you're good! My lawn takes me about 2-3 hours to cut in total, and the mower lasts the whole time!

 

[tom3]

My lawn takes me about 2-3 hours to cut in total, and the mower lasts the whole time!

That'd be two or three tanks of gas in my walk behinds. Pretty good performance with that mower!