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I purchased a NEW HRX217HZAA lawnmower on 4/12/2023, paid $1200 and brought it home. Mowed for about 20 minutes then put it in the garage. The next week when I tried to start it with the electric start it would not turn over so I pulled the rope. Way to much compression. So I called the dealer and the owner said yes they are having problems with the compression release, just bring it back and they will fix it. That was over three weeks ago and they still don't have the part from Honda and don't know when they will have it. Tomorrow I am going to ask for a refund and see what they say.

Bottom line is this is an ongoing problem right now so I would not advise anyone to buy the new Honda lawnmower.

I had a John Deere 14SB for over 23 years that I gave away and now I wish I still had it.

This is what we get when they cheapen a product. Some one screwed up in designing the new camshaft.

Yes, this is a known issue and a service bulletin is coming while they produce the quantity of the new camshafts. I had my mower repaired but was lucky and got one of the new camshafts sent to my dealer from a Honda engineer that was monitoring the forum and saw my post about this. It will get fixed but holy smokes there will be a lot of mowers as my dealer opened everyone they had in their inventory and found them all needing to be repaired.

You might get yours quicker if you see this thread and the Honda Engineer's reply. He fedex'd the part to my dealer for repair and I got my mower in a few days.

Wolfepack88 said:

Yes, this is a known issue and a service bulletin is coming while they produce the quantity of the new camshafts. I had my mower repaired but was lucky and got one of the new camshafts sent to my dealer from a Honda engineer that was monitoring the forum and saw my post about this. It will get fixed but holy smokes there will be a lot of mowers as my dealer opened everyone they had in their inventory and found them all needing to be repaired.

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I was told by my dealer it is a compression release issue. Are you saying now it is really a cam issue? I spoke to my dealer yesterday and he is hoping Honda will extend the money back offer of 30 days to a longer period so we can get refunds on these machines. He did say if they don't offer refunds he is considering offering it himself to protect his reputation. We'll see what happens in about a week.

He also said he has repaired 15 of these since the first of the year and now has 5 sitting in the back waiting on parts. Ouch!! Sad for the dealers when this is really a Honda issue but the dealer takes the heat.

The cam impacts the compression release. I was told Honda has 7 day not 30. My dealer refunded me twice as it happened to two mowers. Then the honda guy fedexed a new cam to my dealer and I purchased the first mower back repaired.
A question I have is if the dealer fixed that many why would he sell another mower. A Stop sell order should have gone out to all dealers and retailers.

My dealer opened up every one of the HRX mowers and tested and every one needs a repair! Not a good deal. My mower came back and I put a tach on it and it was at 2600 and the specs are 2900-3100 and the dealer forgot to replace the broken pull handle that originally broke when the handle was ripped out of my hand on the first go around. The dealer should have adjusted the rpm when they set it up for me. Quick adjustment to governor but why did I have to do it? Does anybody do their job anymore?? Slackers one and all!!

Wolfepack88 said:

The cam impacts the compression release. I was told Honda has 7 day not 30. My dealer refunded me twice as it happened to two mowers. Then the honda guy fedexed a new cam to my dealer and I purchased the first mower back repaired.
A question I have is if the dealer fixed that many why would he sell another mower. A Stop sell order should have gone out to all dealers and retailers.

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I agree they should not keep selling them if they are defective from the factory. What I was told by them was the mower usually works fine the first time it is used but the second or third time you use it then it quits. They knew that before I bought it since they have repaired so many but they sold it to me anyway.
I cannot say I personally looked up the return policy but that is what my dealer told me. Of course I was only told this after the 30 days were up.

At this point I just want a refund but we'll see what happens.

Well after 6 weeks of waiting my mower is finally fixed and I have used it one time with success. I just hope it keeps going with no more problems.

I have exactly the same issue, up here in Canada, Honda Canada has been giving me the runaround about this, first telling me their reviewing my claim and then saying they are still waiting to assign the case. Bought the lawn mower on the 30th of March and it failed after 3 hours of use. So like everyone else I am borrowing lawnmowers from whoever I can just to cut the lawn. Honda has fallen from grace on this issue.

Supposedly Honda can check to see if your mower has the problem part. If you buy a new mower, you can call them, give the serial number and they will tell you if your mower needs to be serviced. If yes, then either you wait or return and try again.

I have been in contact with Honda Canada, they know there is an issue with this mower but have no idea when they are going to be able to supply a new decompression valve.

its dishesrtening to hear about all of these failures. Most folks don’t have a backup mower. When buying a new mower. It makes sense to fill with oil and gas and just run it, let it cool down and run it again. Seems like this compression shows up after a few uses. Such a lousy situation.

the sad part about this is that Honda knew about the problem but continued to sell us faulty lawn mowers anyway. They should have issued a recall , issued instructions to dealers to not sell these mowers, but they did what corporate greed always does.

PT Doc said:

Supposedly Honda can check to see if your mower has the problem part. If you buy a new mower, you can call them, give the serial number and they will tell you if your mower needs to be serviced. If yes, then either you wait or return and try again.

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I bought a new HRX mower on Monday, and it’s having this problem - I did try calling the honda customer advocacy number, and the person on the phone said they don’t have a proper list of serial numbers, so they could not tell me if the mower is in an affected range.

I finally got mine fixed under warranty, but it took 2 and a half months to get a working lawnmower

just got my mower back - so three weeks one day. Not sure if the delay was parts or backed up - normally, I think they said it would be 10-14 days this time of year, because of their backlog. The extra time I'm guessing is getting the part.

all covered under warranty.

I just wanted to let you guys know that I had to have my entire engine replaced. Ever since I got the mower back from the original camshaft repair I had to always add some oil after every other use. I thought man this uses oil up but didn't think anything of it. Literally one of my last mows, I noticed oil all over at the end of my mow. Well I dropped my Honda mower off on November 4, 2023 and just picked it up today. I never knew what the problem was but the receipt says engine rebuild. The parts listed are:

Camshaft assembly
Connecting Rod
Crankcase assembly
cranckcase cover
crankshaft
cylinder
flywheel
coil assembly, ignition
piston
ring set, piston
clip
oring

So don't know if there is another problem brewing with these mowers because this thing was cared for like a it was a Bentley. Honda covered everything under warranty but I don't really know what happened or why. Was the original camshaft repair not done properly, who knows. Hopefully it's not a lemon. It's February so I cannot even test it yet so hopefully when mowing starts in April I am good to go.

Latest update. Took my mower out for the first mow of the season very small growth but you know once the grass gets going it will grow quickly. Well I start it up and engage the tranny and it sounds like a coffee grinder. I keep going and after say 20 minutes it got a little better but had to run the speed at full throttle and it was old man walking speed. Had my son look at the RPM gauge as I was mowing, anywhere between 2580 and 2900. At idle it was at 3800 so the mechanic that put the engine together must have calibrated the RPM at idle in the shop and never checked it with the blades engaged. They never checked the tranny which I told them in Nov was running rough and never was right. I was so close today to just tell them just keep this pos because the aggravation between cam shaft replacement, then a whole engine that took from Nov 4th until Feb 28th of this year to get fixed and they obviously forgot about the tranny. all this was after buying 3 of the HZA's last year and all failing because of the camshaft issue.

Got the mower back and supposedly all fixed. Well ground speed issue wasn't fixed when I got back home but noticed the youtube video on how to adjust the throttle cable and that fixed the ground speed problem but grinding was still there. I noticed today a couple of fluid drops under the mower and then looked under the mower and noticed a few drops right here on the tranny. This is a mower that was used for one half a season and one mow this season. See this leak area on the tranny. Tranny has to be bad. Back to dealer tomorrow for third time this season already!!

I received a call from the dealer and Honda has approved a brand new transmission. So perhaps this saga will now end. I have to say the engine is now running like butter so if the tranny replacement is done correctly I will finally have a great Honda, but damn its been a long time coming since April of last year when my journey began trying to buy one of these.

Ok mower back yesterday with new transmission. So now it basically has a new engine and a new transmission. They even joked with me that if anything else goes wrong with this mower that Honda should give me a brand new mower.