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Hey everyone! I had a new lawn mower arrive today, a PROYAMA 196CC self propelled mower.

I got everything set up, added the oil, checked the oil, added the gas, and went to go mow the lawn. Immediately smoke billowed out, a large clunk, and the mower died. The pull cord won't extend, so I'm assuming the engine is seized. I can't return the unit or get a replacement (Amazon), though I did get a refund.

What would cause this? Is this fixable? I'm kind of bummed about it.

No where near enough information to make a diagnosis
However buying a no name Chinese imported mower through Amazon what did you expect , a quality product ?
Dream on
The biggest cost for any mower business is providing customer support & maintaining a parts warehouse, let alone a dealer / service network.
I can buy what looks like the same mower for $ 30 USA ex factory in China .
If I order 2000 or more they will paint it in my choice of colour and put my stickers on it for no extra charge .
Welcome to the throw away destroy the planet economy

Most of your American built machines are all outsourced to China, Mexico, or another country.

I would expect a mower to last beyond the initial start, especially since it's zero risk these days with sites like Amazon vs a local store that will find any reason to not give you a refund or replacement, it's worth a chance.

And fair about not enough info - what other info would you need? If it is a seized engine, is it possible and worth it to fix?

opiod said:

I would expect a mower to last beyond the initial start, especially since it's zero risk these days with sites like Amazon vs a local store that will find any reason to not give you a refund or replacement, it's worth a chance.

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And why do you think the local store tries to find a reason to not do an exchange or refund. how many products does the local store have to exchange or refund before going out of business because the OEM refuses to pay for customer stupidity. How may products sold that fail do you think is a true warranty failure. The average is less than 1 %. So the dealer or local store would have to eat those other 99 product returns that were sold with little to no profit.

I looked at a mower some years ago , that had a blown Tecumseh engine. It had maybe 2 hours on it when it blew a hole in the block. It only had ONE connecting rod nut holding the rod to the crank !! I found no evidence that it ever had both nuts on it.

Charlie8d said:

I looked at a mower some years ago , that had a blown Tecumseh engine. It had maybe 2 hours on it when it blew a hole in the block. It only had ONE connecting rod nut holding the rod to the crank !! I found no evidence that it ever had both nuts on it.

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Warranty is there because problems do occur when you make things
However like ILLengine I see more people trying to pull a fast one with warranty claims than genuine warranty claims
Luckily I do not do warranty work because I am independent but I do get a lot of people coming to me to prove a warrranty repair is required
Most are customer mistakes & the most common by far with walk behinds is running without oil.

opiod said:

Most of your American built machines are all outsourced to China, Mexico, or another country.

I would expect a mower to last beyond the initial start, especially since it's zero risk these days with sites like Amazon vs a local store that will find any reason to not give you a refund or replacement, it's worth a chance.

And fair about not enough info - what other info would you need? If it is a seized engine, is it possible and worth it to fix?

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Firstly if the Loncin engine is seized it can not be fixed because there are no parts available apart from filters & carbs
But weather is can be repaired will depend upon what is wrong
You said it went bang & stopped, that is not what seized engine do
It is what an engine with a loose con rod does
However you can start by removing the spark plug and see if the engine will turn over without the plug in.
BE careful because if it has hydrolocked then fuel will gush out the plug hole so there is a fire danger
Now in my shop after that I would shove the bore-o-scope down the plug hole to have a look at the bore
In your case the next step is to remove the rocker cover & check that both the valves are where they should be and both the push rods are present
As you will probably need to remove the blower housing to access the rocker cover , see if it will rotate without the pull start as these can jamb
After that it is off with it's head .

ILENGINE said:

And why do you think the local store tries to find a reason to not do an exchange or refund. how many products does the local store have to exchange or refund before going out of business because the OEM refuses to pay for customer stupidity. How may products sold that fail do you think is a true warranty failure. The average is less than 1 %. So the dealer or local store would have to eat those other 99 product returns that were sold with little to no profit.

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Not every failure is "customer stupidity". If the OEM refuses to pay for repairs or warranties, then the business should stop offering it. I'm not sure how much is a true failure or a customer caused issue - point is, that this isn't one of those scenarios, and it's the exact reason why I don't buy local on a lot of things - because it only takes one time to lose several hundred or thousands of dollars on faulty equipment that everyone wipes their hands clean of.

I had this thing for 10 minutes. Filled it up as specified by the owners manual, and it ran for less than 3 seconds. If customer stupidity is following the owners manual, then color me guilty.

bertsmobile1 said:

Firstly if the Loncin engine is seized it can not be fixed because there are no parts available apart from filters & carbs
But weather is can be repaired will depend upon what is wrong
You said it went bang & stopped, that is not what seized engine do
It is what an engine with a loose con rod does
However you can start by removing the spark plug and see if the engine will turn over without the plug in.
BE careful because if it has hydrolocked then fuel will gush out the plug hole so there is a fire danger
Now in my shop after that I would shove the bore-o-scope down the plug hole to have a look at the bore
In your case the next step is to remove the rocker cover & check that both the valves are where they should be and both the push rods are present
As you will probably need to remove the blower housing to access the rocker cover , see if it will rotate without the pull start as these can jamb
After that it is off with it's head .

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The blade won't spin and the pull cord is stuck (you can get like maybe 3-4" of pull before it just doesn't go anymore). I removed the plug this morning, and no fluids came out.

Good response, thank you for this.

After doing some more reading on the topic, I've learned that even if you can fix a seized engine (if that's the case here, unsure at this point based on what you said), chances are that it'll seized again or something else will go wrong in a short period of time. The process looks simple enough, though I can't see it being worth the effort if it's not going to be a permanent solution, which is what I was trying to determine - the "is it even worth it". Short answer - for me, it's a no.

Doing something like you mentioned is beyond my mechanical know-how, but I appreciate the information so I can understand that. Thanks!

In the ad, did you contact the seller?

"[One Year Warranty] Welcome to contact us by email for any questions, we'll reply within 24 hours "

Don't know which seller you got it from. Below is the link for what I typed above.

At least this would side discharge. Hondas don't even do that and it's 2022 now.

opiod said:

Not every failure is "customer stupidity". If the OEM refuses to pay for repairs or warranties, then the business should stop offering it. I'm not sure how much is a true failure or a customer caused issue - point is, that this isn't one of those scenarios, and it's the exact reason why I don't buy local on a lot of things - because it only takes one time to lose several hundred or thousands of dollars on faulty equipment that everyone wipes their hands clean of.

I had this thing for 10 minutes. Filled it up as specified by the owners manual, and it ran for less than 3 seconds. If customer stupidity is following the owners manual, then color me guilty.

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The OEM's are not refusing to pay for actual fails due to faulty workmanship. What is being refused is the people that run straight gas in their 2 stroke trimmers, or the people that start their mower and then decide they didn't put oil in it first. Or the one that come with the correct amount of oil in the box for the customer to dump in and then they only pour in half. Or it came with proper oil, and the customer decides that isn't enough and pours in 2 quarts. Or the ones that hit the water meter cover on their first mow with the mower. Or the ones that badmouth the dealer because they purchased a new trimmer 7 days ago and the bump knob broke. And the warranty specifically says that bump knobs are a wear item are are excluded from warranty coverage. And people blame me because I can't warranty their product because according to them they did nothing wrong.

Here is an example of a customer that did nothing wrong, and is upset that the store will not refund or exchange their trimmer. Customer has owned it a week, and in that time has replaced the trimmer head with an unapproved head, and customer complaint was it will only run 10 minutes before dying. At this time the straight gas that I dumped out is piss yellow smells like it has been setting for 3 years, and has water in the fuel. And the cylinder walls are scored. At I am supposed to warranty that according to the customer.

opiod said:

The blade won't spin and the pull cord is stuck (you can get like maybe 3-4" of pull before it just doesn't go anymore). I removed the plug this morning, and no fluids came out.

Good response, thank you for this.

After doing some more reading on the topic, I've learned that even if you can fix a seized engine (if that's the case here, unsure at this point based on what you said), chances are that it'll seized again or something else will go wrong in a short period of time. The process looks simple enough, though I can't see it being worth the effort if it's not going to be a permanent solution, which is what I was trying to determine - the "is it even worth it". Short answer - for me, it's a no.

Doing something like you mentioned is beyond my mechanical know-how, but I appreciate the information so I can understand that. Thanks!

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Most people do not understand that no one can tell how much a repair will cost until they pull the engine down to see what has failed then worked out why it failed
Untill that time all we know is something is preventing the engine from revolving .
It could be some thing as simple as a nut that has been picked up by the magneto magnet and is now jambed between the coil & flywheel or anything else right up to a piston welded into the bore .
Working this out takes time and time is money .
A good mechanic will go to the effort of working out why a part failed before replacing anythingWay too many now days are brain dead parts swappers so the customer pays for a repair, only to have the same thing happen a bit latter on .

Some manufacturers deal with warranty problems by allocating a set percentage of money per sale to service and warranty the product. That requires a service department, and a parts department, and an accounting staff to handle the paperwork. The plus is that small problems can be fixed. Other companies that don't want to staff a parts, service and accounting staff for that simply figure that X% of products fail so they give that discount to the retailer to swap the units. Then they whatever they want with them, including letting the landfill deal with them. The retailer becomes responsible for the warranty, which is worst case, "Sorry it died. We can send you another one or give you a refund."

Interesting new statistic. 9 out of 10 end of life solar panels are now being sent to the landfill instead of being recycled as the original plan called for. Lots are reaching the end of their lives. Maybe we will see this trend next with Chinese mowers.

Because of the price sensitivity it will always be cheaper to manufacture from virgin materials than to recycle scrap
Again that is a big reason why we find ourselves in the situation we are in now with massive climatic problems
However no government will tax mining as it should be done to force the price up to the point that recycling becomes economic because they all want the royalties .
Australia being a prime example of encouraging this vandalism
My graduate life started with Simsmetal which in those days before Peko took them over was the worlds biggest recycler / reuser of metals & had just moved into plastics .
Peko sold it all off .
The biggest tonnage was the USA plants that bought old rail line then rerolled them into medium duty steel beams & reo bar .
Now days they get chopped up into short lengths & sent to Chinese steel mills to be made into even lower grade , mostly just out of specification steel products .

bertsmobile1 said:

Because of the price sensitivity it will always be cheaper to manufacture from virgin materials than to recycle scrap
Again that is a big reason why we find ourselves in the situation we are in now with massive climatic problems
However no government will tax mining as it should be done to force the price up to the point that recycling becomes economic because they all want the royalties .
Australia being a prime example of encouraging this vandalism
My graduate life started with Simsmetal which in those days before Peko took them over was the worlds biggest recycler / reuser of metals & had just moved into plastics .
Peko sold it all off .
The biggest tonnage was the USA plants that bought old rail line then rerolled them into medium duty steel beams & reo bar .
Now days they get chopped up into short lengths & sent to Chinese steel mills to be made into even lower grade , mostly just out of specification steel products .

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US is not into making steel like it was. The last admin tried to change that but we all know what happened with that. Fact is that the USA is in deep trouble as a country that cannot provide for itself and that includes steel. Back in the early 2000's the SF to Oakland Bay Bridge had to be replaced to be earthquake safe. It came several inches from total collapse in the Loma Prieta earthquake. Engineers designed it and put out bids for the steel girders for it. Not one US Steel plant had the equipment to make them. They had to go to China for the steel - not because it was less costly, but because the US has retired all the foundaries that were once capable of making that steel. No country has ever survived long who had to print paper money endlessly hoping someone would take it in trade for goods. My guess is that part of the current trip to SA is to convince the house of Saud to keep extending us credit for all the paper money we send them in exchange for oil, while at the same time we pass it out like flyers at the county fair to everyone else.

Don't directly blame the government for some thing that has been done by private enterprise chasing bigger returns to shareholders , many of which of course are ordinary people through their pension funds .
Nixon started deregulating the finance sector and every government of every colour has taken that deregulation further & further .
Shareholder dividends have become the new holy grail to be protected at any cost .
Perfect proof of this was the response to the GFC where O'Bama decided to protect the bank shareholders and let the victims go to the wall & loose their houses.
And this new paradigme applies to our government just as much as yours .
And I would worry about the US foreign debt that China has both bought and adquired through trade imbalances than the Saudis who have so much money tied up internally in the USA they are unlikely to rock the boat where as the Chinese are playing a very long game to use the greed of the Americans to destroy America , one industry at a time .

Here is a rundown of the latest store returns that I service:

Two Troybilt push mowers, One with a broken shroud from having something dropped on it. No gas or oil so happened at the store. The other missing handle assembly bolts but has gas and oil in engine and starts and runs fine.

Two Brute and one Snapper pressure washers. One Brute washer oil hydrolocked due to being either on its side or upside down. Has gas in tank, but no engine oil. After clearing cylinder unit was fine. The other unit was fine. The Snapper washer has gas in tank, no engine oil and siezed.

One 4 stroke Troybilt trimmer with low engine oil but ran after adding fresh gas. Another off breed trimmer with missing trimmer head and electric charger for the electric start and broken gear head from the head being forceably removed.

Two Troybilt chainsaws with leaking bar oil but both saws run. And two Poulan pro saws. One with a loose flywheel, Looks like warranty, and the other saw started and run fine, but happens to be from 2017 and the chain looks like they have been cutting rock. And a Westinghouse generator with a bad switch, that is not available. Oh, and I can't forget the Silex 4 stroke 46cc chainsaw that after clearing the flooded engine ran fine. Sounds like a 4 stroke weedeater, and in actual cutting was keeping up with a 50cc 2 stroke saw. Funny having a tank for bar oil, and tank for engine oil, and a third tank for straight gas. I was somewhat impressed with it.

And people expect their local dealer to accept returns or exchanges of the above listed items. And then complain that their dealer won't agree to it.