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Repaired my Worx Cordless Lawnmower
By Mid Aged Man
Oct 7, 2011 - 9:37:43 PM

I bought my Worx rechargeable lawnmower in 2009 from Sears.  It is a 24 V Rechargeable mower.  I love using this mower because there are no fumes and I do not have to deal with the gasoline.  I do not know how healthy it is to walk behind a gas mower, but it can't be doing you any favors.

This summer the Worx lawnmower started to act funny.  On occasion I noticed it seemed to lose power and then rev back up.  I also noticed that on starting sometimes it seemed to have a little difficulty. One day, I put in the freshly charged battery and pulled the handle....nothing.

I went online searching for the answer.  I found nothing.  I called the company.  They gave the address of a repair place about 25 miles away.  I checked when I bought it and of course it was just past the 2 year warranty. 

I though wait I can use my extended Platinum card warranty.  I managed to find a copy of my Sears receipt online and printed a copy of my statement.  I then looked at the Extended Warranty policy and found out the original warranty cannot be greater than 1 year.  Oh well...wasted about an hour of searching for the receipt and all.

There was no way I was going to spend a trip going back and forth to a repair place and then pay for a repair.  I had two options.  I could try to repair it myself or I could buy another one.

Let's start with search for another one.  I spent well over an hour searching and reading reviews online mainly Amazon.  I found my mower for about $399 which was less than I paid.  However, I just could not get myself to pay for another mower.  That is a lot of money.    So I just kep procrastinating. 

Today, I went to Home Depot and found a HomeLite rechargeable mower for $299.  I called my wife and she read me the reviews for a similar mower called the Earthwise mower.   It seemed like this mower had battery issues.  I thought about buying another exact same mower that I had, but we thought why would I buy the same mower if this one broke after a little over 2 years. After pondering what to do we decided to wait and let me look at the mower one last time. 

Okay, so let me just say I spent a few hours at least shopping around for a new mower. 

Now back to my repair attempts.  I read online about other people's issues with the Worx mower like it stopped working after a couple years, or it was something else.  I think I read in other places their battery did not work.

Since my battery seemed to be charging, I took matters into my own hands.  I found the diagram for my mower and proceeded to try and take it apart.

Let me warn you first...do not take the handle apart.  I did and the parts and springs dropped out.  Luckily I pieced it back together.  Looking back, I could have totally messed up my mower for no reason.  This was a highly unlikely cause of the malfunction based on the way the mower was acting.

I then began to try to take off the plastic top of the mower.  Loosened a few screws and thought I could pop it off.  No way.  I actually considered cutting the plastic top in half like a dissection so I could see if the moto was bad or if there was a loose wire.  Let me tell you, I gave up after wasting another two hours.

One thing I noticed though was one of the poles on the plug that goes into the battery had a burn looking mark on it.  One of the first things I suspected when the mower stopped working was the poles were not touching correctly so I actually attempted to compress the battery plug area where it plugs in.  This did not work. A clue.

Anyways, I decided to take the battery to Batteries Plus.  The man there opened the battery and tested the batteries for voltage and amps (?).  He found that they were fine.  He also tested the pug itself and told me he had to really push the probe it deep to get a signal.  This was an important clue.

The battery although looks cool in the case is just to 12 V batteries. 

Back to the story now.  So I knew it was not the battery charge that was the issue.

Many weeks later.  The grass is not looking that great.  I have been using our reel push mower which has been doing an okay job, but the grass does not look like a well manicured lawn.  Reel mowers are great if your lawn does not have any weeds or crazy looking grass.

This brings us to today.  I decided to go look for a new mower vs paying someone $30 or $40 to cut our lawn so it does not look like a bad haircut all winter.  I drive to Home Depot and check out their Home Lite. for $299.  Then I drive over to Menards and see their Earthwise for $399.

It turns out that I think they are the same brand with different names.  The reviews I read are mixed and so my wife and I decide to try one more time to see if I can get the mower working.

As I prepared to leave I start to walk over to the electrical section to get some wire so I can wire the battery directly to the plug poles and see if the plug socket on the battery itself is the issue.  On the way to the section, I meet up with the Home Depot person who was helping me earlier.

I tell him my issue and mention that I noticed the burn marks on the plug pole and that I thought it was not getting a good connection.  He told me that it may have been arcing.  That if the connection is poor sometimes it can arc. Another clue.

I said I was thinking about using aluminum foil and he thought that was a good ides.  I remember hearing about using aluminum foil in a emergeny if a car fues blew.

I drove home.  Grabbed a half inch thin piece of aluminum foil, put it on the pole with the burn mark and plugged it in.

The moment of truth.

I pushed in the safety button, pulled the start lever and......

Alelujiah! Less than 1 cent.  Basic physics.

I mowed the grass and it looks much better.  Now that my Worx Rechargeable mower works again, I love it. 

So I wonder if many of those other people who had similar issues with their rechargeable Worx mower have the same issue.  Now if the aluminum foil idea is perfectly safe, I am not sure.  I am not an electrician.  I, as far as I know, did not bypass any safety features on the mower.

I am pretty proud of myself and thankful for the people at Batteries Plus, Home Depot and my wife for helping me work the problem.  Although it took a couple months to solve, it is rather fulfilling to have solved it.

I also am glad I did not spend another $300 - $400 on a new mower which may just as well had the same problem in a year or two.  I would have also kept the broken mower just in case and that would have taken up more room in my garage and in my list of stuff I needed to fix!