Ego electric mower won’t start? Here’s help.

Last Updated on August 12, 2023 by Dave Farquhar

If your Ego electric mower won’t start, there are several possible reasons for it. Typically the reason is fairly simple and easy to fix. A less typical problem is much harder to fix, but is also preventable. Let’s talk about how to troubleshoot and hopefully get you mowing again.

Start with the simplest answer when your Ego electric mower won’t start

If you rolled the mower out and are trying to start it cold, start with the handle. If you were mowing and it cut out suddenly, you may want to skip to the section about the battery first, then come back to the handle if that doesn’t help. If you were mowing and it bogged down before cutting out, it’s probably a fouled mower deck, so you may want to skip to the section about the deck.

Check the handle and underside of the mower deck

An Ego mower won’t start if the handle isn’t locked into one of the predefined operating positions, isn’t fully extended, the clamps aren’t locked, or the mower deck is clogged.

That’s a handful. But all of these are fairly easy to fix. First, unlock the clamps, release the handle, then fully extend the handle and lock the clamps again. Sometimes people don’t extend the handle completely, thinking it’s a height adjustment. No, that’s what the locked operating positions are for. So extend the handle, then lock the handle into the most comfortable of its three positions.

It’s also easy enough to bump the mower and unlock one of the clamps accidentally, even if you never touched the mower intentionally. I have.

A fouled mower deck

The mower deck takes a bit longer to fix, but it’s also something you can fix yourself. If the mower bogged down before cutting out, this is the more likely cause.

Remove the battery (safety first!). Then flip the mower over and make sure it’s not fouled with grass clippings. If it is, clean the clippings out. Spray some cooking spray on the deck to help prevent recurrence. Yes, cooking spray. It’s better for your yard than WD-40 if any of it drips. Then replace the battery, extend the handle, and try again.

You may also want to raise your deck to make it less likely to bog down again during this cut.

If you’re mowing wet grass, you’re especially prone to this problem. I’ll spare you the lecture to not mow wet grass. I do it myself, because sometimes there’s no choice. Wet grass loves to accumulate under your deck, and as your battery runs down, powering through all that muck eventually becomes too much to ask. But as soon as you clear the clippings out from under the deck, the mower frequently comes right back to life.

But let’s talk some more about that battery.

The battery

The mower will stop if the battery gets too hot or the mower gets overloaded. And of course if the battery gets depleted, the mower will stop. Letting the battery cool down and make sure it can still take a charge is always a good troubleshooting step. Having a spare battery on hand to swap in is always a good idea.

To prevent overloading, adjust the mower height. When in doubt, mow high, then adjust the height down.

If these problems seem familiar, there’s a reason. Hart and Ryobi mowers tend to behave very similarly.

Electrical problems

Ego mowers can develop wiring problems.

It is possible for one or more of the wires in the handle, or the wiring connector itself, to go bad under stress. If you are comfortable with a multimeter and a soldering iron, you can find the break in the circuit, and splice the wire.

I imagine this is a skill some people are going to learn, since it’s probably the most common problem these mowers can develop. This one, unfortunately, does require some repair. I would recommend looking for a YouTube video on your specific model, since they don’t all necessarily disassemble the same way.

But it’s worth fixing. The mowers are very dependable as long as the electrons are flowing freely. Splicing in some extra length on the wires could be enough to prevent or significantly delay a recurrence.

This problem typically takes several years to develop, so if your mower is fairly new, it’s more likely to be the handle being in the wrong position, or the battery. And the battery issue may very well be temporary. Lithium rechargeable batteries tend to be pretty robust.

Preventative maintenance to extend the life of your Ego mower

But if you don’t want your expensive Ego electric lawn mower failing prematurely, how do you prevent this problem? The problem occurs because of the stress of folding and unfolding the handle for storage. If you have enough space to not fold up the handle after every use, I recommend keeping the handle extended during the mowing season, and just folding the mower up and storing it when you are done for the winter. Of course one of the big selling points for cordless electric lawn mowers is that they fold up really small and store easily, and some people just don’t have enough room for this to be practical. But if you can avoid folding and unfolding your handle every time you use your Ego mower, the wiring inside will take less stress and last longer.

You most frequently hear about this problem with Ego mowers, which might be disappointing since they cost more than most of the other brands. But I think this has more to do with how long the various mowers have been on the market. Ego was earlier, so they have had more time to develop this problem. I imagine that eventually all of them will switch to more flexible wire to try to keep the problem from happening. Sometimes the problems in a design decision can take several years to surface.