Many of the most prolific auto executives, journalists, technicians, and salespeople throughout the decades have built their passion the same way: As a child, they tinkered with the carburetor on their parents’ gas lawnmower. It is the classic car-enthusiast tale that you’ll read about in all sorts of autobiographies and company-history pages and the like, but it will not be the tale for my son, because there will be no gas lawnmower carburetor for him to tinker with. And I feel a bit bad about that.
Before folks hop into the comments and tell me about California and all of its various restrictions, yes, I know new gasoline mowers are banned from California. Back in 2021, Assembly Bill 1346 — Air Pollution: Small Off-Road Engines — decreed that “by July 1, 2022, the state board shall, consistent with federal law, adopt cost-effective and technologically feasible regulations to prohibit engine exhaust and evaporative emissions from new small off-road engines, as defined by the state board. Those regulations shall apply to engines produced on or after January 1, 2024…”
Lawnmowers are among those “off-road engines,” and California features quite a few substantial rebate programs, with LA’s being run by the regional pollution agency called the South Coast Air Quality Management District. Look at these massive rebates, which require buying new electric mowers and having an old gas mower dismantled:
It’s basically Cash 4 Clunkers, but for mowers.
I myself did not take advantage of this because I don’t have an old gas mower, and if I did, I certainly wouldn’t trash it unless it were truly junk. No, I just found a cheap Ryobi mower on Facebook Marketplace for $150 with battery and charger. There were plenty of gas mowers out there for under $50, but I wanted to try an electric mower, primarily because my yard is small.
And let me just say: This thing cranks.
It is better than a gas mower in every conceivable way. It’s lighter, it’s mower powerful, and it’s quieter. (But not that much quieter, to be honest; I never realized just how much of a lawnmower’s noise comes from that spinning blade — it’s substantial). Listen to how loud this thing is:
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Anyway, this mower is fantastic, it requires no maintenance, and I can charge it up overnight and mow my entire modestly-sized lawn easily, even if the grass is far too tall because I haven’t gotten around to it in a few weeks. (All of my neighbors have gardeners and keep telling me to get one, too, but on principle I just can’t).
But there’s still part of me that feels some guilt, because the gasoline lawnmower has since the dawn of time been a gateway into car culture. You’d often hear stories like this Reddit thread titled “My 10yo decided he wanted to start fixing small engines for cash. Snagged this mower free. Two hours later, he (by himself) has it starting on the first pull. I’m no mechanic – he just has the touch.”
The carburetor in a gas mower is just simple enough to be rebuild by a child, and yet it’s mechanically complex enough to demonstrate some important automotive principles, while offering a satisfying payoff when the job is done: The mower works like a dream, cutting grass with ease. This experience — and just the overall maintenance required like oil changes and spark plug swaps, as well as just the mechanical nature of wielding such a machine — is often a kid’s introduction to semi-complex mechanical systems.
Obviously, I’ve got plenty of old cars that my son Delmar (not his real name) could tinker with later should he choose to go that route, but the classic American car enthusiast-training wheels — the gasoline lawnmower — will not be an option. And I feel a bit weird about that.
He’ll probably appreciate it, though, when he’s pushing this smooth-revving Ryobi up and down our lawn with ease. I’ll just have to find another way to brainwa — err, inspire — him.
Didn’t somebody teach you not to mow the lawn in flipflops? Just asking to lose a toe……
David also has this video posted to his OnlyFans account.
We obviously know that.
I went to a battery push lawn mower about 5 or 6 years ago. I don’t want to go back. I have a small yard, so maybe if mine was giant I would still cling to gas; but at least battery walk behind mowers are the bees knees. My early cheapo Ryobi didn’t last as long as I expected (but it was only like $149 or something cheap including the battery), but now that I went to a higher end Milwaukee it’s been awesome even if the price is a bit insane if you can’t get it on sale.
So far I’ve got string trimmer with a bunch of different attachments, the leaf blower, and mower all on my Milwaukee batteries and I love it.
Maybe buy a broken mower for Delmar (not his real name) to play with? If it didn’t need to actually cut grass, you could remove the blade and it would be safer than a functional mower.
I just hire someone to cut my yard. My yard guy has an enormous zero turn mower so he can cut my 1/2 acre lawn in 15 minutes. If I still had a smaller yard I would use an electric mower, though. I always thought ICE mowers were a pain in the ass (mine never seemed to start), not to mention irritatingly loud. This is a case where electric is obviously better.
Sadly that won’t work. Most vertical-shaft lawn mower engines use a very light aluminum flywheel [to run the ignition] but they actually get almost all of the flywheel effect from the rotating steel blade. The engine may run without the blade, but I suspect it will run quite poorly.
Interesting. That makes sense.
I have heard of people using law mower engines for other uses (for example, I saw someone use one in a mini bike). Would that work without adding some kind of flywheel in place of the blade?
As always, it depends. 🙂
The engine in the go-kart I had as a kid *mumble* years ago had a vertical crankshaft *and* a properly weighted flywheel, since it came out of a garden tractor rather than a push mower. The garden tractor ran the mower deck with a belt and a collection of pulleys, so it needed a real flywheel.
The HF Predator engines apparently have proper flywheels as well: they are very popular for go-karts and minibikes. In fact, in the next week or two I plan to add a 6.5hp/212cc HF engine and a centrifugal clutch to an old motorcycle frame. We’ll see how that goes. 😀
tl;dr – avoid using a push mower engine and you should be fine
Now that you mention it, the person I knew that used a lawn mower engine for a mini bike used one from a riding mower. I presume that engine had a flywheel. It never occurred to me the engines were different.
I just watched a few youtube videos about running a vertical shaft mower engine without a blade. It sounds like that can be dangerous. It is probably a good thing I don’t mess around with engines very much…
HF Predators are truly the small block Chevy of go karts. Especially when they were 99 bucks. Two of my three karts have them and they’re extremely reliable. Also they can be in storage for extended periods (like Nov thru March) with the dreaded 10% ethanol fuel and start right up.
I’ve had a battery powered weed-eater for almost a decade now, and I absolutely love it. I can’t wait until all of my yard equipment is electric. Hell, I have 2 leaf blowers – a gas one, and an actual corded electric one. I almost always use the corded one, just because it’s easier and cheaper.
I’m almost 40, and I’ve had some pretty old, crappy cars. But I’ve yet to have one with a carburetor, and I am totally okay with that. I love gas for cars, but, the fewer things in my life that need regular maintenance, upkeep, offsite fuel – the better.
Pro tip: Keep the batteries indoors. I still have the original battery for my weed-eater (Kobalt 40V), and it still lasts almost as long as new, which I (at least partially) attribute to not letting the battery get too hot or cold.
You can always get him something else to pique his interest in mechanical things. Go-karts are fun. Model steam engines are really cool, too!
As long as Harbor Freight exists, there will be Predator engines for such purposes. 🙂
Or you can buy some now and store them away, ‘Red Barchetta’ style.
I used an 18V string trimmer (Ryobi) for years and was very happy with it.
He’ll “appreciate” pushing a lawn mower? Nope. He’ll bitch and moan about it like most kids. I remember WANTING to mow the grass when I was still a little too young but struggling up hills with our push (not self-propel) mower. I was disappointed when my dad told me I needed to wait a year. Then when I was old enough I regretted even asking for the task. Hahaha
This. It was a different time. My brothers and I fought! over who got to mow. So much we had to take turns!
I have a small yard and an even more basic Ryobi *corded* electric mower and I too love it. It just works, I don’t have to worry about it starting. It takes me 30 seconds to uncoil the extension cord from the reel and plug it in.
Yeah I’m the same. I’ve got a small yard, and never having to worry about a charged battery (or tank of gas) kicks ass. And while you’d think that having an extension cord on your mower is a pain in the butt, it’s really not. It’s basically like vacuuming. Push mower with one hand and maneuver cord with the other.
The summer of ’08 when my wife was 5-8 mo pregnant with our first, we hired a guy to do our yard because it’s not advisable for a woman that pregnant to be helping me with yardwork in the Phoenix summer heat. Fast forward 17 years and yeah, he still cuts our grass. Life’s too short, man.
Working on cars is fun because most of the time, you put in the time and energy to fix something the right way, it works a long time. Satisfaction. OTOH, the damn grass just keeps growing and you keep mowing. All that time and effort for very little long term satisfaction.
I don’t blame anybody for hiring out lawn work. It’s just not something I want to spend my limited free time on. For a time, I was maintaining old hand-me-down lawn equipment and spending way too much time fixing stuff. Keeping my 30-yr-old push mower going with bubble gum and baling wire was a badge of honor. However, it got to a point where it was cutting into other hobbies I actually enjoyed (cars and motorcycles), so I finally hit the bullet and bought a decent wide cut mower to cut down on mowing time and equipment maintenance.
I’m a car enthusiast, and I have a fully electric yard setup. I love my Ego battery mower, blower, weed whacker, and hedge trimmer; I’m less enthused with my Torx plug in edger and leaf vacuum.
I think having an electric ‘semi-complex mechanical system’ to learn on is a perfect setup for the next generation, DNHRN’s generation will likely view combustion engines the same way millennials viewed carbureted cars (smelly, loud, old, backwards). As a grown millennial, I can now appreciate a fine classic vehicle from the carb era but I have little interest in ever having my own. You’re setting your son up for the future!
I don’t know what you are sad about, electric power tools rule. So easy and quiet. Especially things like the string trimmer.
No, no, no. I just took a quick survey of my gardener, gameskeeper, chauffeur, steward, butler, maid, valet, and the entire kitchen staff and they all assured me that I am living the American Dream.
Admittedly the cat kept interrupting to interject the counterpoint that I was talking to people who weren’t really there but that’s just because he thinks he knows everything.
I kind of agree, but a gardener also keeps you accountable for exterior projects around the house. If he’s been there three times and the project you started obviously hasn’t progressed, it gives you a reason to move on it.
It’s the same way people clean the house the day before the cleaning lady comes.
I didn’t quite get the ‘renter becomes renter’ line in your video David, but maybe the captioning was off (or my hearing)? Anyway, I’ve got at least one (maybe three?) old two-stroke engines around that I’ve pulled from derelict lawn machines (a mower, a hedge trimmer, a weed whacker, etc…) and if you happen to be passing through Hollywood, you’re welcome to take one home with you for when Delmar gets old enough to mess with it. 🙂
When I moved to FL, I bought an electric mower and matching string trimmer. I figured that since I would not be there in the summer, I didn’t want to have to deal with gas sitting around in the heat unused for half the year. And since grass barely grows here the rest of the year, it got very little use, and I eventually just paid to have the lawn done year ’round. Batteries were stored in the house. Then last year I wanted to touch up the yard because I was having guests. Charged the battery overnight, popped it in the mower. Ran for about 30 seconds and died. Tried the other battery. Same thing. Batteries work just fine in the string trimmer, so reasonably confident they are OK. So bad bet. I could fix a gas mower myself, as you say so simple a child can do it, but not this electronic turd.
When the new house is done and I will have to maintain 1/3rd of my street if I keep the current one as a rental, I will be buying another Cub Cadet tractor. The one I have in Maine is decades old and never gives any trouble at all. We don’t even bother to put Stabil in it or anything.
Get the kid a go kart or something fun with a small engine.
Fixing a lawn mower means its time to do work.
Fixing a kart engine means it’s time to have fun.
The incentives alone make the latter a better play to get a kid interested in wrenching IMO.
My thoughts too.
A mower is just a tool not a toy. You had to fix a gas powered one just to do your work and learned how to make it work. Same thing is possible with an electric. It could lead to something completely different like a fascination with drones or something new.
Also, it is soooo hard to make your kids like something, even when it’s something you love to do. They end up doing their own thing no matter what. (I’ve got 4 kids and none love cars like I do, much to my chagrin).
THIS! Aside from Matchbox cars, having a childhood go-kart helped make me the car person that I am today. I never repaired my first lawnmower until I became an adult.
I bought two little 80 cc karts this spring to start getting my kids hooked. I never had one growing up, so this is hopefully a fun experience for them.
I bought an Ego electric mower a few years ago after I got fed up with my Lawn Boy gas mower giving up whenever it encountered a tiny branch. At the time we lived in the middle of the woods, so twigs and small branches was a real problem. The Ego didn’t care one bit about the twigs and branches, and I can’t see myself ever going back to a gas mower. Same with my electric trimmer/edger that replaced a not-so-great-quality Echo trimmer. I didn’t struggle with the purchase because in my mind they are just tools, akin to my power tools and saws, and not having to keep a separate 2-stroke gas can is great – all upside, no down (aside from battery costs – the mower itself was on sale, priced close to cost of a replacement Lawn Boy).
Our home conveyed with a relatively decent walk behind mower. When it finally gives up (which should be in a lonnnnng time), I do plan to make the switch. Not needing to deal with old gas alone is worth the hassle, IMO.
Use Sta-bil or similar and the old gas will be much less of an issue.
I put it in all the gas cans before filling them with petrol: the riding mower sat for six months and fired up immediately.
I do the same and rotate the containers through the tools, tractor, generator and cars. Each container has a date tag on it indicating when it was filled. I never keep gas around older than six months.
“All of my neighbors have gardeners and keep telling me to get one, too, but on principle I just can’t”
Last year I decided that my time was too valuable to waste on mowing my yard so I hired a reasonably well-recommended landscaping company. They proceeded to scalp my grass, not show up for weeks at a time, and generally do a half-assed job when they bothered to show up at all. The hour or so it takes me to mow, edge and trim every week now seems like time well-spent.
My wife suggested getting someone to do our yard. But it’s an hour and a half a week that I get:
1) To myself even if it’s a chore
2) I already have the equipment
3) Let’s call it exercise
4) Alluding to a previous article from David, sometimes it feels good to do something hard(ish).
Exactly why I still mow my own lawns (and, wash my own cars, for exactly the same reasons). I do hire out things like tree & hedge trimming, big cleanups, etc. And I’m 64, about to turn 65. I think I’m the only person on my street that mows their own lawn.
Respect.
Same, I’m 67. I fell trees and break them down, maintain the cars (oil, trans fluid, tires and brakes, cut all the lawns, trim hedges, edge the garden beds, and turn over the gardens spring and fall. I also maintain all the equipment.
It’s a great break from my real job faffing about with cloud architecture, riding herd on dev teams and user reps.
Counterpoint – Florida in the summer is hotter and wetter than the backside of your ballsack after running a marathon. And I can have my yard done while I sit inside in the A/C for $25 a shot. And they do a better job than I ever would, because I really don’t give the first crap about my lawn. “Weeds are just plants with bad PR”.
Unfortunately, once my new house is built which is on a lot 3x as large, the combined acreage may be more than I want to pay for, and I will have to suck it up. But I will be doing it with a garden tractor, not a push mower.
Oh yeah, I’m in SWFL (Naples). It’s hot and it sucks, but not too bad if you get out early. Plus it gives me an excuse to take an afternoon nap.
I am not a morning person. 🙂 And it’s still 80F+ and 99.7% humidity first thing in the morning all summer. Yuck. We will see if my inner Yankee cheapskate allows me to keep paying the lawn dudes to do the mowing. Of course, I’ll have to pay somebody to mow it regardless in the summers assuming I keep my place in Maine after the new shack is finished. I’d like to keep all three houses, but I don’t know if that is going to be really practical.
I’m in Florida and enjoy taking care of the yard. Everything grows so much nicer here than when we lived up north. The heat isn’t that bad really on the coast. Sometimes it’s warmer up north in the summer than here.
That it is sometimes hotter in Maine than here on the Gulf Coast is neither here nor there. Either way it’s too damned hot to be screwing around outside. I would prefer it didn’t grow at all.
Winters here are nicer than summers in Maine though, and I will take the heat and humidity of a Florida summer over the frozen dark misery that is a Maine winter every time. And it’s cheap enough here that I can afford the best of both. I’d really rather live in 72F year-’round San Diego, but I don’t like Raman noodles that much, and that would be all I could afford to eat out there.
After 4 years in Florida 72 now feels a little chilly. I’ve adapted. I just mixed and poured 40 sq feet of concrete outside today. It’s not that bad really. Sure beats working outside in subzero temps. I don’t miss winters in Maine at all.
I’ve been here 8. The heat doesn’t “bother me”, but I have ZERO desire to work in it. I dislike being sweaty as a rule, and I am a big, hairy, sweaty sort of ape.
As I tell my dipshit dropout kid brother “I went to school all those years so I don’t have to sweat my balls off in the hot sun”.
72 is perfection. 50 now feels chilly, and I was a dude who just wore Norwegian sweaters all winter in Maine. I’d only have a coat on if I was snowblowing or something.
I try to avoid going north in the winter if at all possible, but work always manages to send me up there the coldest weeks of the year, without fail. I work for a company outside Boston. And of course, for work travel almost everywhere is north of here all winter, though I do most of my onsite work in the Southeast these days.
Our HOA includes mowing. I won’t let them touch my yard for the same reasons. Everyone else’s lawn is scalped to 1″ and dead but I mow mine at 4″ and it’s green and perfect.
I got that same mower, a string trimmer, and 2 batteries from someone who was moving out of state and didn’t want to bring them.
I don’t think I would have gotten rid of a gas mower to go electric, but I didn’t have any lawn equipment so I was starting from scratch, and not having to worry about storing gas powered things without a garage (i can drag the battery powered stuff to the basement in the winter) was most of the appeal.
The mower works well, is much quieter, and it’s nice not having to fill a gas can. But the trimmer and blower are what really shine – so nice not dragging around a 100ft extension cord for 2 minutes of weed whacking.
If electric was good enough for Clara Ford, electric is good enough for the Tracy yard!
Go enjoy your grand tracts of land!
Reel men use an unpowered reel mower.
You just have to keep on top of the lawn growth because if it gets too long you’re doomed.
A friend in high school was often threatened with mowing his parent’s huge lawn with a reel mower that his dad inherited from his grandparents. He never believed his dad was serious until one weekend when he decided to throw a party while his parents were out of town. His cleaning skills failed to hide the evidence, and he had to use the reel mower to do the lawn for three months – it took him about two hours per pass, and the yard needed about three passes to get it down to the right length. I was a good friend, so I would go over to his house and have a soda with his parents while we all laughed at him.
I had one when I owned a house in Cincinnati for a couple of years in the 90s. I only had a small yard, but I still fell behind.
The house was built in 1927 so it felt appropriate.
Sharp blades are everything. I used one on our 1/4 acre yard when I was a kid, and it needed to be sharpened twice a summer; it made all the difference.
I have the Ryobi 40V lawn care trio (mower, trimmer, blower) and they have all been perfect. If I’m going to spend my free time screwing around with an engine, it is going to be for something more fun than mowing the stupid lawn.
I have a similar mower after my Honda finally died. Not having to fill the gas can every 2 weeks is good. I use the mulching option so no bag. Just charge and go.
Granted mine doesn’t make that much noise. It is more of a moderate hum.
You mow in open toed shoes?
That is a good way to have a projectile damage your feet.
Otherwise, I hate mowing grass. As an adult, even when I was just out of college and made not much above minimum wage, I paid someone to mow the grass at my rented house. My housemates didnt care, as long as the grass was mowed. They eventually stopped using the gas mower in the garage, and we all just paid the HS kid for 2 months at a time (we mowed every other week, so 4 tenants = 8 weeks).
So, any gains in making mowers less noisy, smelly, and annoying are fine with me.
I just bought an electric weedwacker after I was about ready to throw my Stihl over the fence because refilling the line is a trash system and my specific model can’t fit any other head that’s easier to refill. So after 10 years of bitching about putting more line in it, I finally got an Ego.
It’s impressive as hell. A bit heavy, but impressive as hell.
I have used plenty of crummy battery weedwackers; especially the little Ryobi my folks had 20~25 years ago. They were “fine” as long as you had lots of batteries. But man, the new stuff is just so powerful.
I want my mid-80s Toro lawn mower to die now, so I can replace it with a battery machine. Two main reasons are that I could store it vertically, and that I could mow my lawn earlier in the day with out waking neighbors. Not having to do oil chances would be nice, but not a huge deal.
Not sure I’m ready to start wishing death on my Ariens snowblower and pining for an electric one yet though… not quite.
I love our Ego mower! I can do the whole yard, switch to the trimmer, and then the blower on one battery. Granted we don’t have a huge yard (1/4 acre property). Zero maintenance. No winterizing. No stale gas. I eventually bought their electric snow shovel too. I’d never go back to a gas mower again.
The reviews seem to indicate that the battery snowblowers work pretty well, but are limited on how big of a driveway they can handle. That plus high upfront cost is a tough sell if you already have one. But if yours gets another year or two, I’m sure the next-gen battery ones will be great.
My drive is 70 yards long by 6 wide. In a bad winter I need to blow it out at least once a week. The deepest so far was 2 -?3 feet. Takes me about 1.5 hrs.
I’d like to see an electric blower that could handle that.
yeah man, that’s why I said they were limited by driveway size….
Also that’s way to long to spend snowblowing. Get a plow.
My Ariens is only ~6 years old. It ain’t going anywhere anytime soon. Heck, it replaced a ~45 year old Ariens I was using before.