...Cut to the Chase......(ie:The Bottom Line)

Do not buy a Honda Masters or Harmony mower. Find another brand fitted with a 6 1/2 HP (minimum) Honda engine on it with a blade brake if you insist on Honda Power.

Full Review
If you are reading this it is for one of two reasons:

1- You are thinking of buying a Honda Mower and are researching other peoples experiences.

2- You already have bought a non-Honda mower, enjoy it and want to gloat. Or (sorry, I guess there are three reasons)

3- You have already bought a Honda mower and are hoping there are other dummies out there as dumb as you.

In all seriousness, If you want to know the facts, get a MUG of coffee (or a very very large cup), a cheese danish, and get ready to set-a-spell, 'cause I am gonna type as long as my fingers hold out.

Mower 101:

Lawn mowers are very simple mechanical devices. They are essentially a metal or sometimes a synthetic housing (deck) that has as it's central area a cylindrical cavity which in turn houses a spinning blade (or two) which in turn is spun by either an electric or gas powered engine..... simple.

There are indeed, front drive, rear drive, side bag, rear bag, mulch or non mulch varieties, but basically other than bells and whistles, they are pretty much......simple.

Most mowers are made by production houses such as American Yard Products or MTD. AYP makes all of Sears units, and MTD makes, Cub Cadet, Yard Man, Troy Bilt, Bolens and several others. Husqvarna, seems to be split. I have seen a Husky at Sears which is definitely a rebadged AYP unit and one at Lowes which is very likely a true Swede. Toro is likely a self producer as is Honda.

AYP adn MTD fit various decks with Briggs and Stratten, Tucumsah, Honda, or Kawasaki engines of various HP's and qualities (pressure lubrication, cast iron cylinder sleeves, electronic ignitions etc.) and paint them the appropriate BRAND color.


ACT I.
I had a big piece of property and I have a competitive nature to boot so I had to have a John Deere tractor and a Honda automatic, hydrostatic, electric start, premium deck, etc, etc mower for the nooks and crannies the tractor could not reach. So, of course I bought a Honda.

This unit is Honda Masters unit and was one of the units NOT available at Home Depot, but exclusively rewerved for sale by Honda Power Equipment dealers. This model is known as the HR215HMA which is equiped with the GXV 140 engine, Blade Brake and ELECTRIC start. This engine is rated by Honda as their "bestest" engine (commercial rated as opposed to consumer rated.

I believe the mower is list priced at around $950.00 and I remember giving the dealer 800 or more dead presidents for the "thing"., 800 dollars that I could just have easily "mulched" If I was mulching this cash with the Honda, it would have to have been very dry mulch and no too high.

This Honda mower has a 5 HP OHV engine with the prestigious "HONDA" logo on it. It was only designed to mulch (optional blade kit and deck plug) or rear bag, but not to side discharge.

After convincing myself that this thing was the cats meow, ( or is it the cat's pajamas?) and the best mower that was ever going to appear in my neighborhood, I bought it.

Before I get ugly here, I want to state that I am not a nut, nor am I anti-Honda. I have power washers, tillers, generators and motorcycles with Honda engines on them. I also had two Accords, one that ran over 260,000 with it's second owner. I usually buy products "because" they are Honda's or Honda powered.

This is the one aberrant application.

ACT II.

I take the thing home and set it up which entails pretty much unfolding the handles, setting the wheel heights, fillin ghte oil hole with the half quart they give you and filling the thing with fresh gasoline.

Then I try to mow the lawn. I put the key in and set the throttle past the TURTLE all the way to CHOKE, then turn the key. wallah, it starts! Not too loud, not to wimpy.

Then I set the cruise control to slow (TURTLE), engage the blade clutch to get the blade spinning and begin to move out.(lotsa grass to mow). Off I go, down the slight hill, and off to the right, then up the slight hill, blades spinning and my grass getting it's heads chopped off one blade at a time. Wonderful.

After a couple of hundred feet the mulched grass is starting to back up in the deck even though it is dry. Soon, I am seeing clumps under my feet. I stop the mower and turn it off. I look underneath and the grass is kinda clinging to the sides of the housing and not really mulching too well. I had the mower set up for mulching didn't I?... Rear bag was off, rear door was closed........naaah, not that.......... simple.

I call the dealer and he tells me ther is an "optional" mulching kit and a set of dual blades that keep the freshly decapitated grass blades in the housing longer to finely dice them up.

Back to the dealer and I give him more "green" for the Plastic plug and blades. Plug takes three seconds to put in and completes the circular shape of the mowing cavity, .........but the blade conversion takes about 15 minutes, something that would have to be un-done if you wanted to rear-bag next time.

"Now" I am ready to mulch......... Back to where I stopped mowing. Now every time I engage the blade the engine bogs down, and stalls two out of every three attempts. You have to learn to ease the clutch in in order to keep the engine from dying. IT is very touchy especially if there is ANY grass clinging to the blade or the housing. Damn lucky this thing has an electric starter.

I struggled with this thing for a full season, using a weed whacker more often than not, to do the small areas rather than use this thing. I even bought a 4 HP wheeled TRIMMER from Sears for big areas that the tractor could not reach or I didn't want to deal with with the Honda. The wheeled TRIMMER is awesome and I highly recommend "THAT".

ACT III.

I bring the thing back to a different Honda service center and tell them the thing is not running well. They keep it overnight, and call me the next morning to pick it up... $ 75.00. (I guess it was the going room rate for an overnight stay at the dealer). Still had no power, and I still used the TRIMMER or the Echo weed whacker for areas originally planned for the Honda.

ACT IV.

I call the mechanic who worked on it and he gave me a tip........ (but, you didn't here it here...I don't want to get locked up if you start polluting your neighborhood)...... The EPA requires that the fuel mixture screw be locked or sealed by the manufacturer. He told me there was a plastic/metal "cap" over the actual brass set-screw. He told me to take a needle-nosed pliers and pull the cap off and turn the screw OUT 3/4's of a turn. well James did what he said, and sure enough when I took the cap off, the brass screw came out with it!

Back to the dealer to have the screw replaced......... The thing had another overnight stay and cost me, yup, $ 75.00! I now owned a mower that cost me as much as a compact car. I asked them if they wanted to buy it. they said they don't buy used mowers. I told them it was only slightly used........ They don't buy slightly used mowers either.

ACT V.

James has had enough and after two nights on the WEB browsing for information, I buy a new CUB CADET SRC621 mower from Lowes (see my Epinion on it).

I just got the thing back from the dealer for it's first overnight stay that didn't cost me a dime. the Throttle was not working (the RABBIT/TURTLE thingy...see ACT II above), and after a four day stay they called me and asked me to pick the thing up. I told them I didn't need it anymore as I got a real mans mower. They threatened me with overnight rates, so I picked it up and put it in the garage. Actually, I don't really need the Throttle thingy because noi matter if I slide it to the RABBIT or the TURTLE I get clumpy grass anyway.

LESSONS LEARNED:
5 HP even if it says HONDA on it it is not enough to mow grass effectively in the year 2003. If your dad's mower was 5 HP and it mowed the heck out of your lawn for 20 years, it was pre-EPA. Maybe they had bigger horses back then or maybe the the grass they were mowing back then was pre-DEA grass.

The CUB CADET, I recently bought as a 6 1/2 HP Kawasaki Industrial engine on it and it rips thru the lawn like it was cutting grass. The caster wheels make it even better. The engine on this mower could easily mow down small "saplings" and any twigs or 20 once Coke bottles that get in the way get vaporized.


If you buy one of these things:

- The blade brake will keep you from losing a hand,
- The aluminum deck assures the thing will be around when Aliens do finally find us here. (Then you got to worry about what they are gonna think....." No wonder these Earthlings never made it out to space...look at the junk they are mowing their lawns with")

- Your lawn will never get mowed unless you buy a Cub Cadet or similar back-up unit, and finally you will never be able to sell it back to the damn dealer network who sold it to you to begin with. After all they know it is a piece of junk.

There is virtually not one thing that makes this mower worth the price that you will have to pay for it. the only thing is the blade brake. It has no power, and mine is not a production exception, the dealer won't even buy it used, and the manufacturer couldn't care less.

If you are still awake think of this: The Honda has:

Pluses:
- an aluminum deck... a nice feature
- blade brake clutch.... an excellent feature

Minuses:
- a weak 5 HP engine on it
- a small hard to use rear bag
- 4 separate wheel height adjustments, instead of one or two
- tires with too smooth a tread design on them
- lousy dealer/manufacturer support
- extra cost mulching kit
- no ability to side discharge on days when the grass is really high yet needs to be mowed

Buy something else for mowing for three hundred bucks and take the other seven hundred and buy a Honda Power washer, and a Honda Power Generator and give a hundred to charity.

Don't spend a fortune on one of these...you can have mine!

If you still feel compeled to buy a Honda Mower, Please e-mail me and give me another chance to save you.



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