Customer Reviews

Black & Decker MM575 Lawn Hog 18-Inch 12 amp Electric Mulching Mower

5 star:		(67)
4 star:		(36)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(11)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Ive been on a battery/electric operated yard tool craze. When my gas mower died a few weeks ago I started looking into electric mowers as a compliment to my battery operated BD, weedeater,blower,hedge clippers. I was hesitant as an electric mower for a 12,000 lot is a big step, giving up on ease of movement and power and selfpropelled feature or so i thought.

Well i ordered off of Amazon and it came within 72 hours, free shipping WOW and the price was terrific compared to local stores and no tax...

Anyway, i put it together and it was ready to use within 10 minutes, really!!!

You do need an electrical cord to operate and i had 100' cord which is perfect for my yard. My yard has not been mowed in several weeks as my gas mower died and i did not want to spend the money for reserection of a 4 year old mower plus gas prices are crazy right now. I did plan my route since i would have a cord i was pulling. Turned it on and it was amazing on how much less noise it was compared to my gas mower. My wife came out and asked when i was going to start but had been mowing for 15 minutes, lol.

I started in the mulching mode at first and not paying attention had it on the lowest setting....it was going fine but when i hit thicker deeper grass it did bogg down. I inserted the discharge shute and even on the lowest setting in taller grass it mowed fine. Once i realized i had it on the lowest setting and moved it up in height comparable to my gas mower the electric mower never bogged down one time even when mulching!!! The cord is not bad at all although i did have to get used to it as i wrapped it around the tree once and just laughed at myself. I thought i would miss the self propelled feature, however, this mower is sooo light its like pushing a vacum cleaner so i was managing the cord with my left, pushing with my right and no problems, mowed like a champ, no uneven cuts. My neighbors came out and were admiring the mower all commented on how nice and sleeked it looked for a mower and how quiet it was.

I would recommend this mower to anyone wanting to go electric as the cord is not that big a deal like i thought i would be when reading the reviews. So far so good B&D has a home run with this mower.

My neighbors tease me about 'sweeping' my lawn, but I love this thing. It's much quieter than any gas mowers I've owned, and it starts every single time I pull the lever. I have not experienced the vibration other reviewers mention.

I mowed over my first cord two weeks after buying the mower, but there was more user error to blame than product design.

For a quiet, clean, dependable mower, I recommend this one. If I could change one thing, it would be the width of the mower deck. A 22" model would be awesome.

We live in a townhouse with a 1600 square foot lot, so we didn't need a self-propelled gas mower. A cheap gas push mower would have costed about half as much as this electric mower but the bother of gas, starting, etc - just not worth it. I just plug this mower in, pull a switch and go. I was really struck by now much less of a hassle an electric mower is the first time I used it.

I really like the single-lever height adjustment, and the 40-pound weight makes it easy to manuvre. There was some dancing with the cord, but not enough to be a bother. It is also a very quiet mower, which I am sure the neighbors appreciate.

It did bog down a bit when I went over some 8" tall thick grass, but other than that, this mower had plenty of power. So this is not the mower to use for big jobs on big yards. But for me, it's perfect.

I was looking for an electric lawnmower because I found the gas one to be difficult to start and too heavy to push around our hilly yard. The electric mower met all my needs- starts at the flip of a switch and I (an average sized woman) can push it with one hand and moniter the cord with the other. On one hand, keeping up with cord is annoying, especially with a large, hilly yard. On the other hand, the other features of the mower make the cord merely a minor hassle. The mower was easy to assemble, with no tools required-- I put mine together while my crawling infant son and my preschooler "helped".

Positives:

1) Quiet. I could keep a conversation with my son while mowing.

2) Easy to Operate. Just pull the handle and push. Anybody can operate this mower.

3) Easy to Transport. It is real easy to pull the handle off and put it in the trunk of a car if you need to take it anywhere.

4) No gas/oil. Just plug in the electric cord and go. Great for smaller yards, but when you start getting a distance from the outlet, cord management can become infuriating.

Negatives:

1) Here is the BIG ONE!!! As a kid, my father only owned two mowers. The first lasted over ten years and the second is still going. Not only did these mow his good sized yard on a regular basis, but it also supported several summers where I made a good chunk of change mowing the neighbor's yards. This one by Black & Decker lasted two years and never turned on again. I would expect lawn mowers to last longer and this one barely made it past the warranty. The saddest thing is that this mower never got used much... I can only imagine what it would do if I was mowing more than my little lawn. This is what causes me to rank the mower very low.

2) Corners. If you have grass in a corner, this lawn mower isn't going to get it at all. Use a weed wacker. I suspect there is a lot of wasted space under the hood of this mower.

3) The Cord. What a pain, especially when you are mowing near the outlet. Be careful not to run over it. I'm not going to fault Black & Decker, but electric mowers in general, for the difficulties a cord can cause.

Will I buy an electric mower again? Not for a large yard, but maybe for something less than 500 square feet. It is pretty nice to not have to put gas in it.

Would I buy this brand again? Well, Black & Decker is normally a name I can trust but they really struck out on this one for me. I was equally disappointed by the lack of help from their customer support. So, unfortunately, the answer is no.

I wrote the same review for MM875 model also.

We just moved from a condo to a house which has around 7000+ sqft lawn in the front and around 1500+ sqft lawn at the back. Being new to this I did a lot more research before buying a lawn mower. Our first dilemma was to decide between gas and electric. Few things which came up in the comparison, general to gas and electric mower, were:

- gas is more powerful than electric. It might be true but this never is a problem even if you mow once in 3-4 weeks. We are quite happy with the power.
- cord management: You get used to it once you plan the layout and how you'll mow the lawn. You always start from close to the outlet and go far away from it. This way cord always follows you and you don't run the risk of running it over. Although, you should still be watchful of it.
- maintenance: Definitely less worries with electric mowers. no gas, no oils, no smell in the garage, no special handling when storing it away for the season, no servicing before the season starts
- operation: easy to operate other than managing the cord, pull the lever and it starts, no need to pull the string etc. Some expensive gas mowers have switch to stop the blades but let the engine run when you are emptying the grass bag, but this one doesn't need anything like it.
- environment friendly
- less noisy as compared to gas ones
- less cutting area. 18 or 19 inches instead of standard 22 inch with gas mowers.
- warranty: lot of people mentioned that gas mowers have 4-5 years and electric one's have 2 years, but most of the mowers now, even gas ones, have only two years warranty. So, it was not an issues for us.
- cordless? first of all, these are slightly heavier since you are carrying the battery also but the deal breaker was replacing the battery after 2 years.

Going with these comparisons, we decided on the Electric Mower and started looking at different models. Black and Decker stood out with basically 3 models MM 575, 675 and 875. Most of the stores carry 575 and 875 and I could find lot of reviews for those two models.
The main difference in 575 and 875 model is the coverage area. 575 is 18" while 875 is 19" so we ended up buying 875. Both are same amperage (12 AMPS) but the 875 comes with rear bag also. We like the mower and how its functioning.

- Very easy to begin. It comes all assembled. The handle is flipped to the front, you just pull it back and tighten two levers and its ready to go.
- A hook near the power plug on the handle so you don't accidentally pull the extension cord plug away.
- It was very difficult to find the correct extension cord gauge for this since there are no guidelines, but after lot of researching here's what I've found. It's 12 AMPS and we run it on 120 VOLT so its 12x120 = 1440 watts max. So, if you running it max at 50 feet distance from the power outlet, its VERY safe to use 14 gauge extension cord (50 feet). If you are doing 100 feet distance from the outlet, then its advised to use 12 gauge (100feet) cable. Although, I'm using a 100 feet 14 gauge cable for 100 feet distance. I gather that it's not always running at full amperage so it's totally ok. And, its working good also.
- Mulching: If you plan to mulch, you'll need to mow at least once in 7-10 days otherwise the grass just grows too big
- Get used to a smaller cut area unlike 22 inch with gas mowers. you'll probably be making couple more extra runs based on how big is your lawn.
- 8 settings for cutting. Not that you need such a fine control over the grass, but it feels good that you have options. It moves up and down from all wheels so its probably better than the ones which only move the rear wheels
- lighter: I do notice some more flexibility while turning and u-turns.
- rear grass bag: Lot of people complained that you need to empty the bag once its 1/3rd full otherwise it spills the grass. I think you can successfully use it till 2/3rd and then it starts dropping the grass on the sides and making a line. It doesn't bother me that much.

One last thing, this was on sale at Ace Hardware since they are celebrating Northwest Natural yard care with county support and are selling it at $184.99. you can probably still find more details as yarddays.com.

Overall, a great buy and we are very happy to decide on this.

Light weight is good, easy to manuever. . . but, it also vibrates quite strongly and can be annoying to hold on to. One other thing. . . the cord. Mower instructions suggest that a 100 foot cord can be used and should be 12 guage. Problem is, that guage cord does not fit the cord minder, so cord tends to vibrate out of the socket. A simple little plastic clamp could have been included to keep the cord from falling out.

I have had a gas lawn mower all of my life: all Lawnboys. I have always had difficulty starting them, pulling that stupid cord. Finally I saw the light, sold my Lawnboy and bought a Black & Decker Electric Mulching Mower. Would that I had bought it 50 years ago. It is wonderful. Mows and mulches, was easy to assemble, it was delivered right to my door. I am careful NOT to run over the cord and because it is so easy to manuever I can push with one hand and hold the cord in the other. I have only had it two months, and have NOT used it in the summer mowing a lot of grass, but it does fine with mulching leaves. I love the ease of raising and lowering the height of the cut. (the Lawnboy was very hard to raise and lower)....I am a woman, 70 yrs. of age. I think the price of this mower very reasonable, too.

I won't use a power mower, so this electric mower was my

answer to the mowing of my small lawn. I thought the cord

would be a problem, but really it works okay.

This particular model was rated by Consumer Reports as being

better than subsequent models. Adjusting the height for

mowing is very easy to do. The cover completely covers the

blades and motor and you feel safe using the mower.

I've had this mower for about 4 months now, and it's great. It does take a bit of getting used to with the cord. I find myself mowing like I vacuum: with the cord in one hand and the mower handle in the other. But the mower is so light, it's a breeze to operate with one hand. You may have to go over an area twice if your grass is really long and think, but it's definitely not a burden because of its weight.