Customer Reviews

Sun Joe MJ401E Mow Joe 14-Inch 12 Amp Electric Lawn Mower With Grass Bag

5 star:		(32)
4 star:		(26)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(20)

 

 

My background:
1st time using mower, lawn has never been mowed before.

Experience:
Assembly is straight forward, simple and succint. After assembly, took it out for a test drive. I ended up mowing my whole lawn and had the urge to mow some of my neighbors lawn with it just because it was so fun. It has 3 settings high mid and low. High setting was already fairly low. The blade was clean cut and managed to get a relatively smooth cutting over the whole lawn. Using electric was also a plus. No gas smell and is a lot less noisy than my neighbors behemoth. The grass catcher is easy to detach and reattach. The handle bar has a safety button which gets kind of annoying because once you stop, you have to repress the button and start again.

Overall is very excellent. It is a little mower with great potential. Though don't try to run this through huge amounts of grass like a light saber. It won't work. Just take it slow and it'll do its job.

Highly recommend for first time buyer. Maybe second time buyers if you are looking for something small.

If you have a small yard and smaller shed, this is a great concept. It even does a great job with edges along walls and fences that are very hard to reach with larger mowers.

However, the motor died on the second use. It does not sound like this is an isolated experience, as I have found three other failures reported here and on other websites. Email customer service consisted of asking if I was using an outdoor extension cord and then never responding to my affirmative answer. Fortunately, I was within 30 days.

We are quite happy with our Razarsharp, very similar mower (but made in Brazil). It has a foldable handle, which makes for more compact storage. Note spelling and check their website. They are very responsive to inquiries.

This lawnmower is perfect for someone with a small yard. It's not to noisy, and it operates with ease. It is also very light in weight.

This is one of the best little mowers that I have tried. It has 3 settings for height.
It sounds like a fan when operated.
The only down side is that the height settings sometimes slip or change on their own; but, for the price it is the best.

I bought this mower a little less then a month ago. It was hard to get started and then the 3rd time I used it, the motor died. I pushed the reset button and it would not restart.
I only have a small townhouse size lawn in back and front and this little guy could not make it.
Just FYI if they get more in stock.
I am returning this mower.

This is quite possibly the worst mower I've ever used (including reel push mowers)

Wanted to try out a small electric mower as my yard is quite small (10x30 sqft). Within about 15 feet's worth of mowing, two wheels fell off. There's no way to reattach them w/o the wheels just flimsily falling off.

All the parts, besides the blade, are basically cheap plastic. You could construct a sturdier mower out of Legos.

The mower also has very little power. Going over a patch of grass that's no more than 4-5 inches tall, the blade would stall/get stuck, which required me lifting up the front end (by pressing down on the handle bars) to get it going again (sort of like how you can stop a crappy, underpowered fan with your hand).

All in all, it took me nearly an hour trying to mow a tiny strip of lawn before giving up. You'd make quicker progress trying to cut your lawn with safety scissors. As for the wheels falling off, reviews on other site indicate that this is not an isolated problem.

I just purchased this item yesterday (09/21/10), and was eager to try it out on my my small front and back yard. I recently moved into a property with less land, so I was looking for a smaller machine with less maintenance requirements.

About myself: college student, picky on lawn equipment/not so great experiences with regular gas models

Setting up the machine:
I always loathe this part, but it was actually quite easy. You pretty much just have to set up the handlebars/handlebar extensions with the provided screws. It had a bag you could attach in the rear, but I opted to not do so at the time. (It's easy to sort of clip on if you want to)

Use: I forgot to adjust the height of the machine before i started, so i had a little tough time on the taller grass in my backyard. It's not in the instructions, so turn the machine on it's side and move the coil of the wheels to another tab height setting. It's pretty simple. I switched to the middle option and my front yard was cut a lot faster and with more ease. To start it, all you have to do is to first push and hold down the big red button, then pull the handle while pushing down. The wheels are small, so be careful to not get stuck in muddy areas.

Rating: So far so good!! It is a very light machine (very small, looks like a little car toy), can be used one handed. Fumbling around with the electrical cord isn't too bad, and for a small yard it is perfect! A 2 year warranty on the machine is included by the manufacturer.

I was very excited to buy this lawn mower because of its small profile and the limited space in my garage. I have a small yard and it looked perfect to handle the job. Unfortunately, this lawn mower DOES NOT WORK. I literally had to lift the mower off the ground to get the motor to start turning the blade, even on the highest height setting. I thought maybe it was because my grass was a bit high. After I painstakingly cut through the yard on the highest setting, I adjusted it to the middle setting to get a deeper cut. The darn thing tripped my circuit breaker when I tried to start it up. The grass was not that thick! I gave up after about half an hour of the second pass. I'm going to have to find a larger lawn mower, but I could cut my yard faster with a weed wacker than this piece of junk.

Foremost, this is a great value -- for about $150 you get a mower that is VERY capable, clean for the environment, etc.

PRO's
-cheap, only about $150
-small size -- good for small lawns + maneuvering + storage
-will mow through any lawn/grass that is already mildly maintained, even wet grass

CON's
-the wheels are cheaply fixed to the base, easy to snap off mower
-basket size very small
-power isn't enough to cut THICK-TALL grass

My biggest complaint is that after 10 min of mowing, my wheel fell off. After inspecting, it becomes clear that the wheels are affixed to the rod VERY CHEAP. If you push your mower laterally or handle it rough, your wheels will eventually snap off. I did not want to deal with returns, so I bought some washers (hardware) and concrete epoxy and fixed some "caps" on the rod to prevent the wheels from coming off in the future (so far, so good).

Other complaint... the basket really is quite small. My lawn is a small lawn; compared to your typical AZ homes, it is a small grass lawn. But I had to empty the basket at least several times before finishing the yard (disclaimer: I hadn't mowed my lawn for 6+ months, so there was a lot of grass). HOWEVER... this shouldn't surprise you because the mower is very small.

As a whole, I like this mower. I let me grass grow out for 6+ months all summer in Arizona. In some places the grass a couple inches and in other places it was 6 to 8 inches. This mower plowed through my lawn without glitching or turning off, with only a few exceptions. When going into the sections of my yard with 8 inches of grass, the mower would freeze/lock if I just pushed into it -- however, if I moved slowly into it, it would cut through without stalling. Note however that this is a minor issue -- because you really shouldn't let your grass grow this much anyway. (I just got lazy buying a new mower)

PLEASE NOTE: get a GOOD outdoor extension cord. Most basic ones people have or buyer actually DO NOT provide enough current (amps) that this mower needs; if you get 14 gauge or better, you'll provide the mower with the necessary current (aka: power) that it needs. I suspect most people complaining about its lack of power are probably using cheap extension cords that can't carry enough current.

I am 61 yrs old, have been trying to look for a light lawn mower for a long time. So I ordered this Sun Joe. Putting it up is pretty easy. And, surprisingly it does job very well too. To tell the truth, I really love this small lawn machine.