Neuton Mower Review
Ready to join the rest of the crowd and go green? You should really consider a Neuton Mower!
I recently had the opportunity to get my hands on a brand new Neuton CE 6.2 mower. This is the latest release from Neuton boasting a 19″ cut and a 36V sealed lead acid battery. More impressive than its wide cut and high powered battery is its ability to virtually eliminate harmful emissions. Believe it or not, your traditional gas powered mower will produce its weight in emissions every year. The Neuton mower is able to completely eliminate these emissions by running a battery that only costs $0.10 to charge. The question most of you are probably wondering is will it cut my grass? Read the rest of the review to find out!
Unboxing the Neuton Mower
The Neuton business model is that of direct consumer sales, which means you can only purchase these mowers online or over the telephone. You’re not going to get your hands on one at your local home improvement stores anytime soon. The major advantage to this strategy is that you don’t have to haul your new mower home from the store. The big brown truck will drop it off on your doorstep.
Popping the top on the box you’ll find a very well packaged mower. There is absolutely no assembly necessary. By dropping the back flap off the box you’ll be able to roll your new Neuton mower right out of the box. Straighten the handle with just a ’snap’ and you’re ready to mow! Unfortunately you’ll have to wait 24 hours to get the battery charged up and ready for its first workout.
The owners manual is well written in plain, easy to understand, English. After some of the manuals I’ve read, I’m grateful for a well written manual. Other than the manual you’ll find the necessary mulching attachments and a grass catcher that attaches with ease.
The Neuton Mower Experience
Charging the Battery
With the removal of a simple cap you’re able to plug the battery in and begin the initial 24 hour charge. The battery can be charged while still installed in the mower or easily removed by turning the latch and putting the battery on your garage workbench. The only minor issue with battery charging is the lack of status that the battery has been fully charged. There is however an led to indicate your battery is actually charging. At the end of the day you’re going to plug the mower in and forget about it until the next time you mow.
Starting the Mower
Tired of wondering if your gas powered mower will start next season? Tired of pulling your arm out of socket with a hard to start mower? Enter Neuton! Install the safety key, and pull the trigger. This baby purrs like a well fed kitten. I expected the ease of starting this mower, but the first time I started it, I was impressed.
Almost more impressive than the ease of starting was the noise or should I say the lack thereof. Neuton claims their mower is half as loud as a traditional gas mower. This claim is well founded. I just happened to wake up a bit early Saturday morning. My wife asked where I was going and I told her to mow the grass. She said “You can’t mow this early in the morning” and I said “what are you talking about, I’m using the Neuton mower”. “Oh! Nevermind” as she put her head back into the pillow. Even my wife noticed the lack of noise produced by this mower.
Mowing the Grass
The lack of emissions, easy to start, and less noisy mower are all great selling points, but if this thing can’t cut the grass, what good is it. I gave this mower a run for its money as I’m in the deep south mowing some of the thickest bermuda grass. Running a lawn care website, my yard is expected to be the thickest greenest grass around. I was a skeptic to say the least. I even went one step further and used the Neuton to make the first cut of the season. I dropped the blade to the #2 setting (which was a breeze) and set out on the front yard.
Surprisingly the Neuton mower was easier to push than my gas powered self propelled mower. I guess I should mention my ’self propelled’ option isn’t working quite as it should. My guess is that the Neuton is lighter than my gas guzzling mower. It easily ripped through some of the thickest bermuda grass you’ve even seen. I was astonished!
As the bag filled and the clippings backed up onto the blade the mower did bog down. As I hit another patch of the thickest stuff in the yard it died. Puzzled I looked at the battery gauge to find it dead. I had only been mowing 15 minutes and knew the battery still had juice. Thinking for a second, I reached down to check the safety key. As the mower went into the stall condition the current spikes and thew a fault condition to keep everyone and everything safe. I popped the key back in and off I went. Even more impressed.
Getting ready to finish the front yard 25 minutes in, the mower dies again. This time it was the battery. Puzzled I pulled out the gas mower and finished the weekend chore. Later that week I had a call with the sales and marketing executive from Neuton. One of the first things I asked him was what kind of grass is this mower designed to cut. To sum it up he said that some of the thicker southern grasses, like bermuda, st. augastine, and zoysia, will wear the battery out quicker than the other grasses found around the country. “Good answer” I said, because this baby cut some of the thickest bermuda I’ve got but couldn’t last for the entire lawn. If you’re interested the entire call can be found here where I asked several other questions you may be interested in if you’re thinking of purchasing a Neuton mower.
So to answer your question: Yes, this mower can cut grass.
Neuton Exchange Program
One of the more unique programs you might be interested in is the Neuton Exchange Program. Essentially what happens is your local municipality will contact Neuton. A venue will be chosen where anyone with a gas mower can stop by and drop their old clunker in the dumpster and walk away with a brand new Neuton mower for only $100. It turns out that your local government ends up subsidizing the rest of the cost of the mower. Cities like Los Angeles, where smog is an on going battle, can’t get these Neuton mowers fast enough.
Conclusion
If you’re one of the 54 million gas mower users and thinking about making the switch you really should consider a Neuton mower. These mowers aren’t for everyone as I found out with my bermuda grass. However if you have a lawn smaller than a third of an acre and have grass other than bermuda, St. Augustine, or zoysia this might be a perfect fit. The mower is compact, easy to store, comes with a full line of accessories including extra batteries, trimmer / edging attachment, and one of my favorites the stripping attachment which will give you that ‘baseball’ field look. The Neuton makes it pretty simple to complete those pesky lawn maintenance jobs with one simple machine.
[...] owners get it a lawn mower. My friend Nathan recently got to test drive the brand new Neuton CE 6.2 lawn mower. It is a battery operated lawnmower that is powerful enough to cut bermuda grass. You [...]
[...] My friend Nathan recently got to test drive the brand new Neuton CE 6.2 lawn mower. [...]
I love my daughter to have a neuton lawn mower .she works hard at the hospital and has a large yard in Indiana with two daughters and one getting married there is very little time. I wish she could test drive the neuton I hear its light and easy to use and maintain
I am extremely dissatisfied with my Neuto Mower. Customer support requires a long wait, no one calls back. My mower does not work, the mower has failed after 9 months of very light use, and they told me to drive 1 1/2 hours to drop it off then come back a week later and pick it up. I have a small car and it won’t fit. They refuse to return the mower saying they no longer carry that model (probably because of the problems). They only will take it back in the first 6 months even though they guarantee it for 2 years (3 with my American Express guarantee). I would be very careful not to fall for the customer satisfaction, it seems to be ok till there is a problem.
my mower stopped working after one season. There is not service for it anywhere close…thats something I didnt think about before. I have the newer larger model. The weed eater attachment is a joke, It is not as light and quiet as they make you think. The handle/switch assembly is incredibly uncomfortable. The grass catcher is too small and I had to “engineer” it to make it work. It’s not just a $500 piece of plastic sitting in my garage. Their customer service is a joke. If you choose to buy one, make sure you rear the fine print. I would recommend some other mower.
I meant to say it’s NOW just a $500 piece of plastic sitting in my garage
I agree with Terry. My 6.2 didn’t quite make it a season before it quit. I haven’t been able to get service to responsd to emails or answer their phone.
My biggest complaints while it was operating were:
The height adjustment - if your grass is very thick and/or succulent you may not have enough power to mow it and the best option is to raise the height or cut a smaller swath. Cutting a smaller swath reduces the likelihood that the battery will last long enough to complete the lawn and I can’t get the mower high enough to mow my thick lawn.
The trimmer attachment cuts lower than the blade if the trimmer is in the horizontal position. Using the trimmer as an edger is impractical as it is too difficult to control.
So, I too have a piece of plastic junk in my garage. The Black and Decker is a more powerful and more durable machine.
Just used it for the first time and it could not finish my 7000 sq ft yard. Lack of any kind of battery meter is disapointing. I wish they would include a plug in option or extra battery given the expense of this item over others in the market place. I feel like an eco-sucker for buying this.
I bought a Neuton for all the right environmental reasons — the reasons are still great, BUT this machine was a BIG mistake!
I hate to say it but, If I had done my homework a little better before purchasing this Neuton mower, I wouldn’t have spent the last hour calling customer service and getting no where. BIG PROBLEM — they are willing to sell, sell, sell BUT ABSOLUTELY not willing to pay for shipping a return.
The problems with this machine:
1) It rolls like a log — a very hard to push log. I am serious when I say it can (almost) put you into cardiac arrest just trying to push it up a slight incline on your lawn. This makes absolutely no sense because the machine is suppose to be light weight and a free rolling unit.
2) It does not shoot the lawn clippings into the bag when you PAUSE the MOWER. (i.e., stop walking — machine is running — turn machine to mow the next row). The problem is worse when you stop the mower (stop the blade). ANY, and I do mean ANY, clippings that were heading in the direction of the bag will NEVER get there — even if you start the machine in the same spot and roll back over them — just forget it!
3) The video shows a senior strolling along pushing the machine with ease. I can say that — beyond a shadow of ANY doubt — this video is a complete CROCK of s***! Unless you have a very short, flat lawn — and plan to cut the grass when you only have to take off 1/4 of an inch, there is no way you are going to comfortably push this machine anywhere.
In other words — all you elderly out there reading this had better hit the muscle-enhancing drugs or you’re S.O.L.!
There were some good points about the machine:
Environmentally friendly –
No gas pollution on the grass (or air) –
Moderately quiet –
To sum it up:
Its a log to push;
Customer service is “0″ help:
You will loose money when you try to return the machine (for me that will be $70).
SAVE YOUR MONEY - THERE ARE BETTER ELECTRIC MACHINES!!!
If you have a postage stamp lawn, buy a Solarus.
If you have a big lawn, get one of the small riding electric mowers out there. They are good,but spendy.
I wish I had investigated this a bit more myself. I purchased a Neuton 6.2 and was able to mow my yard with it about 15 times before it crapped out. I was actually very pleased with the job it did and the performance, but getting it fixed is a disaster. My yard has not been mowed in 5 weeks now because I was foolish enough to scrap my gas mower for this piece of dead plastic. Custoemr service is friendly enough and tries to help you, but there seems to be no parts available to fix these things from either the factory or the dealers. My local dealers told me they could trouble shoot the mower and see what was wrong with it, but they expected I’d be waiting at least a month for parts. I’m now waiting on a replacement mower from Neuton which I was told would be there this week, but after 3 days, that hasn’t even been shipped out, so my suspicions are that the Colorado snows will be here before I’m able to mow my yard again.
I’d stay away from this. Nice story, really non-serviceable product. Black and Decker is a much easier choice with service centers that can actually get parts and work on the mowers.
Very pleased with the mower we bought three years ago until the handle litterally wore through the body so it is now virtually useless. This is a problem that could have been solved by having a metal frame around the bottom of the body. For $500 that should have been done.
The other issue is that it is difficult to go for service if you have to. We live in congested SE Massachusetts and of the two places listed one does not service the mower and has very limited parts and the other is 50 miles away.
your conclusion should really support the review. The conclusion mentions nothing about the mower dying in just 25 minutes. I don’t care how long the grass is or how tiny your lawn is, any mower that lasts only 25 minutes is worthless.
Your review made it sound like everything was wonderful. 1/3rd of an acre? How can you mow 0.33 acres in 25 minutes?
I hate to say it, but after a year and $500 I am ready to send my Neuton to the scrap pile. The machine is not built well. It is heavy and made from plastic. It take a ton of effort to push up hill - I have a slight incline in my front yard and I am under 30 and it is a pain to push up my front yard. It does not roll well to say the least. The design of the undercarriage does not facilitate clippings flowing into the bag well at all. I get huge piles of clippings caught under the mower. I have to stop, reach in the mover and pull them out 2 or 3 times per section of my yard. The battery has lasted ok. I had one die, which Neuton replaced pretty quickly. My replacement has worked better, but the power is just not enough to take care of my lawn. I have about 1000 sqft of grass. I am now looking for other electric mowers and possibly a gas machine.
I have had nothing but trouble with my Neuton mower! My issues all seem to be battery life - they won’t last! Following the instructions in the manual, my battery was good for maybe 5 mowings, after that, it would die out well before my lawn was completed. They sent me a new battery this spring with DIFFERENT maintenance instructions.I followed them and now it is worthless! It dies well before I can finish mowing and it now takes me two days, after a recharging cycle, to mow my lawn.
I would not reccomend this piece of junk to anyone! Until they can get the battery issues resolved it should be taken off the market.
And I would like to mention that my lawn is quite sparse and not at all thick. I only have to mow it once or twice a month. Even then, I always have problems seeing where I just mowed and where I need to mow next. And STILL, the battery can’t take it!!
If you are thinking of buying one of these, DON’T!!