How The Internet Saved Me Money: DIY Lawn Mower Repair

I’m a DIY kind of person whenever possible. I love when the internet provides resources allowing me to build, maintain, or repair something myself, saving the cost of having someone to do it for me. I had yet another instance of the internet saving me money when my lawn mower needed some repair.

Broken Mower

I was about half way through mowing my lawn when I turned a corner and felt something snap. When I pushed on the handle of the mower to engage the self propulsion, it didn’t move. I pushed on the handle again, but nothing happened.

I turned off the mower and turned it on it’s side. Some inspection revealed the cable from the handle of the mower to the mechanism that engages it’s self propulsion had broken. Self propelled mowers are not meant to be just pushed manually (they’re heavy and the gear mechanism that makes it move on it’s own makes it hard to push), so I borrowed my neighbor’s mower to finish.

The Internet To The Rescue

I started by searching Amazon for the needed part. I was able to find several entries for after market parts. Reading the reviews, I found them to be half, “It worked great!” and half, “It didn’t quite fit.”

Official Parts

I then visited the manufacturer’s website and found they sold official parts. While sometimes you can save money using quality aftermarket parts, I was wary given the reviews. The official part was only a few dollars more than the ones for sale through Amazon, so I ordered it.

Installation

Replacing the cable seemed easy just by looking at it, however just to be sure I found a video on YouTube that showed me exactly how.

I was able to repair the lawn mower myself by identifying the broken part, ordering, and installing a new one all on my own. This saved me both time and money since lawn mower repair shops are busy this time of year and labor costs are usually $70 an hour or more.

How about you, EOD Nation, what was the last thing you tried to repair yourself? Were you successful?

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