MJ403E Mow Joe 17-Inch 13-Amp Electric Lawn Mower/Mulcher

EDIT: Mower is dead! even with the heavier gauge extension cord the motor burned up. I bought this mower based upon the reviews about the great replacement policy. I called customer service, and after an hour on hold I was told to ship back the mower and they’d send a replacement. When I said I don’t keep boxes around for 2 years big enough for a mower “Ace” said he got permission to ship the new one first so I’d have a box. He verified availability and said in 24-48 hrs I’d get shipping confirmation. Great!! Well, 2 weeks later still no confirmation and still no mower! Called again, waited a long time again battled through the language differences with the Philippines call center again, and “Lyn” said there was no record of a call ever from me! Bull$&#%, I read the email to her from “Ace” and she suddenly found record of the call from me but said found no record of a request for a box to be shipped. Good lord, I don’t want a box shipped I want a mower shipped! Then she said she found a notice of a failed delivery attempt by ups for the same day; how could they attempt to deliver it on the same day that I called sun joe. She was obviously either clueless or making stuff up. Finally, she admitted no request to ship me a mower had ever been done! Now she says buy my own box, ship the mower to them and then I’ll get my replacement mower. So after a month without a mower I’m back to square 1. What a waste of my time waiting on hold for an hour each time and calling. I asked to speak to a supervisor and she said they were all busy so I couldn’t speak to them, of course! I’m very disappointed not only in the mower but also the warranty support so far. This mower is really small, really lightweight like a toy but it really works! Chopped thru some high grass but as others have said once you get some grass in the bag it tips backward from any weight in the bag. Plus, if you let the bag get full the plastic handle releases from the bag when you try to remove it from the mower. I've learned to empty the bag very quickly so that there is very little weight in the bag to tip the mower backwards or to cause the handle to release again. This means that the small cutting area of the mower, combined with the really small little bag and the fact that I have to empty the bag so often means that cutting even a small yard takes much longer than my bigger electric B&D mower with full size bag. However, it's lightweight is great for my arthritic hands and back. Although it takes longer to mow and more bag changes it doesn't leave my hands in pain for the rest of the day. Plus, their 2 yr warranty sealed the deal!

Who would ever have thunk it! This rather miniscule apparatus is a veritable powerhouse of smoothly applied, capable, and reliable grass-cutting might. It starts easily and seemingly effortlessly slices through even grass that has perhaps inadvertently been given time to grow in an unruly fashion. Its light overall weight (an undeniable plus for seniors such as I, to be sure!) makes it possible to deftly maneuver with this machine over virtually any terrain. It is relatively quiet and its cutting edge easily leaves a uniformly evenly cut swath. Initially, I had trepidations about giving up an additional 4 inches in width in the swath the machine cut, since my previous mower cut a swath 21 inches wide. Yet, what this Moe Joe lacks in blade cutting width, it easily makes up for in the ease and precision with which it does smoothly cut. Assembly is minimal and can be easily handled. I would, however, mention that buyers of this product should remember to remove the mulching attachment (if not immediately needed) which, at least in my case, came already installed on the machine as it came out of the carton. The plastic handle to the grass catcher may also require a little patience to make sure that it seats properly and remains in place. That said, I would still recommend this machine to other clients looking for a lightweight yet sturdy, easily maneuverable, relatively quiet, efficient, and adequately powerful lawn mower.

I don't normally write reviews but I felt like I had to for this mower. I have been using electric mowers for 20 years. They seem to last about 2 to 3 years. I bought this mower in June and it did not last a month before the engine burned out. I contacted their customer service and they sent me a new replacement mower. I bumped the side of the new mower on a pole while trying to cut around the pole and the blade took off a piece of the side of the mower. Also, there is plastic that keeps the blade in place under the mower. That plastic on the new mower wore down within about 3 weeks and now the blade doesn't stay in place while the mower is running making an awful noise while using it (probably dangerous as well). Finally decided to just buy another brand. Hopefully I have better luck with the new one.

This is our first electric mower. Since we moved to a property with less yard to maintain, we figured an electric mower would be the best option. We contemplated plug-in versus battery. We just couldn’t justify the extra cost of the battery versions. And now after receiving this mower, we are glad we went this direction. What a great little mower. To be honest, we were skeptical. But we are super impressed. Assembly is tedious and I do question why it didn’t come with a few more parts already put together. But it’s not difficult to get it done. And the instructions are thorough. Took us no more than twenty minutes. The first thing you’ll notice is how light the unit is. It’s so easy to move around. Of course the trade off is the sturdiness of the mower body. It feels a little less than tough. Not wimpy, just not tough. But we don’t plan to beat it up anyway. On first use, our yard was a little overgrown - mainly because of the long wait for the mower to show up. But with our cord plugged in, the mulching plug removed, the bag attached, and the trigger pulled, this mower tackled it like a champ. It had a few areas where it bogged down, but that’s no different than the gas powered versions. The little vent on the bag works great at telling you when the bag is getting full. And the safety feature works great. If using the bag, you’ll notice another issue with the mower being so light. As the bag fills, it gets heavier, and the mower gets rear heavy - in some cases, wanting to lean back. Also the bag fills awfully fast. Even in our second mowing with less overgrowth, it still had to be emptied quite a few times. And the handle on the bag doesn’t seem to want to stay out. It kept falling off when holding the full bag. We haven’t tried the mulching yet, but what we’ve seen so far has been impressive. It has its quirks and issues as I noted, but every mower I’ve had has. The cord is sort of a pain to maneuver around, but with the size of our yard, it’s manageable. I think it’s about getting a routine down so it gets in the way less. There is certainly room for improvement, but this is absolutely a great deal if you have a smaller yard near a power outlet.

In choosing an electric mower I went for the Sun Joe MJ403E because of the larger size and mulching ability versus the MJ401E. I’m not disappointed and in fact I’m delighted. This mower is lightweight, easy to maneuver, and I’ll never have to worry about engine issues like oil, spark plugs, carburetor, or nasty exhaust. (Did you know that Americans pollute more with our combustion engine lawnmowers than we do with our cars?) It works fantastically, even handling sticks in my yard that I missed prior to mowing. It mulches well. I don’t even bother with the grass bag. The mulching plug does the job with my small lawn. The only caveat is you need to learn to mow the lawn more like you’re vacuuming. Rather than going around in a circle or square pattern, you’re better off doing lines back and forth, moving away from the power cord as you do so. The prevents the cord getting in your way as it does if you walk all over your yard in a shrinking square. The mower supports a cord up to 100 feet long. If you’re going over 50 feet, make sure it’s a 12-gauge cord! 14 or 16 will cause damage to your mower! If it’s under 50 feet, you’re fine with 14-gauge. Remember the cost of the cord in your budget! And DO NOT get the suggested cord on this page! Last I looked it’s a 16-gauge and is unsuitable for the job! If you treat it right, read the manual, and approach mowing a little differently, you’ll be very pleased with the switch to electric! Five stars!!

This was one of the best things to happen for me in 2020! Its so light weight, even with a back, neck, and shoulder injury I can mow my own lawn again!!! No string to pull and no gas to store! I have a fairly large yard for living in suburbia and I've done a fabulous job of planting all kinds of fruit trees, shrubs, herbs, veggies and flowers so there are NO straight lines here. There's humps, lumps, divots and ditches all over my yard and this mower breezes over all of them, and fitting into all the nooks and crannies! I gave this an overall 4 stars...Here's why: Assembly was pretty easy but there was a glitch where I thought it was together but there was some kind of misalignment with the deck, and the first few passes scalped my lawn. I think it was something that happened in shipping because when I picked it up by the handle on the deck to check it out, it sort of almost snapped into place then I gave it another little shake and it fixed the problem (???). The bag attachment is very impractical as its small and fills up quickly; and the handle on it won't take the weight of the grass without falling off when you try to empty it. I tried it once just to see how it worked, but I just leave it off anyway as my yard LOVES the trimmings..the mulch is very fine....this little mower eats it up!! Did I mention I love this mower?? Another folly has been the bolts holding the handrail together keep wiggling their way off while mowing and I've had to replace the really nice knobs with whatever crappy bolt/nut combo I could find in the garage. I live in Florida so in the summer time rainy season I mow my lawn twice a week, (no really, you can hear it growing some mornings.) my grass is super thick and it often gets over 100*f outside but this mower makes the job so easy! I can't say I look forward to mowing, but now I don't dread it...OR have to pay someone else to do it. I love it and would recommend it to anyone...people with injuries or just anyone who's done busting their butt mowing the lawn. Thank you SUNJOE!!

I've been using the SunJoe MJ401E for a year and a half, and love it. It has successfully stood up amazingly well to abuse from converting a horrible neglected garden of weeds into a real garden with front and back lawns. Love it. The blade needed to be resharpened, and while looking at the options to buy a replacement blade, I ending up researching this model, the MJ403E. Price seemed much lower than normal, so bought it. Used it for the first time today. As much as I like the old, this one is much better. The engine seems more robust, but both cut the grass very well. This model has a 17 inch path, while my old one had only a 14 inch - this is nice, but would not be a reason for me to have changed. The best thing about this is the way it changes cutting height - a simple notched lever setup right on the upper surface of the mower that adjusts to seven different heights. Changing cutting height on the MJ401E was a nuisance: each wheel had is own control to adjust to four different heights, but you had to turn the mower over on its side to see what you were doing. Even though I always had it set on the highest setting, heavy use sometimes made one or more wheels slip out of position, which caused lopsided cutting. If the cutting position was on either the lowest or highest setting, adjusting was sometimes very difficult to get the spring bar to move into other slots. This new MJ401E is super easy to set the height, and I can see at a glance where it is set. The grass catcher bag is also bigger on this model, and it comes with a mulching insert if that's what you want to do. My older model just had the catcher (smaller). This catcher also has a flap that tells you when the catcher needs to be emptied, instead of guessing by sound and feel on the other model. Now there is a green flap that stays open until the bag is full, at which time the flap falls down. This feature is nice, but however, is not needed, because...this is my one negative comment about the mower...when the bag starts to get full, it makes the mower back-heavy and you have to check to make sure that the weight doesn't raise the front wheels off the ground. Unfortunately, this is how I know when to empty the bag, not by using the neat little flap indicator. Still, I really love this mower, and even though I also loved its predecessor, am really glad I got this one. Also - many reviewers of the MJ401E mentioned to use a 14-gauge extension cord, not a 16-gauge. I used the 14-gauge on the old one, and also on the new one, and would definitely recommend doing that.

The only good thing I can report about this mower is that it is lighter than than the electric mower it replaced. The old mower lasted three years before quitting on me. This mower didn't last one mow. The engine keeps cutting out. First, it kept cutting out with the mulcher plug in. Take the plug out, but the bag on it, and the engine still dies. No attachments...you guessed it...the engine cuts off. As best I can tell, the cut grass gets caught up around the exit ports, causes the engine to overheat, and the engine cuts off as a result of some safety feature. Very poor design if this happens as a regular event. Makes grass cutting a day long project when you can only cut for 15 seconds before the engine dies. UPDATE 8/22/2020: Sun Joe replaced the mower and it worked great until the blade broke after hitting a rock. I would have upgraded my rating...HOWEVER...apparently despite the fact that THEY ARE STILL SELLING THIS MOWER they no longer manufacture replacement blades. You cannot find them ANYWHERE. Not here on Amazon. Not at Lowes, Home Depot, etc. YOU CANNOT EVEN GET THEM FROM SUN JOE. What kind of company keeps selling a machine for which it has stopped making the most commonly needed replacement part?