You spend a lot of time each week making sure your yard looks its best. It can be very frustrating and disappointing to look at your freshly mowed lawn only to find it looks terrible. The cuts may be uneven with strips of uncut grass or scalping of the lawn.
A Honda lawn mower may have a bad or uneven cut when the wheel is damaged, the deck heights are not adjusted correctly, the mower blade is bent or dull, or the mower deck is packed for of grass clippings.
Operator errors including slow engine speed, fast ground speed, and incorrect mowing paths can also cause your Honda mower to cut unevenly.
Keep reading and I’ll go into more detail about why these items will give you an uneven cut.
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Follow all safety instructions provided in your equipment operator’s manual before diagnosing, repairing, or operating. Consult a professional if you don’t have the skills, or knowledge or are not in the condition to perform the repair safely.
8 Reasons Your Honda Lawn Mower Cut Uneven
Damaged Wheel
A damaged wheel on your mower can wobble or not move causing your mower to cut unevenly. Replace the wheel with a wheel of the same size as on the opposite side of the mower.
When your wheels are not the same size and even, your mower deck will sit unleveled and give you a bad cut.
Cutting Height Adjustment Set at Different Heights
Check your cutting height adjustment on your mower. Make sure they are all set at the same height. Settings that are not, all the same, will cause your mower deck to not sit level.
Bent Mower Blade
You can accidentally hit a tree stump, rock, or another hard object that can bend your blade. A blade that doesn’t sit parallel to the deck and ground can make the cut in your lawn look terrible.
Take a look at your blade. It may be quite obvious the blade is bent. If you’re not sure, you can either remove your blade and compare it to a new blade or take some measurements while your blade is installed.
Measure for a bent Honda mower blade:
- First, make sure you confirmed the wheels are of equal size and not damaged. Also, make sure your cutting height settings are all the same before proceeding with measuring your blade.
- With the mower parked on a flat even surface, measure from the ground to the blade tip. Record the measurement
- Rotate the blade 180 degrees and measure from the same spot in the ground to the blade tip. Record the measurement.
- If the blade measurements have a difference greater than 1/8”, your blade must be replaced.
Worn or Dull Mower Blade
A Honda mower blade where the sail (the high sides of the blade) are worn will produce less air movement under your deck for a nice cut.
When the sail on the blade is thinner than the center of the blade, the mower blade must be replaced. A mower blade with a dull cutting edge can end up beating up your grass instead of cutting it.
It can leave tears in the grass blade that will eventually turn brown a day or two after mowing. Check your blades regularly and keep them sharp.
Mower blades should be sharpened after every 25 hours of use and more frequently when you are mowing in sandy conditions. Check out this article for more information on maintaining and sharpening your Honda mower blades.
Clogged Mower Deck
The area under your Honda mower deck needs to be free of grass buildup. The air movement created by the mower blades under the mower deck allows your mower to create suction.
This suction stands your grass tall so the blade can come by and precisely cut your grass. When the deck is packed with debris, the area available to create this air movement and suction is restricted giving you an uneven cut.
Keep your mower deck clean by periodically scraping the deck. To minimize grass buildup, avoid mowing wet grass. Not only does wet grass clump in the yard, but it also sticks to your mower deck.
Engine Speed is Too Slow
The mower deck requires engine power to run at its best. Make sure the throttle position on your Honda mower is set to high. When your mower deck doesn’t receive the power it needs, the blade speed slows down which can leave you with an uneven cut.
If you notice your engine is no longer giving you the power it once did, you should bring your mower to an experienced small engine mechanic to have the engine checked out.
Read my article for other items that can make your Honda mower lose power.
Ground Speed is Too Fast
Pushing your Honda mower across your lawn at too fast a pace can give you a bad cut. Adjust your speed to your conditions.
Mowing thick, wet, or tall grass puts extra strain on your engine. Slow down your speed when mowing in these conditions.
Mowing at too fast of speeds can also cause your mower to push over grass and not accurately cut grass. The bad cut can get worse when the mower is bouncing around on uneven ground.
Incorrect Mowing Paths
Most people don’t want to spend more time than needed to mow their lawns, so mowing with the least number of paths up and down your lawn is best to minimize that time.
You need to be careful to make sure your overlap your paths otherwise you will leave strips of grass on the lawn.