10/23/08

Goodbye Sweet RoboMower - RL1000


Well, the time has finally come to bid farewell to our friend, since more problems have developed. The mower would start on it's usual edge trim but then detour out into the yard and slow down only to start SMOKING from the underside. After what seems like me trying nearly everything... the RoboMower just refuses to work consistently. So it's time to go. One of the biggest selling points that pushed me over the edge to buy the robot lawn mower in the first place was that I could get it from Costco. With Costco's great return policy, we felt we had the extra insurance in hand to purchase such a unusual item.


So I packed up all the parts and pieces, cleaned everything up pretty, and took it back into the store. It did take some convincing, and I eventually had to speak with the manager of the store as well, but they took it back. I explained all the trouble over the years, the broken parts, the 3 sets of replacement batteries and the recent smoke. I told him how my lawn looked like crap and how I'd been paying the neighbor boy to mow in the robot's stead, etc. He had all sorts of rapid-fire questions, which I'm assuming my responses helped pacify since they slowed and finally halted. In the end he seemed to understand, and actually admitted that he owned one himself too, but it wasn't hooked up yet at his new home! I told him he was going to love it, while it was working anyway.

So now the question is what sort of mower should we buy as a replacement? I'll prob save the cash until spring when the lawn starts to grow again anyway... Costco rocks.


Costco's return policy: We guarantee your satisfaction on every product we sell with a full refund. (Which is always in cash for some reason too.)

4 comments:

Unknown said...

$1500 for that thing?!

Man, pay the neighbor kid $25 a whack and you can do that 60 times. Plus it saves you on electricity or whatever that thing runs on. And it'd be even better for the kid...

Eric said...

You know what's crazy is the price of them keeps going UP instead down like every other normal gadget. Amazon has it listed for $3124.99 now for the exact same model with zero upgrades. What the?! Maybe we should all trade our IRAs into robomowers with wall street's issues lately.

Eric said...

What I really to find is another MTD Tradesman. That thing was gold. But it died even faster than the robot.

Kage said...

I counted too...wow $1500- for that thing....just another reason why I don't have a yard.