General Product Question
HU800AWD an expensive piece of junk?
I want to find out...escalated
General Product Question posted June 25, 2014 by Richard Goodrich
577 Views
Question:
HU800AWD an expensive piece of junk?
I want to find out if I am one of the few who got a 'lemon' with this mower? OK first season. This second season nothing but trouble. I was mowing around my pond at a fairly steep angle. Later back on a level surface it just quit running.
I took the carb off looking for issues and my neighbor a retired turbine tech who know a lot about maintaining engines an such helped me some. At one point when I tried starting it, the carb caught on fire. Fortunately I had a fire extinguisher near by and put it out quickly. I took it to a professional who figured out the intake valve stuck open. He fixed it and made sure I had put the carb assembly back together and said I had. Now every now and then especially after I have stopped it and restart it it backfires - which probably means that valve is still sticking.
Also ran over a bit of wire and it stalled the engine. When I took all the baffles off and looked at the wheels and such it had fractured several of the cheap plastic wheel dust covers. The wheels themselves look like the cheap plastic you would find on a child's toy. The drive belt got nicked also so I set about ordering some new parts. I was GREATLY DISAPPOINTED that I could not directly order parts directly from Husqvarna! I had to go find a dealer, which for me was Four Brothers near Royse City, TX (not far from Dallas).
In the process of taking all these baffles off and on, I lost a small spring. Somehow I figured out how to order it also. However when I downloaded the IPL (Illustraged Parts List) there was NOT enough details there to put the parts back together and the instructions were even flawed in some areas in that the instructions gave a wrong order.
E.G. You need to remove the wheels before you can remove some of the screws to the side bumper and some of the baffle screws. I have taken the 'thing' apart and back together now a few times, so that I can almost do it my sleep! I will probably make a YouTube video on how to REALLY do this - versus the skimpy and flawed instructions from Husqvarna!
So I probably spent another $100 ordering replacement parts to speak nothing of all my time messing with it.
Now my latest disaster is the blade adapter/engine pulley. After putting the new belt on and cleaning everything - for the second time I think - the first time was just to get the procedure down because of the flawed and skimpy instruction from Husqvarna - there was a terrible clatter right away.
Got the thing back on my work bench and the star shaped interface to the blade has totally sheared apart. My neighbor and I got to looking at the design of this:
blade adapter / engine pulley and noticed it was a two part assembly. I could literally with my fingers - when I could finally get the thing lined up - pull the two parts together and apart again with just my fingers - UNBELIEVABLE!
As far as we could tell there was NOTHING other than friction that held these two parts together!
The star shaped interface to the blade almost looked like it was tack welds. My neighbor mentioned it looked like that part was literally glued onto the engine pulley. In other words it looked like the thing was designed to fail. As we started looking at the key in the pulley we noticed that it was a two part thing.
Neighbor said he had noticed this the last few years. Where these keys used to be one solid part, the manufacturers were doing the keys this way. I understand you want the key to shear to protect the engine, but the design and quality of this part was looking poor to us!
We are still stumped about the design of the engine pulley as two parts!!!
NOT impressed! I thought I was going for quality with Husqvarna and a Honda Engine. At this point I would say I had better performance with the cheap Murray lawn mowers with a Briggs & Stratton engine you could get from any Big Box store.
I think the engine pulley should come under warranty - guess we will see how well that works! - I am NOT OPTIMISTIC
And then I am NOT IMPRESSED at all at the Husqvarna customer support - they refer their customers to a third party with Answer Army - and there is this hard to use third party forum that is clunky and seems like a cheap-and-dirty cop-out on Husqvarna's part to NOT care enough about their equipment to do their own customer support!
NOT HAPPY AT ALL!
I want to find out if I am one of the few who got a 'lemon' with this mower? OK first season. This second season nothing but trouble. I was mowing around my pond at a fairly steep angle. Later back on a level surface it just quit running.
I took the carb off looking for issues and my neighbor a retired turbine tech who know a lot about maintaining engines an such helped me some. At one point when I tried starting it, the carb caught on fire. Fortunately I had a fire extinguisher near by and put it out quickly. I took it to a professional who figured out the intake valve stuck open. He fixed it and made sure I had put the carb assembly back together and said I had. Now every now and then especially after I have stopped it and restart it it backfires - which probably means that valve is still sticking.
Also ran over a bit of wire and it stalled the engine. When I took all the baffles off and looked at the wheels and such it had fractured several of the cheap plastic wheel dust covers. The wheels themselves look like the cheap plastic you would find on a child's toy. The drive belt got nicked also so I set about ordering some new parts. I was GREATLY DISAPPOINTED that I could not directly order parts directly from Husqvarna! I had to go find a dealer, which for me was Four Brothers near Royse City, TX (not far from Dallas).
In the process of taking all these baffles off and on, I lost a small spring. Somehow I figured out how to order it also. However when I downloaded the IPL (Illustraged Parts List) there was NOT enough details there to put the parts back together and the instructions were even flawed in some areas in that the instructions gave a wrong order.
E.G. You need to remove the wheels before you can remove some of the screws to the side bumper and some of the baffle screws. I have taken the 'thing' apart and back together now a few times, so that I can almost do it my sleep! I will probably make a YouTube video on how to REALLY do this - versus the skimpy and flawed instructions from Husqvarna!
So I probably spent another $100 ordering replacement parts to speak nothing of all my time messing with it.
Now my latest disaster is the blade adapter/engine pulley. After putting the new belt on and cleaning everything - for the second time I think - the first time was just to get the procedure down because of the flawed and skimpy instruction from Husqvarna - there was a terrible clatter right away.
Got the thing back on my work bench and the star shaped interface to the blade has totally sheared apart. My neighbor and I got to looking at the design of this:
blade adapter / engine pulley and noticed it was a two part assembly. I could literally with my fingers - when I could finally get the thing lined up - pull the two parts together and apart again with just my fingers - UNBELIEVABLE!
As far as we could tell there was NOTHING other than friction that held these two parts together!
The star shaped interface to the blade almost looked like it was tack welds. My neighbor mentioned it looked like that part was literally glued onto the engine pulley. In other words it looked like the thing was designed to fail. As we started looking at the key in the pulley we noticed that it was a two part thing.
Neighbor said he had noticed this the last few years. Where these keys used to be one solid part, the manufacturers were doing the keys this way. I understand you want the key to shear to protect the engine, but the design and quality of this part was looking poor to us!
We are still stumped about the design of the engine pulley as two parts!!!
NOT impressed! I thought I was going for quality with Husqvarna and a Honda Engine. At this point I would say I had better performance with the cheap Murray lawn mowers with a Briggs & Stratton engine you could get from any Big Box store.
I think the engine pulley should come under warranty - guess we will see how well that works! - I am NOT OPTIMISTIC
And then I am NOT IMPRESSED at all at the Husqvarna customer support - they refer their customers to a third party with Answer Army - and there is this hard to use third party forum that is clunky and seems like a cheap-and-dirty cop-out on Husqvarna's part to NOT care enough about their equipment to do their own customer support!
NOT HAPPY AT ALL!
