I don’t really “love” it, I just hate it less than I did my gas mower. My grass sometimes gets pretty high because I don’t exactly live to mow the yard.
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@B.L.E. For me , the worst thing about having a gasoline mower is having to go to the station with the gas can, fill it up, then fill the tank on the mower and store the gas. I don’t like messing with the gasoline. I also like the fact that the rechargeable battery mowers are much quieter than gasoline engine mowers. I like the Black and Decker rechargeable battery mower I bought for its quiet operation. Thus Ego mower would be perfect for our yard. It’s time to upgrade. The 1988 Toro has a Tecumseh engine which is no longer made. Parts are no longer available for my 1992 Homelite-Jacobsen, not even the blade. There are many parts not available for the Black and Decker CMM 1000 which is probably 10 years old. It’s time for me to keep up with new technology.
And there’s almost no vibration.
I usually stick a 2x4 to keep the blade from moving while loosening it. I have mulching blades so there is a curve in them. Motor is good, but I have a rust hole in the deck. I used to have some fiberglass tape that was cured by sunlight. Not in for cosmetic perfection at this point. I put the blade in a vice and use a tool like the one on the right to sharpen the blade. It attaches to a hand drill.
Before there were high tech batteries, electric mowers had cords. At a yard sale more than 20 years ago, I bought one of those which had a note taped to it saying “$3 – for parts”.
I took it home, plugged it in, and mowed my tiny lawn (surrounded by an abundance of blackberry plants, a rampant weed here.)
Gradually I started fighting the blackberries with that $3 mower, tilting it up on its rear wheels and pushing into the blackberries, then keeping the retrieved area mowed. Little by little, my lawn expanded.
People tell me you can’t kill blackberries, but to them I say, stop by and see my BiG lawn - where the blackberries once were.
Now I have multiple monster gas mowers to help manage two properties - each with blackberry infestations. The biggest machine is a 7 horse Poulan Pro self propelled, another is a wheeled string mower. But if my lawn was like a normal suburban yard (it isn’t), I’d definitely have a battery electric mower.
The EGO that my daughter has is self propelled, but when you release the handle that propels it, it completely releases the drive system, unlike gas powered mowers. It is very easy to push manually.
If your lawn is small, <1/4 acre, the Ryobi 40 volt might be a better choice. The push version is a lot cheaper at $299 and lighter with a 20" cut instead of 21. It is a lot lighter than the EGO, but it is also flimsier too. The deck is only single wall and if you side swipe a fence or post, the deck will flex and the blades will hit it.
Ryobi also makes an 18V push mower with a 13" blade that is ultra light, but probably only useful to people who live in a condo and have a lawn smaller than their living room. I haven’t seen any reviews on it though.
BTW, the Ryobi riding lawn mower uses a 48V lead acid battery from a powered wheel chair, not a Lithium Ion. In several reviews, the reviewers did not like the rough ride so if you don’t have a glass smooth yard and at least a half acre in size, and a garage to store it in, you may want to bypass it.
Ryobi is like a car manufacturer, you don’t want the first year of a new model. They have some excellent products and I have a lot of them, but I have several tools that were new to the market and first generation and I have regretted not waiting for the next iteration before buying. They usually have the bugs worked out by the second generation of a new product.
I agree that OP should use 30W single viscosity oil recommended by their owner manual. Single viscosity oil was normally 20W, 30W, and 50W. “W” being weight. I am totally confused by the “W” in multi viscosity oil identified as meaning “Winter”! When multi-viscosity oil became common it was 10W-30, 10W-40, and 10W-50. Meaning 10W (weight) to… whatever. It was well known that it was designed for differing climates/temperatures. “W” meaning Winter makes no sense whatsoever. Our earth (third stone from the sun) has multiple climate zones. Polar (arctic) zones which are always cold. Equatorial (tropical) zones which are always hot. Northern hemisphere temperate zones which are hot in the summer and cold in the winter, Southern hemisphere temperate zones which are hot in the winter and cold in the summer.
I have never had problems with multi grade oils in my air cooled motorcycle engines, in fact Honda called for 10W-40 in the 1974 Honda CB550 four that I owned if I remember correctly.
Other brands of air cooled motorcycles that I owned also called for multi grade oil.
I think the main reason multi grade is not called for in lawn mowers is simply because it is unnecessary.
@B.L.E and @keith
Thank you for your comments on rechargeable mowers. I didn’t intend to hijack Marnet’s thread. I hope all the advice she received on oil for her mower is as useful as all the information you gave me on rechargeable mowers.
@Triedaq, no worries, I do not consider the thread hijacked. I’m getting an education about engine oil in general and ideas for any future mower or trimmer replacements.
I hadn’t expected this topic to take off like it has. LOL. But that’s fine. 
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I had a 3 acre lawn like that with the same blueberries in northern NH, that I mowed the same way.
However, the big negative is: before I hit them with the mower, it was great to browse the bushes in the morning and eat your full with great blackberries. Went away after a few years of mowing.
OK… Is Valvoline only addressing SAE (the USA)? I lived in Southern California for 3 years and have visited Southern Texas and Southern Florida in February. A temperature below 60F is rare. As far as I know engine oil is used globally. I respect your intelligence and knowledge. I consider the “experts” at Valvoline regarding this subject ignorant idiots. How about 5C-30H? C=Cold H=Hot?
Odd as this sounds, it is not unusual to need to mow grass once or twice during the winter here in St. Louis, depending on temps and rainfall. I’ve mowed as late as December and as early as March a few times.
It’s simple.
Whether you’re starting an engine at 20 degrees or at 90 degrees, that’s a cold start. And the oil is thinner.
So you want the oil to flow as quickly as possible during that cold start to protect the engine. Thus 5W
It’s not until the oil starts reaching the operating temperature does it start to thicken. Thus 30.
Tester
@Marnet. I spent over two years in Carbondale, Illinois–about 75 miles southeast of St. Louis. By March 1st, it was spring. A lawnmower got much more running time a year than where I now live in east central Indiana. Summers were really hot down there. This was in the early 1960s when air conditioning wasn’t common in cars. My car certainly didn’t have air conditioning. The house where I rented a room wasn’t air conditioned. When I think about how I survived those summer days and realize now that I think I have to have air conditioning, I realize what a wimp I’ve become. the
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Ok. It’s simple. Cold start regardless of air temperature. What in the world does “W”= Winter have to do with it???
It’s a viscosity index, not a viscosity. Cold 5W oil is actually thicker than hot SAE30. It doesn’t get thicker when hot, it simply doesn’t thin out as dramatically.
I once tried straight 40 weight in my air cooled motorcycle engine instead of the recommended 10w-40 and putting it in gear with the clutch pulled in would kill the engine when the bike was cold. Motorcycles use multiplate oil bath clutches similar to the clutch packs in automatic transmissions and that cold thick oil between the plates had enough drag to kill the engine even though the clutch was released.
Even with multigrade oil, there was more clutch drag with cold oil than with hot oil.
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Again simple.
The W means that the oil will flow like a five weight oil down to zero degrees.
Below that, the oil starts to thicken.
Tester
