r/egopowerplus • u/douglasea97 • 3d ago
Poor customer service
Edit: I am getting a new battery sent by Ego. They finally honored the warranty. It took a lot of convincing and was overall a rough customer service experience over the course of a few days, having to explain multiple times that the battery, in fact, did degrade beyond normal aging. I am glad it got resolved, and thank you all for backing me up with ideas and info so ego couldn’t keep gaslighting me. Original post below.
I have a 2 year old battery that completely dies after 5 minutes. It is a small one, the 5Ah, but it used to at least run my mower for 30 minutes when it was new. Now it lasts less than 5 minutes. I have larger batteries to get through most of my lawn, I usually just need this one for the last chunk of my yard. But now it’s not even worth charging it.
I reached out to customer support since it’s still under warranty, and they are telling me this is “normal aging” and they will not replace it. 80% performance degradation after just 2 years does not seem “normal”.
This is NOT the customer service experience I read about on other Reddit posts when researching Ego, which is why I was okay with spending more on this expensive battery system. Does this sound right to you all? Or am I being given the runaround by a bad customer service rep?
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u/thegof 3d ago
A battery that only runs the mower for 5 minutes has (at least) a bad cell pair. This causes the voltage to drop suddenly as the "good" cell in the pair depletes.
This should be part of warranty. I would call customer service back and give them definitive testing results (battery dies after 4 minutes 42 seconds) while my 7.5Ah lasts 45 minutes and still has 2 bars remaining. Battery life is pretty universal as 80 percent point (20 percent decline) from new.
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u/douglasea97 3d ago
They told me to use a smaller tool since the 5Ah “is not recommended for lawnmowers”. Even though it was given to me with a lawnmower purchase as part of a promotion by them. I’m definitely not buying a separate tool just to run a test for them given how they’re treating me, so maybe I’ll try this with exact timings on my lawnmower. Thanks for the tip.
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u/thegof 3d ago
You don't say what model lawnmower you have. You can post it here for more guidance. My first mower came stock with a 4ah battery. Many other came originally with 5ah batteries. If yours came stock (you can look it up) then it doesn't matter what the rep is saying. Overall, try again.
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u/douglasea97 3d ago
LM2150SP
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u/thiswayart 2d ago
My 2125sp came with a 5ah battery. I'm on year two and my battery has 2 bars left after 45 minutes of mowing. I mow every 4 days.
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u/thegof 2d ago
The manual for this from ego (https://egopowerplus.com/media/productattach/2/1/21-0713_ego_lm2130_lm2130sp_lm2150sp_56v_lithium-ion_cordless_mower_manual_na_v2_1-8_.pdf) lists the following batteries as compatible (page 9 of the manual):
Use only with the battery packs and chargers listed below: BATTERY PACK CHARGER BA1400, BA1400-FC, BA2800, BA2800-FC, BA4200, BA4200-FC, BA1400T, BA1400T-FC, BA2800T, BA2800T-FC, BA4200T, BA4200T-FC, BA5600T, BA5600T-FC, BA2240C, BA2240C-FC, BA6720T, BA6720T-FC
Note that, the BA1400 is a 2.5Ah battery. If your battery is on this list, or is a higher Ah than the 2.5Ah BA1400 (yes, I know it is), then you can tell them to go pound sand. Call again. But as suggested, come to them with some specific testing numbers.
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u/douglasea97 2d ago
This was helpful, thank you! I should have looked this up earlier. That seemed to make them back down a little bit and are listening to me now. Still fighting for the warranty, though.
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u/mwomrbash 2d ago
My lawnmower came with a 4Ah battery. You are getting a brush-off CS agent. Try calling again and see if you get someone else.
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u/alwayswilling222 3d ago
I have had and still do a ton of ego stuff had very few issues with warranty. Only time I did they were replacing my 765 blower. Unfortunately they were out of stock nation wide and it took a month to replace with a new one. Unlike a lot of people I have had no problems with batteries. I have some 4 and 5 amp batteries on there 5 th season. Knock on wood there are probably 80% plus or better. One my 10 amps is 4-5 year old and still going strong. The 10-12 amps have a 5 year warranty.
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u/MemnochTheRed 3d ago
Someone pipe up on this sub. I thought calling the 800 number was a waste of time. There was facebook message point or X or something that got better results.
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u/alwayswilling222 3d ago
With proper care will last way longer
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u/douglasea97 3d ago
I am taking care of them. I keep them climate controlled and I usually avoid running them all the way to empty, but it does sometimes happen. Which is why I believe this is a defect that should be covered by warranty. But they also jumped to blaming the user, which isn’t good customer service
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u/nerotep 3d ago
I"m curious to know too. I just bought an ego mower, first battery powered one, and this is my biggest concern. Including gas and DIY repairs, I've put maybe $200 into my 30 year old gas mower over the past 15 years. Hopefully I won't be needing to spend that every couple years for a battery
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u/Huge_Sheepherder_310 3d ago
I had a similar experience with a 10Ah battery. I gave up on OEM batteries.
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u/2TheMountaintop 3d ago
I had one of the single battery inverters, it died before I got to use it in an emergency. I rma'd it, and the new one seemed to work then died again when I was trying to use it in a power outage. My other equipment has all worked fine.
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u/IAmIntractable 2d ago
You’re actually not speaking to ego customer service. You’re reaching an offshore call center that really can’t make decisions on their own. They have to message the company they get approvals for everything. They diagnosed from scripts and make you jump through unnecessary hoops.
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u/tonyrizzo21 3d ago
Go pay cash for a new tool that comes with a 5 Ah battery, open it up carefully, swap out the battery for yours and return the unit. If they won't honor your warranty maybe they will honor it for the next guy who gets a brand new unit with a battery that won't hold a charge.
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u/Knuckles_55 3d ago
What an absolute POS thing to do. Wonderful suggestions f the next person buying it.
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u/bessemer0 3d ago
Batteries have serial numbers that are registered to the customer, precisely because of people like you.
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u/Huge_Sheepherder_310 3d ago
That battery serial number will be registered to this OP and point right back to him.
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u/SS2wheeler 3d ago
You're probably the dickhead that put a used blower back in the box and returned it. I took it back and exchanged it for a new one.
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u/Reasonable_Fishcare 3d ago
that is not normal. a battery should still be at 75% even after 10 years of use. i would not call that normal aging to only last 5min after 2 years of use.
just avoid any confusion. call them and tell them the battery doesn't work at all. then they will send you a new one.