Well, the party didn't last. The mower was working wonderfully for the first two mows. Per the manual, I changed the oil around the 5 hour mark. After doing so it fired up fine.
Yesterday, when I went to mow, the pullcord kicked back hard. It felt like I almost had my hand broken. I tried again, thinking I just caught it right at the top of the compression stroke, but the same thing happened. The motor would get to the top of the compression stroke and was almost impossible to pull over. My initial thought was that the motor was somehow partially seized, but I was able to get it started by catching the engine between compression strokes with the pull cord to avoid kickback, and it would start and ran perfectly fine.
I checked the oil and mowed my whole yard without any issues. Plenty of power, ran smooth, etc. After I was done, I let it cool down and then tried to start it again. The kick back issue was gone and it easily fired right up.
I called the dealer and they said I probably overfilled the oil. I've been around small engines most of my life and highly doubt that I screwed up something as simple as an oil change, but figured I would try draining some oil. Perhaps too much oil could lead to pressure in the crankcase. I started draining oil, a little at a time until it just hit the very middle/low spot on the dipstick, which is very hard to read with clean oil. When I first cranked it the issue was gone. All of the sudden, it came back and basically breaks my hand. I tried pulling the cord with the oil cap removed and the issue persisted, so it's definitely not an issue with pressure in the crankcase.
I read something about a compression release on these engines to prevent this sort of kickback at low RPMs. Could this be the issue?
It's going back to the dealer this week. Go figure this is the most expensive mower I've ever bought and in less than a month it's broken.
