Ryobi 80v Zero Turn Mower 54 inch | Diagnosing BATTERY ISSUES + Ryobi Customer Service Experience 

Is Ryobi working with you to resolve?

That's awesome keep us posted how you like it.

Got any updates on how your issue was handled?

@@LifeAsDane they gave me the run around, telling me to call the battery manufacturer and take it up with them, the battery manufacturer, after many emails asking for this number and that number then when getting all the information then told me they don’t deal with consumers to go through Ryobi…I then replied Ryobi told me to go through you to which the reply was again, we don’t deal on the consumer level. So, my $5k mower with my brand new $1400. Trash batteries are sitting in my shop holding down my concrete floor.

I had issues with the mower only lasting about 20 minutes. I had 2 80 volt batteries that were not discharging (just like in the video). Ryobi sent me replacements, and the mower lasted a little longer. Then I noticed the 40 volt batteries were not charging (just like in the video). Ryobi sent me a new charger because my charger was not switching from an 80 volt charge to the 40 volt charge. That worked. My disappointment is Ryobi advertised this mower will cut 4 acres. I cut 3 acres, and it takes 2.5 charges to cut the 3 acres.

Hard for me to forget that key is still on. I guess that horribly loud beep is a good thing as I've left it on a few times. Wish it just had a simple autoshut down after 15min of idle.

Impressive. You have videos showing? I love watching what people can do to modify electric bikes and such. First time hearing on mower.

Interesting. Seems you have other bad batteries if that's still happening. I think the best way to diagnose is 1 batteries used at a time. Like all 40v in and just 1 80v. To see if you can get a consistent charge level indicator with no flip flopping. Mine went away when the bad battery was replaced

I can't agree about the least developed being applied to this product. Don't forget in 2017 Ryobis very first "Lead-Acid" battery riding mower was released. So even tho it wasn't Lithium ion they have spent plenty of years in the battery tool space and had 5yrs leading up to this mower. Also there is no reason to believe the price of these large lithium battery products ever drop much. If anything they'll continue to rise until a cheaper battery tech is made useful. Look at EV cars. Tesla is only price dropping because of sales this time of year. Just my opinion. Thank you for commenting

Uhh they should sharpen them like literally any other riding mower blade? As for maintenance it's electric there is no maintenance.

But at least its an easy swap. And combo of 80v/40v. 100x better than original

Time will tell. I'm pretty heavy Electric (truck. Mower. Bike. Tools.) And I'm all for being a guinea pig as long as companies offer a good warranty. So far I'm happy. Also had this been there very first mower I might have held off but I think they gained some knowledge from their lead acid battery previous model

My RM480e saved $685 in 54 mos. and I replaced the original 75 ahr. batteries with 100 ahr. batteries at 58 mos. for $660. Didn't have to buy a new mower. Of course these batteries aren't lithium. It would take over 6 yrs. to save enough to pay for one Ryobi 80 volt lithium battery. The big question is how long will the lithium batteries last to be cost effective?

Interesting combo. Maybe I'll give that a try tomorrow. Just waiting on another set of blade brackets to get back rolling. Funny thing was the Ryobi product engineer told me that high on both would yield me the best results. Which I've done and managed to finish with about 20% battery on just about 1.6acres, I'll add this. The fast speed is truly fast and will be interesting to see how well a cut the mower can do on slow blade speed.

The slower the blade speed, the slower your ground speed has to be. Even on a gas powered unit, you keep the throttle wide open, and adjust your ground speed based on how thick the grass is.

@robertheinkel6225 your wrong. The fast blade speed will give you a better cut, but nobody was talking about a better cut. What we were talking about is more efficiency and slower blade speed is going to give you better efficiency. On this mower blade and ground speed is controlled independently. It sounds like you don't know what you're talking about.

I think exploding batteries is not that common in the power tool world. Id also argue that electric is at the point of disrupting mowers. Walk behinds have become very popular and for a homeowner You can easily get by with electric. For a business owner id say make sure you got a gas mower to go alongside this beast. More to come. So far its meeting my needs.

@Dane Peterson true, not a huge occurrence, but the chances are increasing as production quality control is lower as well as demand for lithium increasing. The smaller 21's are good for small homeowners, the rest when a better battery tech comes out then it'll be a competition, but the initial prices may be high for a while. Plus there will be a lot of e-waste after 5-10 years when the batteries die or are obsolete. I've got a lot of equipment out of the trash and got it running, electric stuff is just gonna be trash.

Yes sir! I was averaging about 15-20% battery left by the end and now im closer to 25-30% now that ive gotten comfortable on the higher drive speed.

Yes sir. Luckily down here in South Florida we don't have to worry too much about that. I put some good use on the mower during our winter though just for towing the kids behind in their wagon and doing other hauling jobs around the yard. Gotta put the batteries to work.

I just found this out this year. My 30" version has been doing better since I started mowing again this year.

Lithium ions don't have the memory effect nicad batteries do

Approaching 1yr. I'll have to do a 1yr review

Your so right 🤣

If I stood in one place and let the mower run for an hour while I watched a squirrel, the battery would run out with less than 2 feet mowed. So, pace is also a factor when determining coverage capability.

If really thick/wet itll crush your total runtime and sqft you cover. I got one patch of about 20x40 thats always super thick over my septic drainfield and Its noticeably working harder, but always gets it done on the first pass. Maybe about 4-5% batter in that one area

Love it. It’s been used more for pulling the kids around on their wagon then cutting 😂 this time of year, but it seriously is a nice piece of equipment that hasn’t had battery issues since the 80v replacement. I believe Ryobi went back to release day pricing also.

I own 2 55" models, I can cut 3 acres easy. You can't do that though if it's super long and wet.

@@domt7925 mine wouldn’t do our 3 acres, but the whole property is a hill. So I’m sure that’s the difference. I was super disappointed

I have had the 54" ZTR for three days and have been disappointed. I have 3.5 mowable acres. Running from a full charge and mostly on a combination of low wheel speed and low blade speed, or medium wheel speed and low blade speed I was only able to cut a little over half acre that has 8 trees. My blade hieght was 3.5". Outside temperature was about 68°F. The mower ran for about 1 hour before full depletion. My second mow was in the early morning, starting at 7 am, 58°F. Battery performance was better. Charge lasted 1.5 hrs, medium wheel speed and low blade speed, deck height 4.5", flat land, three trees, cut a full acre. So, this is disappointing for $7K. Not to mention charging issues, one 40V battery overheated twice and wouldn't charge until after sitting it in the fridge. Yes, the fridge. I too get the charge complete display, although none of the four 40V are charging or even registering on the display. This happened twice. I have only owned it for three days. Returning it.

Hopefully Ryobi gets you back up in running quickly

Yes, sorry most incline ive had was my culvert/ditch. Experienced some slight back end slipping probably due to incline but the power is no problem at all. Worse case you may need some more all terrain back tires

could probably do it, but not in one charge.

Did you ever perform the stress test? Is your concern that Ryobi isn't providing the power/storage spec'ed on these batteries?

About 2.2 but with house etc. I call it 2 Acres.

What ended up being the solution or problem?

🤣😎 nice one. Everything was built better 20+ years ago

How would I do this with a multimeter?

The charger is rated for a maximum draw of 14 amps., hence the spec. for having a 15 amp. circuit to plug it into.

@@jfrye6057 Typically when charging a battery or Electric Vehicle, You are only allowed 80% of the Circuit for risk of heat and overload. 80% of a 15 amp circuit would be 12 Amp. So if it's drawing 14 I wouldn't feel safe putting it on a 15 circuit, Id rather use a 20. My concern, and reason for asking is because I only have about 7 "safe" Amps available in my garage, due to other load on the circuit.

@@MatthewSerta1 No argument from me, but my RM480 charger is also rated at 14 amps. max, and it shares the circuit with the garage door opener. No issues in five years. The chargers only draw wall power when the batteries need charging and maintenance chargers (like during winter storage). Maintenance charges draw little amperage and the peak amp. draw during a charge after use is fairly short lived. Since the chargers monitor battery temps, they modulate the charging rate continuously. I agree a 20 amp. circuit would be more desirable, but then you would likely have to upgrade the wire in the circuit. Might be worth adding a new circuit for the mower just to be safe.

If you are going to charge a big battery, I would have an electrician install a dedicated circuit. He just fishes a wire through your wall to your garage, then hooks it to its own breaker. And, yeah, I would make it a 20A circuit for more headroom.

No problems since the new 80v! Couldn't pass on the joystick operation. Just seems so much easier

Thumbs up for the comment not the situation! Keep us posted how Ryobi handles for you.

Remove the upper blade and Run Ryobi with only 1 blade per moter. My 5 Ryobi I removed the 2 blade system and use only 1 blade per moter. 200% iincrese in Run time.

🤔 can't tell if this is humor or truth.. you have me intrigued though. I feel like I don't even need the crossblade with my straw grass. Or maybe I just leave 1/3 (center) crossblade

​@@LifeAsDaneThe crosscut blades do use more juice than the single blade setup. I actually bought a crosscut blade for my Ryobi 21" push mower and my batteries have a bit lower charge when I finish.

And yet my five year old RM480 has been nearly flawless after 170 hours of runtime and $0.22/hr. operational cost. The only thing that broke was the charging door spring, which was replaced under warranty. Original batteries lasted 58 months and the mower saved $715 in gas and maintenance, which paid for new batteries ($660).

Forgot to mention that there are five of these on my street of 16 homes. They are anywhere from 3-5 years old, none have broken down, and one five year old RM480 is used all year round to plow snow in the winter. It has over 600 hours on the meter.

@@jfrye6057 Where did you buy new batteries for $660?

When I changed out the original 75 ahr. Leoch batteries for new 100 ahr. Mighty Max batteries at 58 months, only one of the four failed a load test, but I replaced all four due to age. The original batteries had 2,082 charge cycles on them and I figured the others would be going pretty soon. The larger batteries are driving the DOD down, so the new batteries should last longer than the original ones.

Time will tell. As of right now my kids get pulled every single day behind this mower in a wagon, i use it to pull my yard cart around and the fact that its basically an electric cart/mower has been quite versatile for my property use. Also not smelling like a gas can is quite nice.

I mean seriously, how about some people just want to not do oil changes and run to the gas station to fill up their gas tanks. Some people have not had issues with the electric mowers just like some people have had issues with gas mowers with carbs going bad, engine breaking down etc. Gas mowers aren't perfect either. I mean use your common sense lol

@@chevyspeed6368 Gas mowers can be fixed by people with basic mechanical skills and I myself have a garden tractor from 2001. When the batteries are junk the mower is junk because no one is going to pay thousands of dollars to replace these batteries. How many batteries of any kind (cell phone,drills,etc.) have you had that lasted more than five years. For $7000 dollars you can have a really well built gas machine with commercial grade components that will last 15-20 years. That’s common sense.

​​@@andybecker2693y electric push mower is going strong after 3 years, and my electric string trimmer is going strong after..... 10 years.