This Is The Worst Lawn Mower Consumer Reports Says You Can Buy

There are many terrific lawn mowers on the market. Whether you're looking for one powered by gasoline or a battery, a number of mower brands deliver on quality and dependability, like Greenworks, Kobalt, and more. Based on your needs and budget, you should be able to find a great lawn mower in no time at all. There are also truly terrible ones. These are mowers that earn poor scores from expert testers and actual customers alike. A great resource for these details is Consumer Reports, and there's one mower it believes is the absolute worst: the Worx WG779.

This is a battery-powered push lawn mower, and CR gave it the lowest overall rating among the push mowers it reviewed, including both battery- and gas-powered models. The Worx WG779 features a 14 in. cutting deck and requires two 20V batteries to operate. Despite the dual batteries, CR states that you'll only get about 25 minutes of work out of it on a full charge. That's about half the run time of the Greenworks MO80L421, the mower with probably the best battery life. Making matters worse, it charges slowly, and mulching and bagging can cause a lot of problems.

The Worx WG779 isn't completely hopeless. It receives top marks for its handling and noise levels, but Consumer Reports rates it below average at best in every other testing category. It's a bargain option, retailing for $239.99, and that price includes two batteries and a charger. Meanwhile, the top-rated Stihl RMA 510 goes for $329.99, which doesn't include batteries or a charger. Unfortunately, this really does seem to be a case of "you get what you pay for."

While the Worx WG779 was Consumer Reports' worst overall push lawn mower, that isn't to say it was so far worse than its competitors. Among battery-powered mowers, there was a significant drop in overall score from second to last to the Worx mower. However, among all mowers, that gap is a little narrower. That's thanks to what is CR's lowest-rated gas-powered push mower, which is the Murray 152506.

The Worx WG779 gets its bad overall score mainly due to CR's in-house testing, while the Murray lawn mower gets its low score primarily thanks to its abysmal owner satisfaction rating. Its score is so low that the Worx mower nearly triples it. CR also rates it poorly for its noise levels. It actually tested quite well with its handling, side discharging, and evenness, but these scores don't seem to translate into higher customer satisfaction.

The Murray 152506 is a gas-powered mower that uses a 125cc Briggs and Stratton E450 engine. It's strictly a side discharge mower, so if you were hoping for bagging or mulching, you'll need to look elsewhere. You do get a cutting width of 20 inches, much larger than the Worx's 14 inches. Murray provides no information on the average operational time on a full tank of gas, but it does claim that it can smoothly cut up to a half-acre. It's sold exclusively at The Home Depot, where it retails for $249.99. While that's a decent price, you can find higher-rated lawn mowers — both battery and gas-powered — for either around the same price or slightly more.