Petrol: the fuel decides everything
Modern petrol degrades over months, and the residue it leaves blocks the very fine passages of a small carburettor. That single fact is behind nearly every spring no-start.
Two acceptable approaches:
Run it dry. Turn the fuel tap off if there is one, run the engine until it stops, then crank briefly to clear the bowl.
Or fill and stabilise. A full tank with a stabiliser leaves no air space for condensation and keeps the fuel usable.
What causes the bill is the third option — half a tank of untreated petrol standing from October to April.
While the engine is still warm from its last run, change the oil. Check or replace the air filter: foam elements wash and are lightly oiled if the maker says so, paper elements never wash and are replaced. And look at the spark plug — black and sooty points back at the filter.
Cordless: the pack, not the machine
Cold is hard on lithium cells and so are both extremes of charge, over months.
Store at a partial charge, in a dry place that does not freeze, off the charger. Manufacturers state their own preference for their own packs and it is worth reading once.
Check the charger’s contacts and the machine’s terminals for grass and grit while you are there.
Mains: the cable
The least to do and one thing worth doing: run the cable through your hands along its whole length, looking for nicks and crushes. A mower cable spends its life being walked over and occasionally clipped, and the damage is not always where you remember it happening.
Every machine: the deck and the blade
Scrape the deck. Grass left to dry on the underside sets into a hard mat that holds moisture against the metal all winter. A steel deck put away dirty and damp rusts under it, and the mat is much harder to remove in March.
Dry it, and on a steel deck a wipe of oil costs nothing.
Sharpen the blade now. Not on the first warm Saturday, when every workshop has a fortnight’s queue. And check the balance after sharpening — an unbalanced blade at mowing speed works on the bearings every second it runs.
Look at the lift wing while the blade is off. If the upturned tail has thinned, no sharpening restores the airflow and the blade is finished.
The other machines
Scarifier: the same deck and blade logic, and the blade cartridge is the part to inspect.
Pumps and hoses: drain them. Water left in a pump body or a coiled hose over a freeze splits both, and a split pump body is not a repair.
Sprayers: empty, rinse and leave the pressure released and the seals slack. A sprayer stored under pressure with product in it is a set of hard seals in spring.
Covers
Outdoors or under a lean-to, a cover is the difference between a machine that starts and one that does not. In a dry shed it is mainly dust and roof condensation.
A cover on a wet machine is worse than none, because it holds the damp against it.
What this site prints
The air filter, blade, wheel and cover shelves here are compatibility-led, and the pages name the machines and engine families the sellers name, with the reference numbers as printed. None of them asserts a fit on the strength of a marketplace listing.
The questions that keep coming in
Is it worth servicing a cheap mower?
The hour of work below, yes — it is fuel, a filter and a scrape. Paying for a workshop service on a machine near the bottom of the shelf can approach the replacement price, which is a real calculation rather than a cynical one.
Where should batteries spend the winter?
Indoors, dry, not freezing, at a partial charge and off the charger. The machine can stay in the shed; the pack should not, and the maker’s own manual states what it wants for its own pack.
What about the robot?
Indoors over winter on almost every maker’s own advice, with the pack at a partial charge. The dock can stay if it is sheltered, and the wire stays in the ground.
Last reviewed 26 September 2026