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Honda HRX 217 Self-Propelled Gas Lawn Mower - Field Test & Review
5K views
May 30, 2025
Jungle, meet the Honda HRX-217 Lawn Mower. I'll be candid, my yard is more out of control than yours is. It's a jungle out there, and my own electric mower couldn't begin to tackle it. Fortunately, Honda sent me an HRX217 self-propelled gas-powered lawnmower with 21-inch blade and a whopping 190cc engine for all the oomph I need. In this review, tech expert and homeowner Dave Taylor of https://www.AskDaveTaylor.com/ shows you all the cool features of the mower than give you a mower-eye's view of it tackling the thick jungle of weeds that masquerades as my backyard. And it does so handily, with remarkably little work or effort on my part. If you're looking for a great walk-behind lawnmower with an engine that won't quit and the Honda double-blade system, you'll want to check out the HRX217. Learn more: https://amzn.to/2YPk4bi #honda #lawnmower #gasmower
View Video Transcript
0:00
is this the last lawn mower I'll ever
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need
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[Music]
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maybe Dave Taylor here and I'm hanging
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out in the garage with the Beast this is
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the new Honda let me get it right
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hrx217
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k5h y now all you really need to know is
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the hrx 217 the other things are sort of
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subtle nuances but this is a monster of
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a lawnmower and boy do I need it in my
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backyard's crazy out of control but this
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thing no sweat it's going to be able to
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handle it and I have confidence now what
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makes this so cool it's 190cc engine big
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engine double blade it actually uses
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what they call the micro cut Twin Blade
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and it's 21 in gas powered
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self-propelled now my previous lawn
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mower was an electric mower and it kind
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of was a pain in the butt because every
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time I'd get to anything marginally
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thick it would just stall out and then
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you had to tilt it back and you had to
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knock it and get the grass off and then
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it would run for a couple more seconds
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and then it would just sort of die out
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again this thing I have confidence this
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thing's going to just crush it so before
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we switch to that let me just tell you
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real quick that this has the
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self-propelled so the orange here is
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actually how fast you want the cruise
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control to work it's what Honda calls it
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cruise control whereas the black one is
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actually controlling the speed of the
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engine so it's a gas powered so you got
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to put the throttle on then you got to
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pull this to get it to start but it
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starts super easy it's it's really well
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done Honda's put a lot of energy into
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this sort of nightmare experience of gas
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powered stuff where you can't start it
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you can't start it you can't start it
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this does not have that problem now it
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also has two levers on the top and this
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one with the yellow button this controls
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whether the blades are moving or not and
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Honda calls that Roto stop and the idea
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is that if I'm running like this with
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the blades going and I suddenly need to
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stop it I can do that and the engine
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will keep running even though the blades
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have stopped which is actually really
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cool and then when you're ready to start
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the blades again push the button push it
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forward and now you can hear and you'll
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see in a sec that you can hear there's a
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very distinct difference when the blades
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are turning and when they're not and
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then the second bar this is your cruise
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control and these are really nice if
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you've just had a push mower and you've
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had to go through the work of going
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uphill and everything this makes
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everything really nice with its auto
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drive so there's more I want to tell you
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about this but let's just switch to
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actually mowing cuz I know that's what
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you want to see so let's go into my
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backyard all right we're ready for a
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field test with the Honda hrx 217 let's
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see how it does with this crazy weeds oh
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oh man that's a lot of work I'm telling
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you I'm not even done with the backyard
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but you can see with all that action
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footage that it's a bear but this
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thing's handling weeds that I'm telling
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you they're like a foot foot and a half
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tall and it just cuts through everything
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it's so fantastic and with's nice is it
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has what they call the vers system so
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you can see here on the back course s of
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let me turn it a little bit is that
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there's this control that lets you
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adjust how far you want to bagging or
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mulching and that even includes support
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for you doing Leaf chopping so when it's
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the Autumn and you have leaves
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everywhere you can actually use this
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mower to mulch all your leaves how cool
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is that now one of the other things I
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really like about this is it has a rear
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discharge and that means that you can
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get real close to your fence or on other
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stuff on either side my previous mower
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had a side eject side whatever this
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thing's called bagger Mulcher and that
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was a pain because I had to really think
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in advance well I want to get close to
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the edge here so I'm going to have to
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turn in the other direction this one it
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just works great it's like a really good
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vacuum cleaner but it actually is
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cutting things so it's not quite the
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same and let's see has seven adjustable
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wheel Heights which I definitely had to
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do cuz first time out of the box and let
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me tell you in a sec about the out of
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box experience but first time out of the
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box it was pretty low and when I cut my
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front yard it was pretty darn low so for
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the backyard what I did is I raised it
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as high as it could and I think that's
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part of why this worked out pretty
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smoothly is that there was so much
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vegetation but this thing wasn't trying
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to cut you know super super slim I can
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now go down and I can actually adjust it
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having said that let me go back and say
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this is a 96 lb lawn mower this is a
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beast there's a reason I call it that
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and getting the box and getting it out
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of the box and assembling you might
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think is a super big pain in the butt
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and getting it literally out of the box
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is hard so I just cut the ends of the
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box and rolled it out put the handle on
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and that was basically the whole job
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this is incredibly easy to assemble so
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if you get it in a box don't freak
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out lifetime warranty and what else can
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I tell tell you um that's pretty much
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all the coolness about it 190cc it's a
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big engine it's just a big mower it
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really is going to rock and roll oh and
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it has all the EPA stuff cuz I know it's
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a gas mower so it has emissions but
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Honda meets all 50 states EPA emission
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requirements so it's as clean as they
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can make it and I certainly haven't had
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any issues even as I was using it I
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wasn't smelling anything there wasn't
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any unpleasant exhaust it was just me
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and my
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lawn speaking of me and my lawn can I
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ask you to click the Subscribe button so
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we can have more discussions down the
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road fantastic thank you now the only
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thing left to talk about with this Honda
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hrx 217 is the price so the manufacturer
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suggested retail price according to
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Honda is 829 bucks but I'll tell you I
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looked online and there's a ton of
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places where you can get it for $729 so
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if you're really interested in one of
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these and you have a yard that requires
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something this heavy duty then do a
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little homework and I suspect you can
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find it at a pretty good price and
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here's the thing to think about too is
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that there are $200 and $300 mowers but
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when you pay a little more you really
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have a mower that's going to last
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forever and that's what I think is that
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I'm looking at this and I'm thinking the
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next mower I buy will be a robot and it
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will just zoom along and it'll cut
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things probably on a daily basis and
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I'll look out and it'll be like this is
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amazing oh take my VR goggles off no I'm
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just kidding and the mower itself is
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going to do great but this is the Honda
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hrx217 you can learn a lot more about it
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at the Honda website which is at Power
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equipment.
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honda.com this is Dave Taylor and
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there's no way around it I got to go
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back and finish my yard so I'll catch
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you in my next video
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[Music]
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he
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