DeWalt DCMWP134 Review

Introduction

A familiar sight in workshops worldwide, DeWalt’s yellow and black tools are also now found in the garden. An ideal choice for someone who already uses the company’s 18V XR batteries, this enormous push behind mower can cut a lot of grass at once thanks to a big cutting deck and generous size grass cutting bag.

Design and features

• Dual cutting blades
• One handed handle extension
• Dual 18 Volt battery power

The first thing I noticed about the DCMWP134 is that is sits low to the ground, with its 52 cm wide steel cutting deck slung underneath the motor. It’s designed to reduce the chance of grass blocking up the cutting deck, and it seems to work.

The wheels are large enough to deal with a range of terrains and have proper solid rubber tyres on plastic rims. Measuring 24cm in diameter, their aggressive tread provides plenty of grip.

This extra size, steel components and cutting capacity means this mower weighs 28 kg without batteries installed. This is noticeable when you need to carry the mower on stairs or over small walls and obstacles.

Retailing at up to £489 without a battery, it’s a premium mower in price, but you get a large and capable mower for the money. However, for someone already running DeWalt batteries for their tool collection, it’s one way of saving a few quid compared with other makes of mower.

Anyone familiar with DeWalt tools will easily recognise what they do well. The large rubberised ergonomic handle is as good as the ones on its drills and saws. It’s a comfortable handle to hold on to and you can adjust the handle length with a single lever. It does rattle a bit when pushing around though.

The handle contains something I’ve not seen on a mower before- an LED dashboard. It displays the current battery charge level on the left and cutting system difficulty on the right. An indicator will also let you know when the blades are becoming dull. It’s a fairly useful addition, but the white LEDs showing the battery level are annoyingly hard to see in bright sunshine. Green LEDs might have been easier to see.

With the handle adjusted to its shortest length, you can fold the whole thing forward for storage. And when it’s time to stow it away, the DCMWP134 takes up a surprisingly small amount of space. When stood up on its end it shows a narrow profile using up just 35 x 55 cm of shed floor.

Height adjustment is available in seven steps from 25 – 102 mm and is selected with a chunky lever on the side. And because the lever is sprung, it’s easy to switch between cutting heights.

There are three cutting modes available. Cut and collect into the fabric grass collection bag, side discharge with a plastic chute, and mulching mode with a plug insert.

The grass collection bag is reinforced with a steel frame that holds plenty but does leave a bit of grass on the ground when disconnecting from the mower. And compared with the Stihl RMA 248.3, it’s hard to tell if the collection bag is getting full.

To help avoid just anyone taking the mower for a spin, it comes with a chunky yellow safety key. It plugs into the underside of the handle and will not operate without it. It’s a nice safety feature found on lots of outdoor equipment.

This mower runs on a pair of 18V XR batteries. DeWalt states that with a pair of high-capacity 9.0Ah batteries installed, it can mow a whopping 1680m². That’s a huge garden, but unless you invest in big batteries, the capacity is much reduced.

Performance

• Impressive cutting on the flat
• Too big and heavy for getting around objects
• Wide cutting deck misses small dips in the grass

I tested the DeWalt cordless lawnmower DCMWP134 on a pair of test gardens that included relatively flat lawns, a series of bumpy sections, and a decent collection of trellises, raised beds, and garden furniture.

When you’re on the flat, this mower is easy to push around. The big wheels and long adjustable handle with its comfy grip shape are a pleasure to use. Pushing in a straight line is easy, but turning around at the end of the garden takes a bit of force.

The sheer size and length of this mower makes it hard to mow odd corners. Turning around and backing out puts some strain on the back and arms, and covering large areas is easier with a self-propelled mower, such as the Stihl RMA 448 TC.

There’s no denying the power that this mower packs though. The large brushless motor is capable, and the twin blade setup makes full use of the power.

The twin blades are more than capable of cutting through thick grass, and when the mower senses the really tough stuff, it increases the rpm instantly. It happily slices through clumps of tough grasses and weeds by adding more power, which you can see on the load meter as you push the mower along.

After tackling the roughly 400m² test lawn, one of the two 5.0Ah XR batteries was down to 25%, but the other was still on full. This is because it uses the batteries in series. Once one has been depleted, it will switch to the other. This impressive efficiency must be thanks to the pair of blades on board and the brushless motor.

The quality of cut is pretty good, although it tended to leave little tufts of grass behind where the lawn dips and bulges. It’s something to bear in mind if your garden isn’t particularly flat.  

Grass collection into the huge collector bin was good, with the clippings packing in neatly. I found this bin easy to remove and empty.

Should you buy it?