Ego Lawn Mower: Back right wheel locks up

I bought the top of the line 21 inch Self-Propel Ego mower (75 minute battery runtime) and noticed from the first time that I used it that the back right tire would lock up on me at random times when I tried to pull backwards. It would lock up even when I wasn’t using the Self-Propel feature. After experimenting with it over five lawn cuts and never finding a pattern that explains why this is happening, I determined that this must be a problem with the lawn mower.

I called Ego for support, and they gave me the number of a repair place. I called and left messages with the repair place twice, and after four business days of not hearing back from them, I called Ego again. I also filled out a review on Ego’s website this week, and I gave the mower a low rating and described my issue, and Ego provided a response to my review that said this is a safety feature.

So when I spoke to the Ego service person, I brought up that the repair place is not responding to me and that I do not agree with their assessment that my issue is a safety feature. The service person said the repair place is probably not responding because of the holidays, but it is the week of December 13. I wouldn’t expect a business to be closed all this week in the middle of December. I asked if I could go to another repair place, and I was told the next repair place was 40 miles away, and I live in a major city (top 20 in size in the U.S.). In regards to Ego’s claim that what I described is a safety feature, I asked to speak to someone at Ego who is familiar with this safety feature so I could discuss what I am seeing versus how it is supposed to work. The Ego service person on the phone said they couldn’t connect me to a person and that the best thing to do would be to send them a video.

So here is a video showing my issue where the back right wheel locks up when I try to pull it backwards, even when the mower is turned off.