SaferProducts incident

Failure type

Fire / ignition

Incident narrative

SaferProducts.gov consumer incident report 20190603-DD1E5-2147380632. Severity: Incident, No Injury. Product: Hustler Raptro SD (Raptor SD zero turn mower manufactured by Hustler (Turf Equipment).). Incident: I own a Hustler brand of zero turn mower, a Raptor SD. The design of the fuel tank is such that once initially filled, after a minute or so, the tank is no longer full to the top as the fuel has migrated to an air pocket at the top of the tank and started filling it. You can repeat this process one or two times, adding additional fuel and then the tank is actually 100% full. However, the evaporative emission system employed on this mower will then siphon out a large amount of fuel out of the fuel tank and dump all of this fuel on the floor beneath the mower through the vent on the system. It is a large amount of fuel. It is fortunate that I do not have a gas hot water heater in my garage as the fumes from this large amount of fuel would certainly have ignited inside the closed garage. Dumping of the fuel is not readily noticed after filling the tank, but apparently starts some minutes later, after leaving the area. This needs a design remedy asap before a fire does happen with one of these mowers.