Sun Joe 15-Inch Electric Powered Lawn Dethatcher with Scarifier Blade Reel and Collection Bag - 13-Amp Corded Yard Power Rake Tool Machine for Grass Thatch Removal, AJ805E

Works great BUT came with a broken ejector flap - the part is plastic. Look online and you'll see that a lot of people either received it broken like I did or it breaks soon after use. It can be fixed with a bolt. Though I'll probably 3D print something up. Sunjoe's quality control is garbage. I would avoid the brand. Update 04/22/2026 After reaching out to Sun Joe directly about the issue I had one of the best customer service experiences you could ask for. They quickly identified what the issue was (sent them a picture), ensured my purchase and then they simply resolved the issue. The dethatcher/scarifier itself is awesome. I have not dethatched my front lawn in 10 years or more. The dethatcher removed over 10 full lawn/leaf bags full of dead grass. The lawn looks pretty bad right after but after a few days of watering it looks better than it did before. I also scarified and then over seeded. In 4 - 5 weeks I will see if the work paid off. Thank you the awesome support Sun Joe!!!

Fantastic unit !! I used the recommended 12/3 15 amp 100 foot cord. It did such a great job. I used the unit right out of the box. I used the Scarifier . I set it on the 2nd lowest setting (lowest would be too deep). I did not use the bagger. The unit moves right along, no bogging down, very light weight. Cant believe how easy it was to use. I would definitely recommend. See photo.

Works great. Easy switch between dethatchers, very simple assembly out of the box. Collection bag is next to useless. Recommend purchasing a yard sweeper along with it or having a bagger mower to follow up with the thatch clean up.

Works surprisingly well. I used the scarifier attachment and it will essentially till up your yard if you set it too deep. I was doing a whole lawn renovation so i actually wanted that. I will try it again this fall just to scratch the soil a bit before overseeding. It comes basically assembled other than the handle. I found the bag attachment to be kind of useless. I ended up just raking up everything after I was done.

Honestly, this little machine works great. The big problem I have with it is, as of the time of this review, you cannot purchase a replacement tines tool. The manual clearly states on page 15 that replacement part, "Replacement Dethatcher Tines, Part AJ805E-DTNS", is available as an accessory. But good luck finding one anywhere. So what this means is, once you put enough wear and tear on the spinning dethatcher tool (the tines don't last forever and eventually they'll be worn down), this unit will be absolutely useless. When I called the company to try and find out why I can't find part AJ805E-DTNS, they told me I have no option but to send the unit back to them and I'd get a "store credit." As if I'd buy anything from them again after this.

Sun joe 15 inch 13 amp corded dethatcher Pros: light weight Easy to use Quiet Low physical strain Easy to change height Easy to swap tines to scarrifier Cons: May require multiple passes Collection bag fills very quickly Corded I have used the gas powered heavy duty machines in the past. They differ from the this unit in several ways. The gas ones use a flail type tine that is around 1/8 inch and pretty heavy. It will dig in. The sun joe uses a thin tine style that is a bit less aggressive. This is probably why you may want to do 2 passes in a perpendicular manner. The nice thing is, the Sun Joe is very easy to use. It is very lightweight and will not beat you up trying to control it the way the gas powered one will. Its super easy to control. Maybe about as strenuous as walking an excited medium sized dog. It will pull itself forward but you will need to restrain it to make sure the tines are lifting up the thatch. My least favorite part is having a cord. I needed a 100ft run so i went with a 12 awg to safely hand the 13 amps. At no point did the cord get hot nor the machine. I ran it for about 2 hours off and on. So long as you plan ahead the cord will mostly be out of your way. I didn't use the bagger attachment for very long as it filled rather quickly. I instead opted to allow the thatch to fall out the back of the machine. Debris did not get flung out at my legs which was nice. It sat on top of the lawn. I used a rake to collect it into piles and bag it up for compost. Cleanup. A quick wipe up of the machine got any loose debris off it and it was ready to be stored for the next time. Easy peasey. I recommend the SunJoe dethatcher. It does the job at a good price point. Easy and satisfying to work with.

Used the dethatcher last week to overseed about 10,000 sq ft of my lawn. Using How to with Doc's method of planting seed. It worked fairly well. We had rainfall a couple days prior to starting the project. Some areas of the yard were still a little wet. Had a lot of trouble with the two dinky back wheels locking down with mud packed into the frame above the wheels. Real pain to keep them cleared. Other complaint was the motor vents on the front of the machine were blowing the grass seed away on the bare areas that I was trying to get reseeded. Pretty frustrating. Had to put down more seed and cover with soil to get these areas planted. Sun Joe should relocate the vents to blow more upward or to the sides not forward and down where it blows your seeds away. Last complaint...one of the ejector flap hinges (plastic crap) broke before I finished the job. Impossible to find a replacement. Looked online at Shopjoe. Online chat deferred me to a human support person. Tried that and got another robot who could only direct me to the online website that already proved to be of no help at all. Sad that it should be so hard to get one little piece of plastic crap. Only good thing about all this is the machine itself wasn't terribly expensive. Just another made in China piece of junk...made to look like it will work but doesn't hold up very well. I think I'll be able to come up with something to replace the hinge so I can continue to use the machine without having to wrap bungie cords around it to hold the flap in place. I do like what it does for my yard. Just need to make sure it's not too wet and try not to break anything. I would probably buy this again as long as the price doesn't get much higher. Update: My apologies to Chinese Engineering! I made the repair to the ejector flap with parts found at our local hardware store. Took a little modifying but got it to work. Noticed that the SunJoe machine is actually a product of Vietnam.

Works fantastic for dethatching lawn. Good adjustments and lightweight. I’m very pleased with this machine!!

Works great. Takes out a lot of dead grass.

Assembling the handle is all that is required to get you up and running. I was skeptical till I first used this machine, it is incredible how much thatch it removed even after I had manually raked my lawn prior to me purchasing this machine. Switching from dethatcher to scarifier is simple, flip over machine, removed fastener bolts and switch implements. The removeable collection bag is a joke WAY TOO SMALL, fills up in less then a minute, tried using it once and only once. I rigged up the discharge door so it is partially open to deflect and to discharge the thatch down and behind the machine, if you leave it closed the thatch will bung up under the machine. If you leave the discharge door fully open your legs will be pelted with thatch and debris discharged by the machine at high speeds-and it hurts. I use heavy duty 10 gauge extension cord and have not had any issues, I have read reports of people using light duty extension cords and the motors overheating and burning out. Storage is easy, handle folds similar to a lawnmower, because of its light weight I just hang mine on the wall of my shed in the back yard. This past summer my lawn was the greenest and fullest it has ever been and people complimented me on that. Spring will be here soon, time for dethatching-second summer, so far I highly recommend this product.

The lawn on our new-to-us property has been neglected for the last few years and things are pretty matted, so I bought this thing to help give new life to the property and give things a bit of a head start for next year as we head into fall. I scarified the backyard yesterday, a couple hours after receiving it, and man, it works really well! Starting out going north-south, then doing a second pass going east-west, it ripped up a pile of dead grass - so much so that I could only do a couple of passes before having to empty the pointlessly undersized basket, so I quickly decided to run it without the basket and just leave the door down. A little later I ran across some small washed rock that had worked their way out of the flower bed over time and the pin that holds the door to the body broke. This was annoying, but I fixed it by sliding an equivalent bolt into it's place and finished the yard without any other issues. After both passes from just the back yard, and using the lawnmower to pick up the spoils, our green bin was completely full, so I guess I'll need to wait until next week to do the front yard. Over all, I'm impressed. Things to note: The body is definitely cheaper plastic, so I don't know that it'll last 10 years or anything, and I definitely wouldn't leave this outside in the elements, but the scarring blades are in perfect condition after the back yard, even with hitting some rocks. I haven't tried the dethatcher tines yet, as I needed to start with something more aggressive, but I have no doubt they'll do a solid job.

I ordered the Sun Joe 15-Inch Lawn Dethatcher & Scarifier and received it with multiple missing and defective parts. The Hex Key Wrench was missing, making it impossible to swap the blades. One of the turning knob end caps was loose and wouldn’t stay in place, forcing me to rig a workaround just to complete assembly. Most seriously, the adjusting gear mechanism was missing all three screws on the side with the switch box. This critical part fell off during use, nearly causing an accident. I can’t believe this passed any sort of quality check. On the other hand, there are several users reporting on the longevity of the machine and claiming that after fewer than 8 uses, the machine already feels like it won’t last. Between the safety concerns and poor quality control, I would urge others to think twice before buying this product.

This did the job as required with ease. Easy to setup, clean and store. Nothing fancy. The catcher is quite small so expect frequent stops. Great value.