Who loves or hates their string trimmer?

Mine with the battery is lighter than my gas model. As for how long it may last, only time will tell.

Reply to
Joseph Meehan
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I have a Ryobi. A couple drops of stabil in the fuel tank and a short run makes for easy starting after winter storage.

Reply to
George

You may want to take a serious look at the Troy-bilt 31cc trimmer plus line. MTD has acquired the rights from Ryobi and is building the same unit as far as I can tell. They are marketing it under the Troy-bilt name. I used mine for 10 years of hard duty and passed the engine and string trimmer on to my son when I bought the new one this spring. I only upgraded because I wanted a straight shaft and for it to be here instead of at my son's house when I wanted to use it. I kept all the the attachments (cultivator and edger) and they work just fine with the new unit. In 10 years of use I had the carb rebuilt once (before I learned about ethanol and sta-bil) and replaced the sparkplug once.

Others have mentioned hard starting problems. Avoid that by not buying ethanol added gasoline, always using Sta-bil in the mix, running the unit out of gas in the fall and starting with fresh gas in the spring.

Whether you want a straight shaft or the cheaper curved one only you can decide. Play with the display models and see which puts less strain on your back. I am short and the straight one works better for me and seems to edge with less back strain.

Happy shopping. Enjoy your new home.

Colbyt

Reply to
Colbyt

I have a rechargable string trimmer that I love. It runs for about 20-30 minutes per charge, and recharges in a couple of hours. Sure, it might take an hour or more to trim your entire fence line, but the ease of use and reliability of the battery powered job makes it a real time saver. Look at it this way - Trim for 30 minutes, throw it on the charger, mow for a couple of hours, trim for 30 more minutes, etc. Saves your back - it kills my back to run a trimmer for a lengthy period, and a bunch of time and monkey motion in buying pre-mix, mixing gas, refueling, cleaning up the fuel spil, fooling with a trimmer that won't start, etc.

Reply to
Kyle Boatright

Bought a Ryobi some years back, and have regretted it more than once. We've had more trouble with it than I think is reasonable, and it appears to be designed so as to make repairs of all sorts as difficult as possible. Avoid, avoid, avoid.

Reply to
Doug Miller

Hi, My Ryobi had only one problem over the 5 years I have had. Ignition module quit. I got one for 5.00 from local repair shop junk box. Even today I used it. If I buy another one, I'd go for straight clutch driven shaft one. Tony

Reply to
Tony Hwang

Unless you want to buy a new one every year, buy an electric one. Those 2 cycle gas ones last one year at most. After that, all you do is pull the string for hours and hours. Its the same as chainsaws. If they are 2 cycle engines, I wont own one. In the time it takes to get those god damn things started, you may as well cut the weeds by hand, or saw down the tree with a hand saw.

Electric ones always run, but be sure to get one with enough power. I have burned up the motors on several cheap ones. There's just a puff of smoke and they are toasted.

Reply to
spamfree

unfortunately this is a completely typical experience. because most people cant be bothered to take the 5-10 minutes it takes at the end of the year to prep it for storage as described in the manual. there is no inherent flaw that prevents 2 cycle engines from running for many years. just do what the manual says and change the plug every year or so.

if you dont have a manual, heres a good link i have bookmarked:

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randy

Reply to
xrongor

Ya wanna buy mine? I'll sell it to you in a heartbeat if the price is right. It's a POS and a PITA. The only reason I still have it is that I can't afford a replacement.

Reply to
Doug Miller

Sounds reasonable. It works fine for my outboard motor and lawnmower.

Reply to
Doug Kanter

I use a mulching mower - that's it for fertilizer. From April through June, the lawn reaches 4-5" in height at LEAST once a week. Summer is obviously different - sometimes no mowing at all. Come September, it's back to the Spring ritual until late October.

Reply to
Doug Kanter

For someone like me, with very little in the way of edging, I think this would work extremely well.

Reply to
Bob in CT

That answers my question. The stuff's not appropriate. What I (and my neighbors) want to see is trimmed green, not dead brown. Chemicals don't have much of a chance in my bag of tricks anyway, since it's impossible to test them to prove their safety.

Reply to
Doug Kanter

Yeah...I know. But, both neighbors are in their 60s, and have gotten used to being able to just mow up to my property line and blend with my lawn. Real easy. I figure that if I'm going to throw a stick in the gears, I should compensate somehow. I have this system: I show neighbors a bunch of love. If, after receiving that love, their dogs crap on my property, I do this Tony Soprano thing with the dogs. :-) Remember what happened to Richie Aprile, a few hours before the butcher shop opened?

Reply to
Doug Kanter

According to xrongor :

There's a lot to be said about the original quality of the unit as well.

I had a homelite, and it only lasted a few years, was always extremely hard starting, even tho I did do the "end of year" maintenance.

Got sick of the damn thing (finally wrapped it around a tree) and bought a Stihl FS85R:

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It starts first pull every time. And that _includes_ starting it first time in the spring after leaving it in the garage over the winter with a full tank of gas.

Pricey - more than four times the cost of a homelite. But in our case, VERY worth it.

Reply to
Chris Lewis

Hi, One year? Are you using it every day for making a living? Take care of them. My El Cheapo Ryobi lasted 5 years and still running fine. It start with 2 pulls. Same with my Chain saw, (Stihl), mower(John Deere). Tony

Reply to
Tony Hwang

Can't live with it....Can't live without it

Lenny

Reply to
Leonardo

I bought a Shindaiwa years back when I lived in Louisiana. $250, which was steep even then. A friend of mine explained it had all bearings, and would last a lot longer if the proper gas mix was always used. I used it for a few years, until the wife got the house and the gas trimmer. It worked good.

Now I have an old WeedWhacker I bought at a yard sale. It is thoroughly used, but it still works. It has the electric line, and that is okay because of the size of my present yard. Were I to be buying a gas trimmer today, I would visit a repair shop and ask them which brand they suggest. Other than that, get an electric weed whacker and pocket the difference.

Steve

Reply to
SteveB

ya im certainly not suggesting there arent cheap and good chansaws/trimmers/whatever, but the guy said 'a year at most'. even the cheap stuff should last a typical home user longer than a year... but unless its just ultra crap, if you arent getting a year out of it, you're doing somethign wrong.

randy

Reply to
xrongor

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