ryobi expand-it

Hello,

Does anyone have anything good or bad to say about the Ryobi expand-it range?

I was thinking about buying one some time ago but I never got around to it! I thought I had seen it as a kit that included various attachments but now that I look into it again, it seems all the attachments are sold separately and are all £70 plus, so perhaps it's as good a deal as I thought it was. Is it better to buy dedicated strimmers, hedge cutters, and leaf blowers rather than a jack of all trades?

Have I imagined it coming with the accessories or have the prices jumped in the last couple of years?

I would mainly use it as a strimmer. Some of the reviews on Amazon suggest that the strimmer attachment melts and breaks too easily. Is this a common failure?

Thanks, Stephen.

Reply to
Stephen
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Had one a long time ago - stripped the gears in one of the attachements (pole trimmer IIRC) because they were nasty and plastic.

Spares cost nearly as much as a new attachment.

So I refuse to touch them again.

Reply to
Tim Watts

I had a dabble... first with a two stroke power head, a strimmer head, a chainsaw pruner, and a hedge trimmer attachment (although that was made by husqvarna). The power head was ok for a while before it ingested part of its own carb. The results were not pretty[1]

I picked up a 4 stroke power head since it was very cheap in a local cash and carry (about £70 IIRC). That was pretty crap really. Less power, and it did not run consistently at all angles. Eventually the timing drifted so that it would not run reliably or even rev properly. Tuning did not help, since it seems that the main problem was plastic components in the timing that wear.

So did some research on what brands might work with the accessories I had, and went for a Stihl "Kombi" power head[2]. The difference was dramatic. It starts, runs, revs, does not care about the angle its held at, has loads of power and uses less fuel. The interface with the ryobi tools is not perfect - sometimes you need to fiddle and fettle to get them working well.

Sometime later the strimmer head flew apart in mid use. A bit of it flew through the open back door and just missed the top of my sons head! So I replaced that with a stihl line trimmer head (and yes that's better and much lighter as well).

So YMMV, but I won't be buying any more!

[1]
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The one I got in the end:

[2]
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(would have been cheaper and better to buy it in the first place!)

Reply to
John Rumm

I've had Ryobi Expand-It stuff for ten years or more. We have a 9 acre smallolding. I have strimmer, brush cutter, tiller, hedge trimmer and pruning attachemnts. The most used are strimmer, tiller and pruning. They're not top-notch professional but they're pretty sound in general. I've worn out quite a few strimmer heads but they do get really heavy use here. The pruning attachmenet is *very* useful and the tiller is a nice step down from the big Howard Ratavator we have.

For power I have both eletric and petrol 'heads'. The electric ones haven't been all that reliable, the 2-stroke petrol was OK, the

4-stroke petrol I now use almost excusively is good.
Reply to
Chris Green

Not much good IMO

...and on mine the lobe of the plastic cam actually melted. Should have been a simple fix but parts are not listed.

I only bought it as a lending out tool so as not to have to loan my working kit. Still have the chainsaw head, hedge cutter head, strimmer head and extension should anyone want to collect them.

I was interested in it mostly to see how it worked as a small 4 stroke and it was good enough but not as good as a 2 stroke. Plus the obvious benefit of not breasting in 2t exhaust (which must be worse then diesel exhaust surely??),

Interestingly it differed from the Stihl 4mix, we used these in the pole saws, which are similarly valve operated 4 strokes but they imbibe a petroil mix which has a parallel path for the crankcase, via the rocker box and push rod tunnel. This means the big, small end and piston are lubricated from the oil mist in the crankcase but also as the piston descends and the inlet valve opens some air:fuel mixture is forced back and down the intake valve.

AJH

Reply to
news

I sometimes keep old kit for my own rough jobs or for lending, rather than risk my good stuff, but actually buying kit, so you don't have to lend out your good stuff ... wow.

Reply to
Andy Burns

I have the Lidl equivalent, now into its third season. Originally cost about £130 complete with strimmer, hedge cutter, pole chain saw, extension pole and 3 years warranty. I had to replace the strimmer head last year and Lidl replaced the on-off switch early on. Otherwise its been no bother, starts easier than any other 2 stoke I have owned, but is a bit heavy.

Mike

Reply to
Muddymike

I have the strimmer and the tiller too. They don't get heavy use but I'd put them in the "reasonable value" category.

Reply to
newshound

That's a shame, I was looking forward to buying a new toy :(

Does anyone make one with metal gears or is it a case of building down to a price/built-in obsolescence?

Reply to
Stephen

My 4-stroke Ryobi Expand-it head is now 5 years old and still going strong. It gets fairly heavy use here on our 9 acres powering the strimmer, pruning and tilling attachments.

The 4-stroke head does suffer from 'mixture drift', you need the special 'Pacman' tool to adjust the mixture. It always seems to drift towards a weaker mixture which makes it feel as if there's something seriously wrong but all it needs is a little tweak of the mixture screw. Mine seems to have settled down now and hasn't needed twiddling for quite a while.

The other issue is that the timing belt sometimes falls off on these

4-strokes. I don't think it's due to wear or anything, just a rather marginal design. I've added a little bit of plastic which stops it drifting off and haven't touched it for years.
Reply to
Chris Green

Dunno - but it's the same deal with kitchen mixers. Takes some research to find one that isn't full of nylon gears and might actually "last a lifetime" as the old Kitchen Chefs used to be advertised in the 70s.

People bitch and moan about the environment and ladfill but still go and buy (and allow to be made) junk products that last a couple of years and are then economic to repair.

That stripped gear in mine - the damn gear costs a few pounds at most but when I made enquiries, the replacement would have cost nearly as much as the whole attachment.

Reply to
Tim Watts

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