Help with Petrol Strimmers/Brush cutters decision

[SuperGoose75]

Not wanting to hijack the previous 'Strimmer thread' I would appreciate any advice people may have on two brands of Strimmers I have narrowed my choice down too.

My head is fried trying to choose one or the other,one of which I'm hoping to purchase in the next few days.

I was going to purchase the best (Homebase) had to offer and that was a Ryobi 25.4cc retailing at around £175.

However I have come across another for similiar money and has a more powerful engine and that is a Hyundai with a 52cc engine.

Now I know very little about petrol strimmers or than I usually hire a Professional one out a few times a year to cut a fair amount of rough grass.

I know Ryobi make quailty Cordless drills ect..! However I have read reviews saying the Hyundai strimmers are quailty and akin to a Honda for far less money.

Has anyone any experience with either?I'm hoping to use it for personal use and hopefully doing some weekend Jobs.

I was convinced by the Hyundai and thought I wanted the bicycle handle bars as the Professional one I hire has them. However by going on some sites the pros seem to like the ''loop type'' ones.

For me the Hyundai has more going for it with bigger CC's and has an 'anti vibe' feature,However it all seems to good to be true and maybe the Ryobi is the safer option. Any advice greatly appreciated as I need to be getting things done.

[blackbird]

I can’t comment on the Hyundai but I did own a Ryobi & that ended up on the tip after three seasons (very poor quality) have you looked at a STHIL that’s what I have owned now for a good few years & it’s really good starts easy never let me down I just put in a new spark plug every spring.

Edited May 16, 2018 by blackbird

[rimfire4969]

As above. We have some Sthil strimmers and I would rather spend a few extra quid and get something that will last. There is a reason why so may professionals use Stihl products including us.

I would suggest moving away from homebase and head to a local farm supply shop or Sthil dealer.

[JohnfromUK]

All the professionals round here seem to use Stihl.  I have a Honda which is pretty good, but occasionally a tricky starter.

[scotslad]

I'd second wot rimfire said, i'd never buy a pertol power tool from a shop that doesn't also fix/service them.

They have no idea about that strimmer, they don't know its faults how it last's. No one come sin moaning t the shop staff when it breaks.

If u go to a small independant dealer any problems come directly back to him, not a spotty youth behind a counter

 

For that sort of money u could mibee get a 2nd hand stihl (know i bought mine for less althou at an agri auction so was a risk) but u could get a mittox, efco or similar type of more budget strimmer that will do a good few seasons of light use and any problems the boy u bought it off will fix.

Also smaller dealers will be staking there reputation on the machine/brand if its rubbish they wouldn't sell it

[rovercoupe]

Brands aside if you are cutting a decent amount of rough grass then 25cc will not be up to the job, around 50cc is where I would be looking for. One of our guys has a honda 4 stroke and if its being used a fair bit then you don't get that nice 2 stroke smell on you!

bigger strimmers will use thicker line designed for thick grass and even run a brushcutter blade if needed. Smaller units just dont have the power to do it and the line will be forever snapping. 

I have a husky 250r its ancient and gets nothing but abuse and the only thing its needed is a new carb after I left it full of fuel over a winter . 

[itchy trigger]

bought an Einhell brushcutter 7 or 8 years ago, has the handlebars, never have used the blade on it, not needed to, use 3.0mm line in it, nettles, brambles, long grass, (knee high) use it in the orchard as cannot get a mower in there and do the verge on the lane, starts easy, would buy another, even thinking about one of their self propelled mowers

[Cant hit them all]

right depends on your budget. don't go for either the roybi or the hyundai for simple ryobi is a diy product and the hyundai is just simple a chinese product with there name put on it can get the same product of likes of ebay for half the price, and chinese stuff parts are very limited i repeat don't not buy the roybi or hyundai.  If your budget not very big look at mitox, makita, Tanaka, stiga. also don't look at stihl unless your spending big bucks as its  over priced and 70% of the machines are diy products. if you want a spend big money look at stihl husqvarna and echo. my last echo was a srm 330 running two days a week from march to october  for 14 years of mic of lawn maintenance and overgrown areas  and the bearings in the cutting head went lot of vibration now. but it never had any parts not even a spark plug or air filter and it still start and runs well.

also the new echo brushcutters have high torque geared cutting heads  allowing smaller engines to have the power / torque of  what you would get from a bigger engine 

[amateur]

4 hours ago, rovercoupe said:

........... then you don't get that nice 2 stroke smell on you! .............

Unless, of course, you add a teaspoon of Castrol R to a gallon of the petrol. 

Then you can really enjoy strimming/mowing

[harrycatcat1]

I ran out of string for my little electric strimmer the other day and had to dig out my petrol Stihl out of the back of the shed thats not been started for a couple of years. It fired up good and did the job and i bought it second hand for 20 quid off an auction site.

Edited to say I bought it as a non runner knowing there wouldn't be too much wrong with it.

So another vote for Stihl.

Edited May 16, 2018 by harrycatcat1

[SuperGoose75]

Firstly thanks for the replies and good solid advice

I had a quick look this morning at the first few replies and as I had things to do in the local town [ROI] I headed for the "CO-OP" ie farm suppliers. They had 3 different models ranging from 400 euros to over 600. None of which I was familiar with but they looked and felt like they were good quality. I then went to a Stihl dealer [NI] were I know the owner pretty well. I honestly don't know what I was thinking even considering the brands mentioned in the thread title as I am the type that usually pays that bit extra for quality and use the 'Buy once policy'. Probably having a limited budget at present is the reason.

The Pro models were well out of my range and I was drawn to a model that was £450 and he said he would do it for £410. I inquired about using a blade with it and he wasn't keen saying that they where sore on the engine/gears. This made me think that it maybe it wasn't actually what I wanted.If I was buying a Brush Cutter then I wanted the option of being able to use a Blade without  having to worry about it causing wear on the engine. I looked at a few Shooting related items and left it that I would have a stew over it.

I came home and came on here and and (Cant hit them all's) comments jumped out at me! Obviously a Man that knows his Strimmers. The Stihl dealer told me exactly the same as you have put about the Hyundai and Ryobi. Your comment about most of the Stihl products being most;y DIY also seemed to have rang true giving the fact the dealer was not advising using the blade on the model in question.

I took your advice and looked at the Tanaka range and there seems to be a few sound looking models reduced to around £460.

Needing to get the grass sorted I hired one out 5pm this evening and I started at 7pm and had it going for 21/2 hours. What an absolute Joy of a machine.I never payed much attention before but It was a Mitsubishi Tle 43 . A powerful beast that was so comfortable to use. I searched online earlier and it seems  they are made by Kazz and the model I used had a Mitsubishi engine but  other models have Hitachi engines. I have found a model with the Mitsubishi TLE43 engine but is by Lawnflite and can be got for £400.

So I am back to square one.. lol  A Tanaka or a Mitsubishi.

Thanks for your advice as it put me off  a potential bad purchase.

[

[al4x]

I have to say I have had a multi strimmer, brush cutter and hedge cutter from screwfix £125 or so on a special offer.  3 years later it’s still going well, starts easily and has had a fair bit of abuse.  The mother in law has a stihl and yes it is a heavier duty machine it was twice the price

[krugerandsmith]

22 hours ago, blackbird said:

I can’t comment on the Hyundai but I did own a Ryobi & that ended up on the tip after three seasons (very poor quality) have you looked at a STHIL that’s what I have owned now for a good few years & it’s really good starts easy never let me down I just put in a new spark plug every spring.

Iv'e had my Timberpro 5 in 1 for three years now only problem has been a broken choke arm.  I contacted the company in St Helens and was surprised when they sent me a complete new carburettor by return of post. Great service, my only other advice is to fit a new Spark plug in as the Chinese ones are not very good.

[R1nut]

I do a lot of grass cutting this time of year, over the past couple of weeks I have gone through 2 cheap Chinese strimmers! They just can't handle hours of work!

Either stihl or echo, my old srm echo I have just keeps going! I've had to replace the head due to bearings wearing out but it's worked for hours on end for years!

Edited May 17, 2018 by R1nut

[scotslad]

Is there no other back shed lawn mower type places near u? Sometimes they will sell smaller brands or 2nd strimmers.

Ur still into decent money at 400,

The 1 thing i would say is make sure ur strimmer has a straight shaft, most of the larger 1's are, the currved shafts can't handle the power needed for a blade and can break.

I have to admit i don't know a lot about strimmers, its usually chainsaws i work with but as someone said the cheaper budget models of the big brands (stihl/husky) often are rubbish really and ur better trying to buy a decent budget brand ,achine than a cheaper big brand.

1 of my local dealers sells efco and mittox and reckons there both decent enough for hobby use. I bought a small efco saw and it does well for its size/money

[sandspider]

I've got one of these: https://www.sgs-engineering.com/garden-tools/strimmers/sst520-52cc-petrol-strimmer

 

Only had it for a year or so, but can't really fault it so far. It's quite heavy, but the harness takes care of that. And the line spool is a pain to reload, so I just use the blade - on everything. Does a good job, and cost less than getting someone to look at the old Stihl I couldn't fix myself...

[KB1]

On 16/05/2018 at 10:12, rovercoupe said:

Brands aside if you are cutting a decent amount of rough grass then 25cc will not be up to the job, around 50cc is where I would be looking for. One of our guys has a honda 4 stroke and if its being used a fair bit then you don't get that nice 2 stroke smell on you!

bigger strimmers will use thicker line designed for thick grass and even run a brushcutter blade if needed. Smaller units just dont have the power to do it and the line will be forever snapping. 

I have a husky 250r its ancient and gets nothing but abuse and the only thing its needed is a new carb after I left it full of fuel over a winter . 

I have the Ryobi from Homebase, and I agree with all the above?

[Ricko]

I bought a cheap Kiam one for occasional use, it's been ok, as ever I run it on Aspen.

I've got a big old commercial Husqvarna one which I've not used in ages, very torquey and powerful but quite heavy and tiring for long periods.

[SuperGoose75]

Thanks for the added replies!

Well got up this morning to a scorcher of a day and having 24 hours hire on the Strimmer and with the inlaws due back from holidays at around 2pm I thought  may as well make use of the hire time and try and gain some 'Brownie points of the missus. They have a sizable back yard with poly tunnel, apple trees,blackcurrant bushes ect with a far part of it lawn. The bottom half of the garden had been neglected and was like a jungle. I got stuck in and there was some tough stuff with briars and "sticky backs" sorry dont know correct name for them. I was at it a couple of hours and also mowed the lawn and also the front lawn when I was at it. The next door neighbor is an elderly gentle man also with a huge garden with lots of trees,bushes,plants ect .I get on well with him as he is an avid fisherman so I spent a couple of hours strimming around his garden also. I went through a fair bit of heavy duty strimmer cord and thought id hit a hedgehog but discovered it had been dead for awhile.

I left the machine back at around 4pm and inquired about purchasing one and was told they dont usually keep them in stock but could order one. I inquired about price and wait for it! Was told £330. The father inlaw deals with said Hire company and he can claim VAT back so it would work out at around £290. Result ? And to top it off her dad said to put the prize of hire through to him for doing the garden. So the fella said it should be here Mon/Tues and it comes with cutting blade and a few extras. it really is a quality piece of equitment.

Scotslad,I am the same as yourself when it comes to Stimmers but also have pretty good knowledge on Chainsaws and i have two stihl's.

Sandspider, That one in the link is very similar to the Hyundai I was considering.

Here is a video on it

https://uk.search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?hsimp=yhs-002&hspart=CND&type=ACFB94060E2_s69_g6_e_d_n&q=hyudai strimmer assembly youtube

 

Thanks again for the replies and its Dog to water time and Hopefully i can collect them (Brownie points) later lol'

Edited May 17, 2018 by SuperGoose75