"Quality" of consumer power equipment...

[brages]

I was messing around on my cheap Homelite leaf blower/vac the other night, and it was running kind of rotten - I had to keep the choke on for it to run good. I left gas in it last year - I vow to never do that again...

So I took it apart, removed the no-tamper shroud on the carb, cut some slots in the no-tamper screws, put it back together and richened the mixture just a bit. Runs OK now.

Something I noticed when I took it apart - this thing has NO air filter, just a plastic cover and a wire mesh over the carburetor inlet. Real nice design for a device that's going to spent its entire (short!) life at WOT...!

 

[JohnL]

I've seen a few of those. Nothing like the old flocked screen type filters to keep stuff out...

 

[AOD]

Most cheap cheap stuff is only designed for a 50 hour life span, figure an average homeowner puts 10 hours a year on their blower with an average sized yard, and it craps out in 5 years, they just buy another $79 special. That stuff is also made to match that $79 price point and every corner will be cut to meet it. EPA crap will make the price of this stuff go up a bit, but manufacturers of cheap cheap stuff will get around it by making their stuff run so lean that theres no way it will run more than 50 hours without modifying the limiter screws.

 

[Octane]

No offense, but you bought a Homelite. What did you expect? Ive used a few Homelite trimmers in my day and I wasnt impressed by them.

 

[gmax]

I have a Homelite leaf blower/vac, i noticed that the mesh screen in the muffler
was blocked up, so i removed it then I drilled some holes in the baffle, adjusted the mixture.
It now revs harder & idles when it's cold without the choke partially on.

 

[Jonny Quest]

Sears

I have a Sears Crapsman 2-cycle tiller. This little guy is ~10 years old. Today I was out doing some chores and the tine driver gear exploded. I have a lot of pretty hard hours on this tiller, so I took it to the shop to see what the P/C looked like. I was very impressed. With the exception of a little carbon build-up on the top of the piston, the innards looked very clean with no wear.

Since I only paid $190 for this tiller, I figure that it doesn't owe me anything.

However, I did own a Crapsman 55 cc chainsaw that I bought in 2004. For a consumer saw, this thing ran pretty hard for about 50 hours, then the piston melted and took out the cylinder.

Now, I refuse to buy anything tool is not commercial/pro grade.

JQ