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| Customer Reviews: | | Average Customer Review: ( 65 customer reviews )
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
19 of 19 found the following review helpful:
 GOOD BUY!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I OWN 7 JUST LIKE THIS ONE Feb 17, 2008
By M. Hyatt
"AMAZON BUYER"
I OWN A SMALL LANDSCAPING SERVICE AND I ALWAYS KEEP 2 OR 3 EXTRA TRIMMERS FOR REPLACEMENT ON THE SITE. I HAVE USED MOST ALL BRAND NAME COMMERCIAL TRIMMERS AND HAVE FOUND THAT THE STRAIGHT SHAFT RYOBI WORKS BETTER FOR ME BECAUSE OF THE COST.... I CAN BUY 5 OF THESE FOR THE PRICE OF 1 COMMERCIAL TRIMMER. THE RYOBI'S ARE TOUGH AND WE USE THEM HARD. WE USE A LARGER STRING THAN WHAT IS SUGGESTED, BUT THE LARGE 30CC ENGINE CAN HANDLE IT W/ EASE....GREAT BUY FOR THIS TRIMMER... BY THE WAY THE FACTORY RECONDITIONED TRIMMER LOOKS AND WORK LIKE A BRAND NEW ONE...SO DON'T WORRY ABOUT THAT!
***PLEASE KEEP IN MIND THAT THIS TRIMMER IS BUILT FOR HOME USE AND IS NOT A $300-$500 COMMERCIAL TRIMMER...I AM RATING A $75 TRIMMER!
12 of 12 found the following review helpful:
 Good Power Plant for Attachments Apr 27, 2008
By Publius Rex
I am going to write this review to cover several items, and just duplicate it to all the items involved. The items are the reconditioned Ryobi 30 cc straight shaft tiller, the Expand-It Tiller attachment, the Expand-It Edger attachment. The stars and titles, though are for the item it is attached to.
The Expand-It attachments are made by Homelite. I'm not a Homelite fan, but why this was apparently avoided in the descriptions is beyond me. This having been said, they appear to be at least as capable as their more-famous competitor brands.
Factory Reconditioned Ryobi 18-Inch 30cc 1 HP Gas Powered Striaght Shaft String Trimmer (Non-CARB Compliant) #ZR30002
Factory-Reconditioned Expand-It Tiller Attachment for String Trimmers #ZR15521
Factory Reconditioned Expand-It Edger Attachment For String Trimmers #ZR15518
The Ryobi reconditioned power unit for these units is more than adequate for all the tasks involved. Using the straight shaft Ryobi power unit, though can be a little tough. "Reconditioned" means some surface imperfections. I could see no sign of the power plant itself ever having been used. I opened the gas tank and sniffed inside, and could detect no smell of gas, so I believe this was purchased and returned unused or possibly was a display model. Regardless, I believe I got a new unit for a less than new price. You may or may not be as lucky.
The handle that comes with the Ryobi mounts with zero friction surfaces. The wingnuts used to tighten the handle go on a smooth metal bracket that attaches to a smooth plastic backer, around a smooth, painted metal shaft. I added some shelf-liner (the rubber, non-stick type) inside the bracket, then really cranked down on the wingnuts, which helped the situation with the edger and trimmer. More on the cultivator, later.
The power plant started easily by following the instructions. It uses a 50:7 gas:oil mixture, so make sure you have the proper fuel on hand. I primed it seven times by pushing the rubber bulb, pulled the handle two or three times in the full choke position, put the choke to the half-choke position, pulled two more times, and it started. All that I've mentioned to this point is in the instructions. What follows is my own advice: You need to hold the "run trigger" to make it start easily, but this causes the attachment to start rotating immediately, so you then must quickly release the trigger. It takes a slight bit of coordination, but it is easier than starting it without holding the trigger.
The edger works very well. Our yard has apparently never been truly edged. The previous owners were of the "good enough" variety, and probably rarely cut the lawn, much less edged it. The current lawn crew only uses a string trimmer to give an edged appearance. The Expand-It edger tore into the soil easily and left a neat line. I've not finished all of the edging yet, but it appears to work well, and I anticipate no problems.
The String trimmer worked well-enough for the first few feet. I was sent the wrong cut-off attachment, but Amazon was phenomenal in their response. I sent an email around 10:00 pm the night I received the unit with the curved-shaft cut-off/guard unit instead of the straight-shaft line cutter-guard. When I woke up, the reply from Amazon was in my email, and a replacement for the incorrect unit had been shipped by that evening, which was a Saturday. I expect to receive it within two days, which is three days after the original unit arrived. All in all, I didn't buy the unit for the trimmer, anyway, but for the few feet I could do without new line, it worked quite well. I don't expect any problems with the new cut off unit or the trimmer.
The cultivator is NOT for the weak of arm or back. I am over 6 feet tall, fairly athletic, and weigh over 200 pounds. I worked some virgin soil, hard-packed, with roots and rocks. I did about 8 feet by 25 or 30 feet in two to three hours. The cultivator requires a LOT of muscle. If you hit a small rock, it will just toss it forward. Large rocks require stopping and removal, which is to be expected. Smaller tree roots are cut right through, but larger roots cause the unit to buck upward with a lot of force. It is easiest to work the unit down into the soil by pulling it toward you as you push down. There is not enough weight in the cultivator to be of much help. All in all, I'd prefer more weight to help me push down on the working end, even if it means the unit is harder to get into position to use it.
There is no good place to put the handle to use the cultivator. Even with my added friction pad (rubber shelf liner), the handle continued to twist around, only to be re-adjusted several times. It works better with the shelf liner, but still doesn't stand up to the work required. I was using this unit probably to the extent it can be expected to work, so this was really more of a minor inconvenience. I was typically stopping to catch my breath anyway, and re-adjusting the handle was just one of the things I could do while catching a quick rest. You'll need to stop fairly often unless you're some kind of tri-athlete.
I hit a rock that got wedged between the tines and the guard. This caused the unit to lock up. Once I freed up the rock by literally breaking it out with a hammer, the unit went right back into operation none the worse for the wear. I find this torque-overload-shutdown to be very worthwhile. The power plant continued to operate. I do not know if the power plant or the cultivator is responsible for the shutdown, but since no damage was done to either unit, I was quite happy with both of them.
Changing attachments is done by hand, and takes literally less than a minute. About the only thing you could possibly do wrong is force the unit into place without the small square drive-shaft lining up. As this free-wheels easily, just slipping the unit back an inch or two and re-inserting it is all you need to do to re-align the new attachment. Then you hand-tighten and you're on your way.
Pros: Power plant, edger, tiller, and trimmer do the job well. Holds up well, and has plenty of power. Multiple tools for the price of a single unit is a real plus.
Cons: Handle needs some kind of friction increasing device (splines, pads, etc.). Cultivator/tiller is too light, requiring you to use arm strength to get it to bite better into hard soil. There is no good place to put the handle for balance for all types of units.
10 of 11 found the following review helpful:
 Not happy with this item at all Jul 08, 2008
By M. Gil
Received this trimmer, unpackaged the trimmer and assembled all parts. When I opened the gas tank, noticed a very strong odor of gasoline (odd, since Amazon will not allow you to ship back items that have had gasoline in them, but yet ship them to you). Unit was pretty beat up (more than I thought would be acceptable), wear on gas tank and other areas, but understandable since unit is sold as reconditioned. Immediately tested it with proper fuel to oil ratio. Seemed to work great, but I couldn't be more wrong. After about 1 hour went back to use the trimmer, noticed fuel/oil leaking from carb assembly. Unit had trouble starting this time, but eventually got going. Positioned the unit differently overnight. Next morning noticed a very large puddle of fuel/oil (about 1/4 tank). Unit will no longer start. Contacted Ryobi tech support, they acknowledged that there was a problem with the trimmer, and recommended that I return this item to seller (amazon). Contacted Amazon, and they informed they will not accept a return. I requested/recommended that they contact Ryobi regarding there quality control of these units, since many others seem to have similar problems. I will be taking this trimmer to a service center, after 0 days of use. I am very dissatisfied with this product and would not recommend it to anyone.
4 of 4 found the following review helpful:
Great Value Apr 16, 2008
By stuston
"E&SW Engineer"
I was very pleased with the value of this trimmer. It ran great right out of the box. My only issue is that there isn't much line included, and it came loose one time and I had to stop to remove and reassemble the entire bobbin. I found the forward loop handle to be a bit too small to easily balance and manuver the head, especially since a sholder/neck strap was not included. After some practice, I got the hang of it, but I will be looking for a strap to add.
The Expand-It system promises to make this even more of a great value.
No issues with the reconditioned product, simply came in a brown box and has a "RECON" stamp in the plastic.
3 of 3 found the following review helpful:
 NOT BAD , BUT A LITTLE HEAVY Apr 26, 2008
By Walt in VT
"Walt"
I bought this trimmer new three years ago , worked great , started easy but I found that the straight shaft was a little heavy and out of balance, always wished I had bought a curved shaft. They seem to be more balanced. I replaced the tap feed string head with a universal double string head from ECHO because I found that the tap feed head was complicated to rewind. The first time I used it this year which would have been my fourth season , it ran about five minutes and died. I lost compression and I couldn't get spark or fuel. I took the engine apart and found that the cylinder was full of small metal chips so I don't think it's worth fixing. Anyway I got three good easy start seasons out of it so that figures out to about $40.00 per season. I think I'll try a Homelite this time but I don't expect it to last more than a few years . These things are basicly throwaways these days so I won't spend more than I have to. I agree with the other reviews , reconditioned is the way to go . After all reconditioned ones are 100% inspected and tested and new ones generally are not. Chances of getting a good one are better.I have a lot of RYOBI tools and generally think they are well worth the money they cost. Think about it for what the RYOBI costs you could buy two or three for what you would pay for one Stihl or Echo and who knows if they would last any longer. Incidently , I have a 1/4 acre residential lot.
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