The trouble with cheap stuff
Discussion
I have a 10 year old cheapo Titan petrol strimmer from screwfix. The carb needed a rebuild this year and a rebuild kit was £8 or a new carb £10.50 so bought a new carb. So not all cheap stuff is impossible to fix. And as for not servicing MacAllister petrol strimmer just go somewhere else as it will be the same as every other 2 stroke to service. Try eBay for parts.
Bit frustrating these days that the old maxim "buy cheap, buy twice" isn't always true (looking at you Dr Martens).
A mate was looking for a rowing machine. Told him to buy a second hand Concept 2 which would have cost about £500. He instead bought a Reebok rower from Argos for £300 and after a year or so the cable has snapped and he can't find any replacement.
Now off to landfill, whereas Concept 2 are still supplying pretty much every nut and bolt you need to rebuild machines that they built back in the '80s.
A mate was looking for a rowing machine. Told him to buy a second hand Concept 2 which would have cost about £500. He instead bought a Reebok rower from Argos for £300 and after a year or so the cable has snapped and he can't find any replacement.
Now off to landfill, whereas Concept 2 are still supplying pretty much every nut and bolt you need to rebuild machines that they built back in the '80s.
dudleybloke said:
What's worse is expensive crap you can't fix.
Absolutely. I fancied one of those Karcher pressure washers with the all singing, dancing Power Control malarkey to replace my Nilfisk. Checked out the reviews and though, No, No, No along with the scores on Facebook Marketplace for spares and repairs.In the end I bought another mid-level Nilfisk and it's been fab having 2 cheap ones rather than one dodgy expensive one.
bucksmanuk said:
Rich Boy Spanner said:
My Ryobi petrol strimmer was the biggest pile of poo I ever bought. Would never run properly no matter what I did with it, or what grade of fuel was used in it, or what fuel/oil mixture. It wouldn't start, then when it did it would die if throttled up. I got so fed up trying to start it one day I literally smashed it to pieces and bought something else.
In a way, I’m rather relieved to read this. I thought it was just me that couldn’t get the bloody thing to start. I also smashed mine to bits as well….My Ryobi rotavator went the same way.
Never bought anything Ryobi since.
I rebuilt a thrown away Stihl strimmer for £33 and it started 2nd pull….
Deranged Rover said:
I have one of B&Q's MacAllister petrol strimmers. When I asked my local garden machinery emporium if they would service it they just laughed, and even B&Q don't sell replacement strimmer heads for it. It's noisy, unwieldy, smokes like Oliver Reed and it takes a different sequence of operations to get it to start each time I use it.
The trouble is, it's bloody brilliant and will chew its way through absolutely anything! A friend who is quite senior at Kingfisher's Power tools department knows it well and admitted that it's a bit rough and ready but will probably never, ever die. On this basis i treated it to a new fuel filter and spark plug last year.
I've got a few 'Titan' branded things from Screwfix from circa 2015 - a big SDS drill and a 9" angle grinder. They were very cheap compared to any recognised brand - basically if they just did the one job I bought them for I would have been up vs paying somebody else to do it. I remember my father-in-law laughing when I bothered to regrease the internals of the SDS not too long after I got it as he said it was bound to fall apart before long anyway. Well eight years later they've both put up with dogs' abuse, been dropped, been left outside in the rain, been plastered in cement/dust/god knows what, but refuse to die. The trouble is, it's bloody brilliant and will chew its way through absolutely anything! A friend who is quite senior at Kingfisher's Power tools department knows it well and admitted that it's a bit rough and ready but will probably never, ever die. On this basis i treated it to a new fuel filter and spark plug last year.
98elise said:
Same here with the petrol strimmer. Even new it was a pig to start. Once it had been left for a few months it was near impossible to get running again.
See also Mountfield lawnmower and hedge trimmer. Won’t start without Holts easy start, even the the hedge trimmer is very reluctant. New plug, fresh fuel made no difference. Roger Irrelevant said:
Deranged Rover said:
I have one of B&Q's MacAllister petrol strimmers. When I asked my local garden machinery emporium if they would service it they just laughed, and even B&Q don't sell replacement strimmer heads for it. It's noisy, unwieldy, smokes like Oliver Reed and it takes a different sequence of operations to get it to start each time I use it.
The trouble is, it's bloody brilliant and will chew its way through absolutely anything! A friend who is quite senior at Kingfisher's Power tools department knows it well and admitted that it's a bit rough and ready but will probably never, ever die. On this basis i treated it to a new fuel filter and spark plug last year.
I've got a few 'Titan' branded things from Screwfix from circa 2015 - a big SDS drill and a 9" angle grinder. They were very cheap compared to any recognised brand - basically if they just did the one job I bought them for I would have been up vs paying somebody else to do it. I remember my father-in-law laughing when I bothered to regrease the internals of the SDS not too long after I got it as he said it was bound to fall apart before long anyway. Well eight years later they've both put up with dogs' abuse, been dropped, been left outside in the rain, been plastered in cement/dust/god knows what, but refuse to die. The trouble is, it's bloody brilliant and will chew its way through absolutely anything! A friend who is quite senior at Kingfisher's Power tools department knows it well and admitted that it's a bit rough and ready but will probably never, ever die. On this basis i treated it to a new fuel filter and spark plug last year.
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