String Trimmers Reviews

The cartridge is easy to put on but I have problems with the dual strings retracting back inside the casting. They continued to go back in the cartridge and unwind. I have to keep taking the cartridge off and re-thread them. I don't know if the cartridge or the Ryobi 825R 4-Cycle Curved Shaft TrimmerPlus is the problem.

Much better than having to replace the whole trimmer. Now it works well again. And, it was so easy to find the parts from you.

Unable to find this item anywhere, including the manufacturing. Amazon delivered as promised.

First of all, this part is not made by Ryobi, but it is an universal part used by other brands that have the quick change spool system. So it is not problem who makes the part.

This part consists of three components - the knob, the spring and a foam ring. The only component that will break is the foam ring. The one that came with mine crumbed in my hand when I removed it from the bubble pack. It failed without actually being used! So you paid $8 for the knot and spring which will last longer than the weed wacker itself. Don't waste your money.

I got this part in 3 working days. Put it in and it worked perfectly. No problems what so ever.

If you have a Ryobi trimmer take my advice and order this now.
It does not wear out that often. However, you will want to have it on hand when the original one wears out. If your trimmer line is not spitting out well it could be you need to replace this assembly.

A common hedge trimmer is far easier and less tiring to use...the problem is the clean up....all of the raking and bending!

However, the Garden Groom, in theroy, should make clean up a snap. However, it is not that easy.

Unlike a hedge trimmer, where all the weight is directly under your hands and the machine is designed so that you hold it close into your body, with your elbows beant.

this unit, makes you extend your arms fully putting all of th wweight at the very ends of your arms. The further something is from your body, the more it needs to be balanced in order not to be tiring to use.

It also works well ONLY with small leafed, small thin stemed shrubs and hedges such as Privit.

The stems have to be relatively short as you use a back and forth movement agaisnt the shurb to cut. If the growth is over a few inches, you have to place the unit over a few branched and push downward. Which takes for ever.

It works slowly and cannot handle large leaf shrubs at all.

Here in the south, (Florida0, things grow very quickly and it is nto always easy to get to pruning as fast as possible.

In the time it took to use the Garden Groom on two anise shrubs, (which have large leaves and stems about 1/6 inch on dia., I was able to use a conventional electric hedge priner to trim 30 ft of assorted shrubs, including Anise, Podocarpus, bamboo and hawthorn. The Grden groom did not work on the Podocarpus and Bamboo at all!

Even with cleaning up the grounds afterward, it still took less time, but more effort.

The garden groom also has to be cleaned. The shoot to the large clipping bag needs to be soaked in water to get it clean and the large bag and approx 8 foot houe must be turned inside out and dried to preven them from mildewing.

Well happy gardening!

I got my Garden Groom last July and have been thoroughly pleased with it. It is heads and shoulders above any other trimmer out there. It will save you from hours of back ache too as you don't need to bend down to constantly pick up debris. I can't wait for other products from Garden Groom.

I purchased these items to have spares on hand, as I don't know how long these replacement products will be available because the weed-wacker they go to are very old.

This was just a convenience purchase for an ordinary item.

This is a good weedeater. The only complaint I have is it is a bit heavy compared to a 2 cycle. Otherwise, it runs great and does a good job.

The product arrived as promised. It was not difficult to asemble although the advertising did not tell me I would have to do that. The trimmer works well.
It has two limitations. One is that it is heavier than I thought it would be. Second it does not run for the 45 minutes promised. For the first 30 minutes it is strong, after that it begins to lag.

I eventually smashed this trimmer in frustration, after the 10th time in one session that I had to mess around with the string cassette.

The string cassette in this trimmer seems to have been intentionally designed to be as useless as possible. Impossible to load, no positive holding mechanism for the string, so it invariably spits out the last foot or so of string, and if you let it get a little too short, the string retreats into the housing.

Based on my experience with this item, I will NEVER buy another Toro trimmer.

My wife bought this trimmer. I had previously used a good old fashioned scissors type trimmer. It worked reasonably well, although we did have some trouble with the spool head. After I unwound the cord and then rewound it, it worked fairly well. This year, after charging 24 hours, it runs about half speed for about 10 minutes. A replacement battery is only $45.00. That leaves about $15.00 for the rest of the machine. I guess that's about right.

After my old gas-powered weedwhacker basically fell apart from age, I saw this model Ryobi at the local hardware store and decided to buy it, as it was rather inexpensive.

It operated rather well for the first couple of months, though its exhaust was always more smoggy than I think it ought to have been. Then, one day I attempted to start the engine and it simply would not start. After making numerous attempts to start the engine over the course of many days, all of which were unsuccessful, some component broke entirely. The mechanism that attached the flywheel to the piston no longer catches like it should, and the flywheel will nearly spin freely, not moving the piston at all.

The weedwhacker was only used less than a dozen times, and was only a couple of months old. Lesson learned - you get what you pay for.

I love my Ryobi orbital sander! But this trimmer's engine seized up after less than a year of frequent use, and had to be gently tapped loose with a wooden dowel. (I assumed I had somehow messed up the oil mix.) After that the carburator never would throttle down to a decent level; one day the muffler rattled off and melted the plastic engine cowl... The Ryobi 792 was a dependable starter but ran too hot and naturally wasted gas due to the throttle problem. Your other problem will be that you can't get most parts for this trimmer. Check that out before you buy one. Call around, use the Net, etc.-- before you buy.

I had mine for about 5 years, used it about once a month for some pretty heavy use. The fuel lines (plastic/rubber) hardened up and cracked to pieces finally. Not a total loss for me, I could optionally somehow find replacement parts for it, but I'm sure that other repairs would soon follow. Overall it was cheap at the time and lasted me a while without any maintenance.

I bought my Troy-Bilt 4-Cycle trimmer about 3 years ago. Was told it was a professional model. Was impressed at first but wasn't long before it began to lose power. I have to hold the trimmer and the edger just right so the blade doesn't stop spinning. I changed the spark plug, check the gap setting on rocker arms, changed the oil, nothing has helped. Now I am shopping for a new trimmer.

The engine died prematurely, it did not last as something like this usually does.

With the brushcutting blade, I REALLY put some use to this. I cleared out a hill of blackberry bushes in a 9 ft wide creek. It was VERY dense. Old and newer growth. Some of those nasty vines were thicker than my thumb! And they were 12 ft high. No way a 2-cycle would have endured being upside down repeatedly without stalling. It took them out like they were cotton threads.

It is well-balanced. I have a bad back and am a partially disbaled woman Army veteran, and at only 5'4" (rounded up ;)), it was easy to handle.

My only complaint was the foam grip on the handle kept shifting and I would be holding bare metal in my gloved hands. And do NOT forget safety glasses and earplugs!

i purchased a trimmer after about 1 hr. running it faild to run at all I returned to the srore. they gave me another one. now tiis new one will onley run if you leave choke partly open what is wrong. Ive owned RYOBI products for years this is the first trouble I had lik this

will the person who wrote and said once you got the trick of starting, please post the trick. I've never been able to pull the cord on mine. it's REALLY difficult. Keeps us all wore out before the grass gets done. and then we don't use it. it won't start. :( Too high priced for the difficulties in it. Needs an electric start.

Trimmer is very good for cutting behind fences, in muddy ditches, and on uneven ground--light and easy to maneuver. It is easy to handle, and has lots of power---will cut fairly tall weeds.
The only drawback is the starting--it is harder to start than a Honda 4-cyle engine; however, once I got the routine, it starts every time.

Being an engineer, I`m amazed when a product is sold with such glaring design flaws. In general, this is a well-designed weed trimmer save for the last three inches at the business end, which completely flunks lunch.

On the positive side, it's a well-balanced tool, and seems adequately robust for a lightweight trimmer. I didn't sense the motor was ever bogging down, or in danger of overheating.

Now the negative... Like others on this post, I've spent more time looking for the plastic cap on the string spooler than using the tool. It constantly flew off, and the whole spool assembly burrowed into the weeds. After the third disintegration, I lost the cap for good until I stumbled on it the next morning 25 feet from where I lost it. 5 more minutes, and it was again lost to the ether. (later found ~40 feet away)

Back to the store, and, after looking at other models, I walked away with a second Grasshog, figuring I had a spare cap still somewhere in the yard.

I lost the cap for the replacement three times, but managed to find it each time. I then modified it by adding a sliding shim behind the clips for the cap. This was successful, but...

After 20 minutes, and 5 rethreadings, the autofeed failed. Taking the cap off, I found a little brass bushing, that was part of the centrifugal feed lever, loose in the housing, and the plastic nubbin it was intended to be part of, worn down to nothing.

My advice to B&D, Field test your equipment before putting it on the market, and replace this string spool with something that works, and you'll have a good little tool.

My advice to you, find another trimmer until B&D figures out that good design should apply to the entire tool.

Do what I did after the spool hub cap flew across the yard after only 20 min. of use, file a complaint with the Consumer Product Safety Commission online. The CPSC are coming to get this trimmer from hell today! A small price to pay if they force a recall!
Black and Decker "help line" is useless, told to return to retailer! The person at the other end of the line has probably never seen a blade of grass, much less a string trimmer! They were not interested in the safety issue of flying hub caps across the yard at a high rate of speed!

Never again will I buy B&D products!

I bought the B&D GH1000 because it had a 14" sweep and because it was remarkably well-balanced and ergonomic.

I used it for five minutes and the string spool flew off and the string went everywhere. I tried to rewind it and reinstall the spool. Again after five minutes the spool flew off and the string unwound.

I took it back to the Lowes where I purchased it. They gave me another one just like it. I used the 2nd one for about 10 minutes. The spool flew off and the string went everywhere.

I took it back to the store and got a Troy-Bilt electric string trimmer for about $30 less. It was not so well-balanced or comfortable to use, but the spool did not fly off, so I was actually able to use it for some work.

Shame on B&D.