GardenKit

But to be fair, you are not going to get the same quality as a Stihl or Husky for half the price! And, as you say it does the job. I have sold several of the red ones from Stiga Mountfield with the Kawasaki engines and the owners are chuffed to bits with them. I agree though, that the harness is not that great for Pro use although adequate for domestic. The Kawaski engine is totally genuine Japanese engineering, although most of their production is now in China. To be frank, there is nothing wrong with having kit built in China these days, just stay clear of Chinese machines, if that makes sense. Stiga have some excellent mowers, especially the Twinclip range, which are their premium range. There are a couple of Pro models at the top of the range with Honda Pro engines and Blade Brake Clutches, coming in less than £1k with a 12 month Pro User Warranty and 5year Domestic warranty. If you are in the west of Dorset you will not be too far from me, why not pop over for a look? I would be a bit wary of the Titan, at under £400 its cheap, but just like your Stiga Brushcutter, cheap is not always best.

Not quite sure where the anti-Stiga thing comes from. Stiga mowers are really good, so good in fact that I have dropped sales of my previous brands of JD, Hayter and Alko mowers to concentrate solely on Stiga product. Although I do sell Tanaka hand held rather than the Stiga.

There are two different takes on mowers for 'professional' use. One is to buy an out and out Pro machine, which will be a super reliable machine, but will be very heavy and cost up to £1500. Based on working it for 300 days a year this will cost £1 per day if it lasts 5 years, but to be fair, it will need servicing and repairs if its going to do 5 years, so you can add another £0.50 per day, making £1.50 per day cost of ownership. Or, that £1.50 per day will buy you a cheaper, lighter £450 machine that you can, as Doobin says, write off in one year. No servicing costs at all, just stick it on e bay at the end of the season and get £100 back. And the added bonus is that you can lift into the van or carry up steps without medical bills. Simply put £1.50 into your budget spreadsheet for mower costs for either option. With that said, I do have a couple of really nice used John Deere mowers here. One is an R54 RKB 21" roller machine, and the other is a 18" R47 V with 4 wheels. Both fully serviced and in excellent order. You could have them both for £800.

I realise that Arb trucks may be a slightly different beast to buy, but I would give new ones serious consideration. I had always been a 'secondhand' buyer, feeling that vehicles depreciated too much to even consider new ones. So never actually checked out new prices until a couple of years ago. We were looking for a good, nearly new car (Subaru Forester XT) but there was little choice and all tidy ones were fetching good money. Almost did a deal on an 18 month old demo model until I just threw the question of new in. This dealers price was high to be fair, but by shopping around I got a new one for less than the price of the demo model, and at the local dealer. So when I wanted to replace my 2012 business Transit Van, I looked around again at all sorts. Having not been too impressed with the Transit I looked at Peugeot Boxers. Used ones, about a year or two old, with high mileage and marked bodies were going for around 13K plus vat, so I bought a new one, H2L2, 130Ps for £14995 plus vat. Less than 2k more than used ones. This deal was also done locally. To be fair, I did not think the Peugeot would be as good quality as the Transit (The best price I could get on the Ford was 6k more than the Boxer), but in all honesty this van is superb!

Tuning broken clutch springs seldom works.

Good choice Yams. You should easily knock about 30% off the time it takes with the Countax, and the quality of the grass will improve. This first cut will be tricky though. Choose a dry day if possible, Remove the mulching baffle and keep the deck high. The deck will very likely still clag up, so be careful where you switch it off as it will deposit a ton of concentrated mulch! Go as slowly as possible and be led by your senses. If you smell rubber, slow down. Their are 3 belts in the Pro train, but the one to watch is the the clutching belt from the engine pulley to the central pulley on the machine pivot. It will be the first to fail when overloaded. Enjoy.

Hi Yama Interesting post, and valid questions that I may be able to provide the answers for. Firstly though, your pricing is a little out, unless someone is offering clearance prices on old spec machines. These are the current prices. Park 416 VPM with Combi 3 EL QF (new Quick Flip) deck, Stiga ST 500 single cylinder engine, 452cc 9.3kw. 3yr warranty. retail price £4098 but sells for £3699 after discount Tornado 6108HW with 108cm deck,Stiga ST 650 2 cylinder engine , 635cc, 12.1kw. 5yr warranty. retail price of £3399, but selling for £2999 after discount. There has never been a claim of one being more heavy duty than the other. They are completely different machines suited to different purposes. You could feel that as the Tornado 6108 has a 5year warranty, as opposed to the the 3 yr on the Park, but in reality the Park has the heavier duty build quality, although a lesser duty engine. The most important thing is to match the machine to the task. If the task is regular cutting of well kept grassland then the Park models will certainly give the best finish, with the best conversion of grass to small clippings. They love irregular areas due to the front deck. But to be honest, although the throat at the back of the deck can be enlarged by removing a baffle, they are not best suited to long grass maintenance. They will work very hard trying to process long grass and result in blockage and belt wear. By long grass I mean areas that are not cut often, with grass to be removed in excess of 100mm or so. For longer grass, cut infrequently, a side discharge deck is best as the grass is cut and forcibly discharged from the side of the deck, where it is spread in an unmulched state, but with little load on the machine allowing faster progress. Sure, the standard mulch plug can be fitted which keeps the material within the deck to be mulched , but once again, just like the Park, this will slow down progress in long grass and overload the drive belts. So in summary, for fast coverage of large areas containing longer grass, the side discharge option is best. For areas of shorter, regularly cut grass, a much plug in the side discharge, or a front mounted mulching deck will both work fine. The very best finish will obtained from the purpose built , front mounted, mulching deck. I hope this helps.

If you can claim them on insurance then crack on. It will be best in the long run. Water will have got in the bearings of the shaft, gearbox and engine. Rust may well have formed which will turn any remaining grease into a grinding paste, shortening life. Water will also have penetrated down any Bowden type throttle cables and these will surely fail prematurely. Otherwise do as others have said, but be prepared for a shortened life. I will never guarantee a repair on a flood damaged machine again, been caught too many times.

Of course I agree totally, except for one thing, and its something that many people overlook in their calculations, as they seem to think their petrol is free. Aspen is at worst only about £12 more than a pump petrol/oil mix. £12? Still a lot of money but it breaks the bank a little less than £20!

Please show it on an 880!

I'm kind of guessing it may be sorted by now. 51/2 years should have been plenty of time to fix it?

You have to be careful on choice of barrel pumps as many are designed for use with oil and just will not work on thinner fuel. Aspen UK do offer a couple though, that are proven to work. Barrel pumps suitable for use with Aspen

Its not for me to pass comment on your finances and profitability Jack, but even if you used 5 litres a day, every day of a 5 day week your total Aspen bill would be £100, against about £40 for petrol/oil. So in reality you will be worse off by only £60. O.k, I realise £60 is a lot of money, but I can be certain that you will feel better and less tired at the end of each day without breathing petrol fumes and your work rate in the afternoon may well increase. An afternoon of increased output could easily cover the £60 and put some more in your pocket too. Food for thought?

This section of Arbtalk is dedicated to those who have problems with their kit, mostly saws, but also many questions on mowers etc also arise. These questions are answered by anyone with knowledge or experience of the topic and often by members who work within the machinery trade. One such member, known as Lurkalot is a full time horticultural technician who has developed his own Forum dedicated to horticultural machinery. At present member numbers are low, and new members will be very welcome I am sure. This forum is well worth a visit, and, just in case you are wondering, I have cleared this post with Steve. The Garden Machinery Forum - Home THEGARDENMACHINERYFORUM.CO.UK The Garden Machinery Forum

That's what I hear so often from my customers.

Its great to hear such a positive comment. If you don't mind sharing, what was it that made you want to try Aspen in the first place? (e.g. dealer, friend, forum, advertising....etc)

Wow, is it really that long since anybody posted on this thread? For anyone even vaguely interested, I am still lurking around on the forum and still very much a fan of Aspen fuel. Most of you will know that I sell Aspen as part of my garden machinery business, and am pleased to report that sales of this product just keep increasing. For anyone wondering what this stuff is, and if it will benefit them at all, read this thread from page one. You will get positive, and negative comments from both happy users and unhappy users, make your own mind up. Post any questions, praise, or even criticism here, I am sure it will all make good reading.

I am sorry that you have have had this problem with your saw Mr Wakefield a Tree, and can't say I blame you for being a bit annoyed. But these things do happen and it's how they are resolved that is important. The best way to get a positive outcome is speak calmly to the supplier and get them on your side. But I get the impression that you went in all guns blazing on Monday morning determined to do battle, whilst fuelled up with all sorts of advice from virtual bar room lawyers who had only listened to your side. You evidently wound them up a little (o.k, maybe a lot) and I have my suspicions that their 2 month repair time may be as a result of this. I have no connection with the company you dealt with, but know they have a good and longstanding reputation. I also believe that this tirade on a public forum, and naming the company is pretty bad form, and unlikely to help your cause. But I do hope you get a satisfactory outcome.

To be honest guys a good PDI is essential. Saws, just like all machinery need checking over, out of the box, in order to ensure that they are safe to use and correctly tuned. This process inevitably means running the saw to maximium revs and check those revs with a tachometer to ensure that they are correct. On machines with mixture screws it is not unusual to have to adjust them a little to achieve the perfect setup. Prior to this full speed check though, the oiling, chainbrake and tickover/pickup will have been checked. This allows a little warm up and bed in time before the WOT test. In any case, the WOT test will only be for a few seconds and absolutely no harm will come to the piston and bore from this, and will not take life off of the saw. It would be a different story however, if the saw was put straight into work from cold and worked hard, as many operators do.

Hi Steve... I'm still around and look in on Arbtalk quite regularly, but with you covering all the questions so well there is no need for me to comment? Still busy as ever, in fact even busier just at present. Those Stihl coils are not the most reliable as you say, and its always worth checking before pulling carbs off as its such an easy check to make. Failure is usually preceded by some stuttering and popping though, they seldom just pack in instantly in my experience.

My money is on the ignition module (coil, if you prefer). It's quite common on this model. Easily tested with a spark tester. Just to be 100% sure whip the recoil cover off and pull the kill wire off to eliminate a short in the kill circuit. Put recoil cover back on and test the spark.

Devon is a big county Paul , I guess you are nowhere near me?

This guy lives within a mile of us, so its not an issue. But he was working a couple of miles away and still left the job until the next morning after he had come into us at 7:30am for more Aspen. Would not consider using Petrol again.

This thread makes very interesting reading and its great to see so many very positive comments on Aspen from those who use it and have felt the benefits first hand. It is also quite interesting to see that the negative comments seem to be, on the whole, from people who have never used Aspen and have no actual experience of it. After 9 years of selling Aspen fuel in ever increasing volume, I get literally thousands of users giving me feed back every time they come in for more. All of the feedback is extremely positive and it never ceases to amaze me how incredibly pleased these folk are that I introduced them to Aspen in the first place. When I introduce Aspen to a new customer there is always some degree of disbelief and a raised eyebrow about the price, but they usually give it a try on my recommendation. The next thing I know is that they are in my shop for more and telling complete strangers how good it is. The price really does not matter to them. I also had a case just this week of a small, professional user who had run out of Aspen whilst hedgecutting and flatly refused to complete the work until he had a new supply of Aspen, even though he was working next to a filling station! Very few Aspen users will ever willingly convert back to petrol.

I am having great success with the Stiga 500 series of cordless mowers. New for the 2019 season this mower has exceeded the expectations of myself and my customers. The 6 model range all use steel decks that have been proven over time on the Stiga petrol powered models. These sturdy and stiff decks have stood up to the vibration and stress from petrol engines for many years, so the smooth running 1500w electric motors will cause no problems to these decks at all. Power is supplied by two compact 48v batteries that discharge together, and evenly. These batteries are compact enough that one can be used on its own in the 500 series hand held machines. There are only self propelled models in the range, and each has the ability to operate the variable speed forward motion independently of the blade. Great for driving the mower under power over loose paths etc. My customers are reporting run times of well over an hour when used with 2 x5ah batteries and around an hour when used with 2 x 4ah batteries. A Combi 43 SQ DAE (42cm) mower currently sells at £419. Two 4ah batteries at £119 each will add £238 to the price with a further £29 required for a standard charger. Total price £686, not the cheapest battery mower out there, but it is a properly built, steel bodied mower with a 60 litre grassbag, side discharge option and mulch kit included. Well worth a look at your local Stiga dealer