I never participated in the great McMansion, biggest lawn tractor, biggest gas grill competition of the last few decades so I buy cheap weedeaters. I just don't see any need for Joe Blow to spend a small fortune on an industrial weedeater and lawn mower to cut his 7/8th's acre of suburbia once a week. The John Deere "lawn tractor" seems to be the status symbol of choice these days. Interesting that there's almost nothing John Deere on any of them except the name and the green paint. Most lawn tractors bought at box stores are made by only a handful of manufacturers. Same with weedeaters.
The cheap little Weedeater brand weed whackers that I've been using for the past few decades are manufactured by Poulan and have many brand names slapped on them. They're definitely not made for industrial usage but for less than $90, you can't beat 'em. To get the best performance from your own unit, you will need a Poulan carb adjustment tool to tune the fuel mixture and just a little bit of common sense and technical ability to keep it running well.
My newest Weedeater is a FL25 that I bought in the spring and it ran absolutely great until a few weeks ago. A little troubleshooting led me to the fuel filter which looked like the aluminum was disintegrating and actually left a stain in the plastic fuel tank. Weird. Of course, the guy at the small engine shop blamed it on ethanol blends. It sounds feasible but I've been running ethanol blends in everything for more than two decades and have never seen this happen before. Ethanol blends are not supposed to be stored for more than 90 days so I'm wondering if the age of the fuel may have contributed to the problem along with the extreme heat this summer.
$2.50 for a new filter and an hour spent disassembling, cleaning, and tweaking the Walbro carburetor got her back in primo condition. Stay tuned for a future entry detailing exactly how to tweak that carb!
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