For years we had a small Honda rotovator and it was fantastic, but two years ago it gave up the ghost, after much abuse, dealing with the usual hidden brickbats, stones, roots string etc that you normally find in gardens! So I spent £500 on a new Viking rotovator which was capable of rotovating a swath 1m wide. After 18 months and not that much use it is now relegated to the store and soon to be shipped off to the big second hand auction site in the sky.
So far I've had three blades, simply bend over as soon as they've hit anything and had to be straightened and finally cut back, the air filter fall apart, and finally this weekend, when it was being used on a soft lawn, not containing any of the above, the exhaust cover fell of, and the plate holding the leg at the back sheared off. Looking at it know all the metalwork appears to be very thin and poorly welded, with the minimum required. Really, really poor build quality and very unimpressed. In fact so unimpressed I've managed to find a decent replacement of my original Honda.
any body else been unimpressed by Viking?
Views: 454
Replies
This is the point of us needing a simple forum for gardeners!
If you look back, I trialled the new Pro 21" roller Viking mower last year, and documented every failure until I got my money back. For the record, it was the dealer who refunded it, as Viking said the repeated failures were down to the repairs, not the design of the £19 plastic drive unit....seriously! 5 months ownership, and it was in the shop more than I had it working. The demo machine they lent me also lasted a week at best.
There was a thread last week about them ruining the pro roller machine as well?
A real shame, as they addressed the points the Honda Pro mowers fall down on, namely weight, wet collection and speed. Viking roller mowers are best avoided, and the dealer should be aware of the problems and be honest with you.
When mine went back, the dealer told me he was asked to put it in a warehouse. He described it as that scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark in the huge store room, with row after row of broken Viking roller mowers stretching out so far as the eye could see. :-(
Hi Mark,
The reason I trialled the Viking last year was because they'd upped it to commercial-use. It never got up-dated on their website, but the 655RS was given a one-year commercial warranty and supposedly had up-graded drive parts from the 7-series.
Interesting that your VR is fine, as the only difference is the blade-brake clutch I think? Something Hayter had massive issues with on the larger machines as well, and don't offer on the Pro versions.
It's a shame, but I have to say avoid Viking rollers for now at least. Not only are the RS versions not up to daily use, the service from Shihl was awful. Great dealer service, but ultimately they refunded me at their cost as Stihl messed around so much. We just don't need that hassle, which is why I raised it with the rotivator in question here. I'd say get your money back and buy something else, before you get in to protracted repairs and arguments.
Unfortunately, £500 is incredibly cheap and as with all these things, you get what you pay for. I would guess it was only intended for light domestic use such as rotovating an allotment once a year.
Meant to say they've ruined the pro wheeled Viking, the 7-series, but there's no edit function on this site after a few minutes!
One other thing to add, going back to a Honda engine I've halved my fuel costs again. Not a deal-breaker, but the Briggs engines on the Viking are literally double the fuel on any job. The speed of the Viking roller made that worthwhile if it didn't break once a week, but I don't get why the equivalent engines use double the fuel?