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Kevin, we have had the Stihl for around 5 years used commercially, been faultless , easy to use and light.
The dealer we bought it from who is our main supplier and who we buy a lot of kit from is also a Toro dealer and told us to buy the Stihl based on reliability and low cost of spares and although we favour Toro kit generally and not a fan of Stihl he has been proved right.
Thanks Peter, this is the kind of solid advice I like to hear. I was leaning towards the Stihl just on the basis that there are that many positive reviews out there, so this helps!
I have the Sthil RL540 Kevin. It was a good machine, very light & pretty powerful. 5 years old I think. This machine is only used by me & does maybe a dozen lawns in the spring, a coupld autumn. Normally with a good depth. The height adjustment cable came off inside the lever handle. Just a silly S hook to hold it on & pull the cable. I managed to get this back on but last autumn the cable snapped at the S hook. Easliy replaced but an absolute pain to get back on correctly. I am no mechanic but can normally fix things like this, even this morning I went to use it on my lawn, thinking a engineer mate & I had sorted it. Only to find I can't get the depth settings right, there is no adjustment on the cable either. Maybe I should just of taken it to a dealer. Otherwise a nice bit of kit!!!
I went with the Stihl in the end, got a good price for it. It is a lot lighter than I was expecting but that suits me fine as like you it'll be only be used on a handful of lawns by me each year. I'm more than happy to have a go at fixing things myself too, though also similar to you, I went to replace a drive cable on a cold morning on my Hayter and ended up snapping the housing/connector which is attached to the gearbox, so need to either replace the gearbox now or find a hack/fix to get around this, all for a bleeding cable!
All I can say is we've got the Camon LS42 and have found it reliable- the only issue is it's a right faff to swap cassettes.
Hi Tim. It's good to hear you've found your LS42 reliable. We've just launched the newest version of the LS42, the model LS42C1, which features the quick release rotor cartridges. There's a kit available to convert the LS42B1 to the new system, so if your machine is 2020 onwards then you can upgrade it.
Thanks, it's older than that unfortunately. Still runs like new!
Cheers Tim, used the camons before through hire, solid machines, however settled on the Stihl now