Tuesday, October 22, 2013

Short product review Poulan Pro Brush cutter

I picked up a Poulan Pro brush cutter/ trimmer on closeout at wally world last week. It was a 2 stroke model with interchangeable heads. I also picked up the cultivator/mini-tiller head to go with it.

I need a brush cutter in my woods. Since the ash borer killed all the ash trees the light has reached the forest floor and the brush is close to impenetrable. I need to clear away the brambles and other brush for cutting firewood.

Since the Poulan Pro was on sale I figured I would check it out and see how well it did.

I got it home and found the instructions were as easy to follow as any others I have used to assemble equipment. The cutter went together quickly and the premix is the same as I use in my chainsaw so I fired it up to see how it worked.

It fired right up when I followed the instructions for starting, but I noticed I had to feather the throttle quite a bit to get it up to speed. I also noticed it seem to not be running quite right, I figured it may take a bit to warm up and get broken in.

So I walked over to a patch of weeds to see how the cutter blade would work...the mixed weeds and grass were difficult for the blade to get through, not because of lack of power but they were easily pushed out of the way and it didn't cut them well.

So then I walked down to the woods to see how it would work for the reason I bought it. I should at this point mention the kill switch wouldn't work. I had to pull the plug wire to kill it for my trek to the woods.

I got down there and started in on a mixture of brambles and 1/2" saplings. I easily  cut a swath about 15' wide and 30' deep into the woods. At this point I had been running it for 15 minutes total and it still wouldn't smooth out or let me give it full throttle without feathering it open a bit at a time.

So I decided I was going to return it since it was a new machine and while it cut pretty good for what I wanted to use it for it, something was messed up with it.

I got back to the house and dumped the remaining gas back into the can and decided to start it to run the carb empty. When I pulled the starter rope it stayed out and I couldn't get it to go back in...so apart it came and back into the box and back to wally world it went. There were no hassles with the return.

The Poulan Pro brush cutter in my opinion worked well on actually cutting the brush I needed cut, even though it wasn't running right and I had to return it. I would give it 1 1/2 stars out of 5

I will be picking up a Stihl in the next week or so and I will give a review of that brush cutter.

Still clinging to my God and my guns,
Randy

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