This product is a good value, easy to assemble, light weight, easy to use, powerful engine, and well written documentation. I bought this because the ancient front time tiller needed about the same money's worth of parts as just buying this. I thought I needed a bigger tiller but couldn't bring mysel
f to spend so much on a big rear time tiller that won't fit between my rows and thus would only use once a year. I thought I'd give this one a try. I am very pleased with it so far. It was pretty easy to assemble. The only thing you putting together are the handle bars. I only needed scissors to cut packaging. The bars are attached with thumb screws making it not only quick to assemble, but portable as you can quickly collapse the handle bars for transportation. The tines are reversible for more aggressive tilling. It will just through grass and sod but it takes some time as this really wasn't intended to break unfilled soil, but I found it will do it just fine if your patient. I haven't tried reversing the tines yet to see if it makes a difference, but I'm betting it would. I just didn't need to as I was only breaking up an 8 ft strip. The store description AND Ardisam website tell you this tiller is not designed to break sod or compacted soil, and is recommended for previously tilled soil. That said I don't understand why there are complaints in the review section about this. It does what it says it does and then some. I've found mine will break up sod and compacted soil, but at a very slow pace. And that's fine. It has totally exceeded my expectations. I've filled for about 2 hours and only used 1/2 tank of 40:1 premix. It takes 50:1 per the manual, but I often run a higher oil to fuel mix on a new engine's first tank to help it break in better. The only teensy tiny quam I have is with the starting instructions. If you follow the instructions it can be kind of difficult to start. I've found if you follow the instructions but also give it about half throttle while cranking it usually starts on the first pull if not, the second. Overall I am very pleased with it. I was really expecting such and inexpensive machine to be this good. It's built well, nothing was off with the build, or fit and finish. It was packed extremely well. The owners literature is great. The instructions are clear and well written. There are good illustrations too. There is a handy supplement with replacement parts diagrams and part numbers. It was easy to put together. From unboxing to running was less than 20 minutes. It even came with a bottle of 2 cycle oil and fuel stabilizer. Using it is even better. It is light enough to pick up and put in the back of a car of truck easily. It has adjustable wheels that adjust pretty easily. You may have to knock some accumulated soil from the slide to get the wheels to lock back down but this isn't that big of an issue honestly. The engine is quite powerful for it's size. I tilled my 32 by 16 ft garden in no time. It's quite easy to maneuver. Just pick it up turn it when you get into tight spots. Most of the time it pivots easily around on the tines. The adjustable drag stake is really good at keeping it from jumping around when you snag a rough patch. I can't really think of anything that I would do to improve this little guy. I'm so pleased I just bought the edger attachment. TLDR: It's a lot of bang for your buck. It's built well. It's easy to use. Have realistic expectations and you will be pleased.
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