Last week, my grass trimmer finally died. It lived a long productive life, achieving 17 years of useful service before its engine finally gave out. Long live Echo!.

So, I was in the market for a new one. A trip to Lowes revealed two brands to choose from, Troy-Bilt, and Husqvarna. It looked like the latest and greatest was trimmers with 4-cycle engines, the kind where it is not necessary to mix the gas and oil together. After looking them over, I opted for a Troy-Bilt with the plug in attachment system.

When I got it home, I put it together, filled the oil tank with the oil provided, and filled the gas tank. After what seemed like 100 pulls of the starter rope, the engine finally fired off….. and immediately quit again. After several more strenuous restarts, It finally remained running, but only if I held the unit completely vertical. As soon as I tipped it over into cutting position, the engine once again died. I had to warm up the engine 15 minutes before it would run well enough to actually cut grass. This is not what I expected from a Troy-Bilt product.

A design issue I had with the trimmer was that it would not accept aftermarket trimmer heads. Only Troy-Bilt string cartridges would work, and the kind with plastic blades instead of strings (my favorite) could not be adapted to the trimmer. I consider this to be unacceptable.

This morning, I returned the trimmer to Lowes, and to their credit, they issued me a full refund. So I give a thumbs down to Troy-Bilt, and a thumbs up to Lowes.

I don’t know what I will buy now, but I do know what it won’t be. Perhaps I will look for another Echo brand.