The Good: Great concept to have interchangabe attachments. It cost way less (initially) to get this unit plus a few attachments versus buying everything separate. The pull start was relatively easy and never took more than a few pulls.
The Bad: I purchased this unit and used it about once or twice a week during the summer to blow off the drive after mowing and to periodically edge, and use the line trimmer around the edge of the property. In the fall, I used the unit twice to blow leaves. In all, I would have to estimate I had only about 20 to 30 hours of engine run time on the unit. During the second blowing of the leaves, after about 3 minutes of use, the unit started to bog down and then quickly stopped. I attempted to restart, but the motor had completely seized. I let the unit cool for a day and tried again to no avail. I contacted Poulan who directed me to a local servicer (who was very easy to work with).
He said he had to contact Poulan to see if they wanted to replace the unit or have him repair the existing one (since it was well within the 2 year warranty). Poulan asked him to disassemble my engine to determine if there was signs of excessive heat, indicating that I had used an improper fuel/oil mixture (which I hadn't and was irritated that they wanted to pay their servicer to prove me wrong versus just honoring the warranty to begin with). They finally agreed to the unit. The servicer then started to rebuild the unit and found additional parts "melted" in the clutch area that he hadn't found during the motor tear down. He again contacted Poulan who finally issued a replacement unit but would not offer a full 2 years on the warranty for the new model (only what was left on my original warranty).
The servicer also explained that gas powered trimmers like these are rated for a certain # of hours of runtime before they begin to fail. This particular model was only rated at 50 hours. So for my usage, it is likely to "expire" after 2 years - right on time with the warranty to expire. The servicer indicated other brands like Echo have a 300 hour engine life. Of course they come with a larger price tag.
Bottom line: Be wary of the warranty and expected usage. If you aren't going to use it that often, or extended periods of time, this unit will probably do you fine. I'm still debating what I'm going to do when the replacement finally dies and is out of warranty. The options are to buy a new Poulan interchangable trimmer so I can continue to re-use my existing attachments every 2 years ($120 roughly), or to invest in something like Echo equipment, which are more expensive and I'd have to buy 3 units to replace this one. Tough call.
As a side note, from what I understand, several manufacturers use the same engine. I can't verify, but my old Craftsman convertible trimmer (which used the same attachments) had an identical engine (I think) and I had similar issues with it after a couple years.Get more detail about Poulan Pro PP125 17-Inch 25cc 2-Cycle Gas Powered Straight Shaft String Trimmer With Split Shaft.
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