OutdoorKing Repair Forum Forums Repairs and Maintenance Questions on Trimmers and Brushcutters Two Stroke Trimmers & Brushcutters Time for a New Whipper Snipper!

Hey Guys,

We have just bought our first house and my whipper snippers have been giving me grief lately and she who must be obeyed has given me approval to buy a new whipper snipper.

Now i'm setting a budget of $250. Whats the best out there for that sort of money? Our local mower store has some Stihl whipper snippers for around that sort of coin.

Whats the best bang for buck? Would i be best to get something with a replacement warranty and saving the coin, I can get a home branded one through work for half price which is guaranteed to be made in china and have no spare parts available.

Cheers Josh

Josh I bought a Stihl FS45 new for $299 and it is a good trimmer, Chris125 got one from the tip and cleaned it up and cost him SFA, have a look in the tip and curbside finds section, they do a FS38 also for a bit less prob around the $250 mark so cant go wrong.

If your interested in 4 stroke my boss bought for me a honda UMS425U /gx25 , bent shaft bump feed .$299 with 2 year domestic waranty, nice and quite with heaps of grunt and I would never go back to anything less.

+1 for the Stihl. I bought a new one to replace my busted old Bunnings Ryobi about 3 months ago. After countless hours of research and looking I decided on the FS 50 - see link here STIHL

I picked that one up for $350, but I believe the FS 45 is around $250. I'm very happy with it so far, cuts well, plenty of power, starts first time every time and doesn't seem too bad on fuel so far.

Thanks guys, i need something quite lightweight too so anything thats big and bulky will be out. The gf needs to be able to use it as she will sometimes do the lawns when i'm at work. Surprisingly! lol

Echo GT22GES picked one up for $199 it's brilliant, its light, comfortable, easy to start and 5yr warranty. If not that either a Shindaiwa 22f or Tanaka tc-22eab but theyre a little more expensive. I was originally looking at stihl/husqvarna but got put off, read alot of bad things about them in particular the low end models fs38 etc.

Got five from the dump for next to nothing. I got two good working ones out of it. A GMC that just needed a new kill switch, and a Homelite that was the exact same engine as a Ryobi that had some parts missing but had all the bits needed to get the straight shaft Homelite going (and thanks to the guys here that helped with tuning advice). Total cost for two working trimmers, under $20. I'm on the look out for a metal cup and nut to convert the Homelite to a brushcutter blade next.