Product Reviews

Overall:

5 out of 5

Durability:		5 out of 5
Performance:		5 out of 5
Ease of Use:		4 out of 5
Ease of Starting:		5 out of 5

MattM4

(read all my reviews)
Location: Orchard Park, NY
Gender: Male
How Large: Greater than 1 acre but less than 2 acres

Excellent Choice

Date: October 31, 2009

"Best purchase I ever made. Easy to set up right out of the box, easy to use, and easy to start. It picks up leaves, and if a stick gets in your path, just pick it up and throw it in the chipper. The only problems I have with this product is the weight. I live in New York and it gets very wet around fall making our backyard damp, this will just sink in the mud if you don't move fast enough. I also have a problem with the amount of fumes it gives off, after a while my mouth tastes like oil, and my clothes smell like gasoline. But, I love seeing green rather than leaves. I recommend this to people with flat, dry, and small yards."

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Overall:

4 out of 5

Durability:		3 out of 5
Performance:		3 out of 5
Ease of Use:		5 out of 5
Ease of Starting:		5 out of 5

Fleetcaptain

(read all my reviews)
Location: Falls Church, VA
Gender: Male
How Large: Less than 1/2 acre

Great but...

Date: July 10, 2009

"I have really enjoyed the machine and done a lot of work with it but it does have a few week points. The vacuum doesn't work as well as I expected and the hose clogs easily. Fortunately, I bought it more for light chipping than leaf pick up.

The first real problem I has was that the screws that secure the chipper feed tub were always vibrating loose. The performance of the chipper depends on the correct input angle so even a little looseness can be a problem. Retightening these screws every few minutes worked for a while but eventually the threads in the skirt wore out and it became impossible to tighten them properly. I solved the problem by inserting the equivalent of a metal toothpick into each of the three holes, tighting the screws and then using a gob of RTV to keep them from vibrating loose. It worked well but it is a pain if you ever need to remove the chute to clear debris. A better design would have been if there were studs that came up from the skirt so the chute could be secured with lock nuts. It would cost a little more to make but would last a lot longer.

After about 30 hours of use I noticed that the machine was no longer really chipping, but was turning the sticks fed into it into long thin strips. Investigation found that the chute had deformed a little. The chute was made by inserting a box shapped tube through a flat plate and welding these pieces at the proper angle. This angle and the clearance between the chute and the chipper blade is critical. What I found was that the trailing edge of the box tubbing (a corner actually) had been deformed by the pressure of the wood being chipped repeatedly being beaten against it by the chipping blade. This increased the clearance between the chute and the chipper blade, which is why I'm getting wood spagetti rather than chips. Not only is the resulting "mulch" lousy ground cover, it has a tendancy to get wrapped around the impeller shaft, between the impeller and the skirt where you can't get to it without removing the impeller and to do that you need a special tool (just ordered). Things have bound up enough that I could no longer start the machine against the resistance created by the debris wrapped around the shaft.

It would be a simple fix to beef up the chipper chute a bit so it doesn't deform so quickly and maybe that change has already been made in newer models. If so, I would sure like to get a hold of a stronger chute!

I hope it doesn't sound like I do not like the machine, because nothing could be farther from the truth. It is only because I depend on it so much that these little issues become important. I'm hoping that the feedback will help the engineers come up with a better design."

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Overall:

1 out of 5

Durability:		1 out of 5
Performance:		1 out of 5
Ease of Use:		1 out of 5
Ease of Starting:		4 out of 5

Angus

(read all my reviews)
Location: Dallas Texas
Gender: Male
How Large: Less than 1/2 acre

DUD	Date: December 3, 2008

"I purchased my Troybilt CSV060 mainly because it was Troybuilt powered by Briggs & Stratton. I felt I could justify the cost of the machine since i have several large trees and
presumed it would last several years.
The first day of usage I found that if the leaves were spread across the yard thinly the
machine would work ok. If however the wind
had blown the leaves into a pile attempting to vacuum the pile would result in about 5 minutes on my knees clearing the input chute of compacted leaves. If there were any small
limbs mixed with the leaves the on the knees
clearing exercise consumed about as much time as actually vacuuming . The machine probably would work fine with small soft leaves
such as maple but I have oak trees. The debris bag is supposed to hold 2 bushels of
leaves but if it is allowed to fill to full I found
that I would find myself holding the bag suspended with one hand while digging leaves out with the other.
Ok everything has a work-around so I found
the work-around to my problem was to using the leaf blower I would blow all the leaves into a corner of the yard ,rake all the small limbs, dispose of them ,blow SOME of the leaves INTO
the yard run the vaccuum,blow more leaves and run the vacuum repeating the process untill all the leaves were gone. (all the while being careful not to fill the bag more than half
full)
I used the machine two years (about 20-30 hours each year). Before putting it in storage
I changed the oil and filled the fuel tank to prevent the buildup of moisture.
This year as I had done in the past I started the motor (after checking the oil and fuel) and
let it warm up before using it. After 2 half bags of leaves the motor began smoking, rattled a bit and died. I took it to a local lawn
service center that claims to be an "Authorized
Troybilt Service Center". I was told by the
technicion "at motors blowed" and it would cost $363.00 to repair it after no more than
50 hours use. (That's about $10.00 an hour)."

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Overall:

5 out of 5

Durability:		5 out of 5
Performance:		5 out of 5
Ease of Use:		5 out of 5
Ease of Starting:		5 out of 5

fw5517

(read all my reviews)
Location: Bluefield, Va
Gender: Male
How Large: More than 2 acres

Top 10 Contributor

Troy Chipper/Vac

Date: November 4, 2008

"Tough strong machine. Makes cleaning up the yard fun cause you have a machine that makes noise and has power. Love it and the vac hose makes it easy to clean up the flower beds and under the bushes. Also, ain't bad when cleaning out the ditches of the collection of fall leaves. I could have lived with out this, was blowing leaves to center of yard then running bagger mower over piles...But now, I have another machine that sucks up, chews up to small pieces and spits them in a bag. Saves time. I love garden machines and really like this one. Now I gotta figure out how to justify snow blower for my 20 feet of double drive way. Probably can't pull that one off but did whine until I got the Chipper/Vac..."

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