Petrol or electric? Trimming's a snip with the best of both kinds. (Lawn trimmers).(Product/Service Evaluation)

Publication: Choice (Chippendale, Australia)

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COPYRIGHT 2002 Australian Consumers' Association

IN A NUTSHELL

* Electric: If you can handle dodging an extension cord while you're trimming, the electric models in the What to buy list will do a good job of maintaining your lawn. The RYOBI's powerful enough for heavy jobs, while--perhaps more importantly for many people--the VIKING's very easy to use.

* Petrol: If you prefer the wider-ranging freedom of a petrol model and don't mind, mixing two-stroke fuel, fiddling with the carburettor and choke and pulling the cord a few times, the WEED EATER FeatherLite SST Plus should suit--it's our pick of the petrol models for performance.

Petrol trimmers have a reputation for being more powerful than electric, so we wanted to find out if top-of-the-range electrics are comparable to cheaper petrol models. Overall, the answer was yes. Two of the electric models cut as well as the petrol models except on long grass, and were easy to use.

We compared five models from the cheaper end of the petrol market with four from the top end of the electric market (in this case choosing the largest motor available in each brand).

MAKING THE JOB EASIER

Ease of use is important the whole time you're using a trimmer. First, it should be reasonably light--it'll feel heavier the longer you hold it--and easy to carry, with good balance that's not too heavily weighted towards the front.

Respooling the line (see What to look for, page 25) shouldn't be too difficult, and it's good to have control over the amount of line that feeds out. Bump feed generally works better than automatic feed for this (see What to look for).

Other things that make a model more pleasant to use are relatively little vibration and noise. And you don't want too small an opening for fuel on a petrol model, or it could be difficult to fill it up.

ELECTRIC OR PETROL?

There's no need to mess about with petrol with an electric model, and starting is easy--no pulling on a cord. The hassle with them is having to use a quite long extension cord to reach around practically any yard cords can be heavy, get tangled up or kink.

Each time you use a petrol model you'll need to prime the carburettor, fiddle with the choke and pull the cord...

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