Customer Reviews

Precision Products PA42GY 42-Inch Plug Aerator

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Length:: 0:46 Mins

I bought this Aerator a few months ago. One of the many reasons I chosen this one was the description on how heavy duty it is... When my packaged arrived I was a bit concerned at first, because the aerator plugs where protruding through the box it was shipped in. I immediately opened the box and no damaged was done.. This problem was also mentioned in the previous review(still don't know why the manufacture doesn't use a thicker cardboard to ship it in. Anyways assembly was a snap, and let me you tell you this is a heavy duty aerator.. The Aerator wheels (6)are all independently traveling, which is nice when you are wanting to make a turn(no chance of the aerator wheels twisting.. I love this aerator and as you can see from my video.. I must have...

I got the 42 inch because I wanted it narrower than the 48. It came mostly assembled all I needed to do was bolt the tow bar on and the lift lever. I didn't need to buy any nuts or bolts. Took all of six minutes. The build is heavier than I expected. I filled up the weight box and off I went. I am pleased with the service and construction. Only one thing. the cardboard box it was shipped in is a bit to flimsy many of the spikes had came through the sides. But nothing on the aerator was damaged. Hope the rest of the items it the delivery van faired that well.

As other reviewers have mentioned, a few of the pluggers poked through the corrugated packaging, but there was no damage. Assembly was minimal, though it did require very careful study of the drawing. It was easy to maneuver once I got it assembled, and hitching it to the lawn mower was simple. There's a reasonably deep tray on top to hold weights, so I wasn't worried about having my weights (40-lb bags of water softener salt) spill out of the tray by accident as I aerated the lawn. As another reviewer noted, the pluggers move independently so you can go around turns while plugging. I did discover that I needed to get off the mower to lift the tines up using the lever, but I could release the lever and lower them without leaving the mower. That was handy though it requires some upper body flexibility. We stored the aerator in the garage on its end, sitting in an old automobile wheel rim with some wood blocks shimming it up. It doesn't take up much space that way and is pretty stable. All in all this was a good purchase and I'm hoping my lawn will be the better for it.

I've only used this aerator once, but since there are so few reviews I thought I should share my thoughts anyway. As another reviewer mentioned, the packaging left something to be desired. I was thrilled that it came with nearly the whole thing assembled already, but the downside was that the spikes were protruding from the box. As a result, one of the nuts that I needed to finish the assembly was missing. I was able to pick that up at Home Depot, so it wasn't a big deal.

Performance - I should mention that I'd never used an aerator before, so I don't really have anything to compare it with. I put 3 small cinder blocks on the back and a small sandbag that I had. It was a piece of cake after that. For the most part if pulled up decent plugs. There were a couple of areas where it kind of gashed the ground rather than pull up a plug, but I think that was because I used it when the ground wasn't quite moist enough. In areas where it was plenty moist, it pulled up nice sized plugs. I used it on a soccer field, so it was about 1 1/2 hours of continuous operation. Afterward, I checked over the aerator and everything looked fine.

One use won't tell the whole story, but up to this point at least, I'm happy with my investment.

Never having tried a plug aerator I was a little skeptical that I could get something that worked for this price. I almost bought a spike aerator but decided to give this a shot. I'll start with the bad... The directions for putting it together were non existent. I had to go online to find them on Precision Products website... and even then they were very weak but all I really needed was the final picture to figure it out. Also, even though you would think you can raise and lower it from the seat of your tractor, it's not happening unless you have Go Go Gadget arms once you lower it to start aerating. However those were minor inconveniences...

The good.... It was easy to use and even though my lawn is extremely compacted, it pulled plugs at least 1 1/2 inches long on the first pass in most places. We had a decent amount of rain in the weeks prior to aerating so that helped significantly and I would recommend to anyone to make sure your lawn is soaked good. I made a second pass perpendicular to the first and that seemed to be more than enough to loosen the soil. You will need to put weights on top of the aerator but I happened to have 180 lbs of weights for my tractor that I was able to use and that was more than enough. i would recommend this product. For the price you can't beat it.