Customer Reviews

Factory Reconditioned Ryobi ZRRY34420 18-Inch 30cc 4-Stroke Gas-Powered Curved-Shaft String Trimmer with Detachable Shaft

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(15)

 

 

Last summer I used a very similar Ryobi trimmer with a two stroke engine and a traditional "bump and feed" spool. I liked its easy start and wide swath that it cut. A couple of weeks ago I got it ready for this season and left it on the garage floor and drove my van over it, rendering it useless. I donated it to a high school small engine repair class to play with.

And I browsed Amazon for a new trimmer. The price was 89.99 when I bought my new Ryobi, I see it's gone up to 99.99 since. Still worth every penny. It's a refurb, but I couldn't find a mark on it indicating that it had ever been used. I bought a new 1 gallon gas can with a filter and marked Ryobi on the side. I once destroyed my favorite chain saw, a Jonsereds, by putting gas in it. Without the oil. Nowadays every small engine tool gets its own gas can boldly labeled.

This new Ryobi has a four stroke engine and, in spite of the warnings from my local small engine dealer, does not feel any heavier than the two stroke and started as easily as the two stroke. Seven squeezes of the primer bulb and a couple of yanks on the cord and the machine was humming like a kitten. And when the line ran out - no spool to rewind! It uses two 11 inch lines, simply inserted in two holes where the head locks the lines into place. It accepts a .095 line which is plenty of heft to do the jobs I intend for it. An even larger line can be used, but I haven't tried that yet.

Overall, the new machine works as well and is as easy to handle as its two stroke counterpart, and I feel my money was very well spent.

I bought this trimmer on April 24th and used it only once. It would not start after that. I looked at the troubleshooting guide with no luck either. Prime X7 all that stuff did not work. Wanted to return to seller but found out this item is not eligible for return. So basically, I paid $89 for one single use. Will go back to my old trimmer, yeah I will mix but at least I know it will start.

Purchased this after my old trimmer was stolen. The box this arrived in was pretty beat up (it traveled less than 100 miles and arrived in about 25 hours), but the trimmer was unharmed. Needed some assembly. Took me about 10 minutes. After putting it together I had one bolt left over that the manual never mentioned.

Be careful adding oil, it does not take much. This is one of the causes of the oil leakage people have been complaining about in the straight shaft version. The safety trigger on the top handle is a pain, I took mine off. Idle speed may need adjusted. The throttle has to be fully pressed to see any jump in rpm. I'm going to try and shorten the throttle cable soon to add a little more touch to its ability. A tank of gas on this lasted me about 2 hours. All in all after I make all the adjustments to it I think it will be a fine trimmer.

DO NOT BUY THIS UNIT! I read all the reviews on here, good, and bad, and I figured I'd have no issues with this trimmer. All the reviews talked about oil leaking from the carb or the head and most people said it had to do with over-filling it with oil or storing the unit vertically. I know my way around machines pretty well so I figured I'd be fine and have no issues if I didn't overfill it and I kept it horizontal. What a MISTAKE. The owner's manual does NOT give you a capacity for the oil. It simply says what type of oil and it says "don't overfill". I bought a small 3.4 oz container of oil and put about 2.6 ounces in the machine just assuming that the whole container would be too much. The unit started fine after adding gas and it idled great and I thought I got lucky and was happy. Upon using it for a few minutes I noticed the carb acted as if it was dirty (cutting out at higher RPMs). I looked at the trimmer and BOOM oil EVERYWHERE all over the gas tank dripping from the carb. I shut it off and removed some oil with a straw and started it back up. The sputtering carb issue went away for about 1 minute and then came back. Oil was dripping out again from the carb AND the head. I hadn't stored it vertically and I had not overfilled it with oil because it probably had around 2.4 ounces in it. The technical writers for Ryobi should go back to basic English classes and learn how to put simple information such as OIL CAPACITY in their manuals. I've NEVER seen a manual without oil capacity. It's like they planned on selling you something that would be thrown away after one day of using it. Figuring I could fix the issue, I called Ryobi's customer service....SEVEN times and was on hold each time for about 10 minutes before I just hung up the phone. I then figured maybe I could ask a true Ryobi mechanic by calling one of their 'service centers' listed on their own website. So I called them and got an actual human to answer the phone very quickly. The woman on the other end of the line handed the phone to the shop mechanic. I thought this would be great because I'd get a simple capacity, find that I overfilled it, and fix my issue and continue doing my lawn. Of course that didn't happen. The mechanic listened to my question and laughed saying "you should have bought a Stihl. I have no idea what the capacity is. You should call Ryobi." Once I heard that, in conjunction with failing to connect with anyone at Ryobi and hours of google searching for the capacity, I decided to call CPO Ryobi (the sellers of this unit) to ask for a refund. The people at CPO Ryobi were VERY understanding and they helped me with my return in a quick and professional manner. I would buy another Ryobi product from CPO again but it would NOT be a 4-stroke trimmer. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE do yourself a favor and LISTEN to these reviews. I thought I would get lucky and not have an issue because I know my way around an engine but THE PRODUCT DOES NOT WORK. PERIOD. It was doomed from the start so save your time and buy a Cub Cadet 4-stroke or if you want to spend more money find another brand. I give this Ryobi ONE star because it looked cool in the green color and I guess you could cut a blade of grass with it if you manually saw at something with the weed attachment.

This item was total junk. I saw the reviews and took a chance on it. As soon as I took it out of the box, oil was leaking everywhere. The engine kept seizing up it ruined my garage floor from all the leaking oil. Luckily, amazon arranged to pick up the item since it was defective. I think I will now buy an echo or toro trimmer....

i bought reconditioned ryobi trimmer from Amazon for about $100. It was boxed and packaged well and looked like new. The trimmer did not come with oil; I got some from the home center. It did not start well. When it did start, it leaked oil and stained the brick pavers. The manual suggests periodically adjusting the valves with a feeler gauge. I did that and it was a little easier to start. It would only run for about 5 minutes and stall. Then, being very hard to start. After months I gave up trying to get it to work.

I spent more time trying to get this thing to run than I spent using it.

I went to the home center and bought a new Troy Built.

Used this a few times and only ran maybe 1 tank of gas. Always hard to start, and I mean 20 pulls to start. Now, after 6 weeks, won't start at all. Ryobi recommends a quirky starting procedure that includes exactly 7 pumps of the primer bulb, then start on idle only. Yea, well, it immediately stalls if it fires at all. This is the biggest piece of junk I've ever seen from Ryobi and worse, they continue to sell them new for $180. Really makes you wonder why there seems to be a virtually unlimited supply of "refurbished" machines. Check ebay, VMinnovations, etc. They're everywhere. Why do I have to give this a minimum of 1 star... 0 would be too many. This is the first review I've ever done. I feel so strongly about warning others to stay away from this machine and if this is indicative of Ryobi quality for their other products, avoid them all.

I tryed to use it for the first time yesterday, March 17th 2011, and it wouldn't start. It seems like the gas is not getting to the carburator. What should I do?

As my title says, "If I only knew." Don't get me wrong, I really like the unit (RYOBI ZRRY344204 Stroke) itself, it's just a small repeating problem that drives me crazy. At the back of the motor head where the neon green housing is, there are a number of slots, in this area there is a small black tube with a black cap that is "supposed" to connect in the upper back behind the case slots. Well my tube popped off about 6 times, I've only used it twice. In other words it keeps popping off. The BIG problem is that when it "pops" off the engine oil spills out.(not a good thing)
If I'd have known about this problem I would have gotten an old reliable 2 cycle engine. So much for trying an advanced model. Gonna take it to a service center and ask if I should return it for a 2 cycle, or is it good enough to fix and keep. I'v only had it for less that 2 weeks.

This runs but is very hard to start. Feels like a missing tooth on the starter. With some careful alignment, you can get the starter lined up just right and get a good strong pull to get it going. The no return policy makes this a risky buy. If I had to do it again, I would go to Home Depot and pay full price. At least there it can be returned when it doesn't work.