Customer Reviews

Toro Ultra 12 Amp Electric Blower/Vacuum 51598

5 star:		(86)
4 star:		(47)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(15)
1 star:		(15)

 

 

I've used this for 6 months now. My primary interest was for its mulching of leaves, so I can compost them. I've run out of space in my woods, and throwing them away seems like a waste. I've used the blower too.

It works great sucking up leaves. The pieces are generally chipped to perhaps half to 1 fingernail in size. As to how much it reduces the volume, I took a mostly dry slightly overfull wheelbarrow full of leaves - and it was reduced to a little less than half-full after running it thru the machine. So that's roughly a 2:1 reduction, not 16:1, as Toro advertises. It's good enough for my needs, in terms of composting. (Mulching the leaves adds an extra 40 degrees of heat to the composting process, in a compost tumbler, 160 vs. 120 degrees.)

The blower works well too. The variable speed makes it easier to control where leaves go. I gathered leaves from one tree into a pile in 5 minutes, and vacuumed them up in another 10 minutes, filling (stuffing) one 39 gallon 'lawn & leaf bag' (so 2 bags worth, unshredded). I've also blown dirt, weeds, rocks, gravel and other crud off my driveway (2500 sq. feet) in a matter of ~10 minutes, which would take perhaps an hour to sweep by hand.

And I suspect, and was told in correspondence with a well-known Consumer's magazine, that the magnesium impeller should last a lot longer than other models, which are typically made of plastic. That was my primary reason for buying it. We'll see on that score. So far, its holding up.

Where Toro missed:
it doesn't do well with leaves that have virtually any amount of moisture to them IF they've decayed (meaning last year's). They jam up the outlet passage within 1-3 minutes (going in to the bag), as well as the crevice area around the impeller. You have to unplug it, undo the bag attachment, and access the impeller region, and fish around with your finger, digging out all the wet gunk which has been chopped in a very fine mess. Freshly fallen leaves which are wet don't cause this problem. Skimp # 1: Toro didn't bother to include some plastic gadget for digging out the stuff, so you scrape your knuckles quite a bit (I'm afraid of using a screwdriver and ruining the impeller).

Skimp # 2: the bag, the cord, and the handles seem backward to me. But then, I'm left handed, and most of the world seems backward to me. The vac is still quite useable, backward though it is, but Toro seems to have chosen to ignore 10% of the population that is left handed, which doesn't impress me.

Skimp #3: in that it's electric, you're chained to a cord. The owner's manual says not to go over 150' in length, and to use 14 gauge for that distance. I happen to like 12 gauge cord for long distances, and that's what I own - and the 'cord lock' (a piece of plastic on the handle) is not big enough to handle 12 gauge cord. C'mon Toro! What's it cost to make it a smidgeon bigger to handle a larger size extension cord??

Skimp #4: in converting from blower to vac or the other way around, you have to omit certain pieces of equipment from the machine, both large and small. There's no place to store them, on the machine. So, I suspect they'll be either easy to lose or misplace. Or a pain to keep track of. It would be far nicer if the small pieces were storable, and Toro had figured out a way to make the large pieces in such a way so that they could be left on the machine at all times (e.g. the blower has a bottom cover that has to be removed so the vac has access to the impeller. Why not have a sliding door for that cover piece?)

Skimp #5: the bag is tiny. It fills up in ~3 minutes, and that is 1/3 of a lawn and leaf bag. And your property involves how many lawn and leaf bags for you? i.e. A lot of stopping and emptying. One company's product, as I recall, has a set up where the vac empties in to a garbage can directly.

Overall, it does what I want and need, and I'm happy. But it's not without its faults, and I expected better from a company of Toro's reputation.

Corded blowers are a little less convenient than gas powered blowers but are lighter, cleaner and more powerful pound for pound. I bought this to blow grass clippings and leaves but have found many more uses for it. I no longer sweep the garage. The blower will clean ever nook and cranny in far less time. I used it to blow out a dryer vent that had become clogged with an old bird nest. I never vacuum my car anymore. I use a duster to break up the harder to remove dust and dirt then blow everything out with the blower. I use it to clean the leaves out of my rain gutters and blow off small branches from the roof. I blow out trimmings from shrubs. Spider webs? No problem. I even used it to dry my dogs. I'm sure I'll find more uses for it. I wish I could use it in the house but was inspired enough to buy cans of compresed air for around the house. There's very little in life that can't be cleaned with massive and sustained bursts of air. Great tool. Highly recommended.

For the frequent user of a blower, stick with the gas-powered one. I used a gas powered blower for 10 years on an infrequent basis. Mixing oil & gas, dealing with stale gas, and hearing loss are issues to deal with. I purchased this Toro 51598 electric blower about three months ago and have been nothing but pleased with it. The variable speed is a great feature for added control when "sweeping" out the garage. It's packed with plenty of power. It's far less noisy than a 2-cycle engine and it starts with a flip of a switch (every time).

The one improvement I would suggest is making the cord clip a little friendlier for the 12-gauge extension cord. With the heavier cord I usually loop it through the handle. Not real stylish, but it works. Lighter weight cords are not a problem staying plugged in.

I have an old Toro Leaf Blower, I believe it's a Model 400. The older model is still working excellent! The only problem is it takes forever to move a good sized pile of leaves. With my old Toro 400 Leaf Blower, it took over 7+ hours (spread over 2 days) to collect and move enough leaves to fill over 15 to 20 Large Contractor sized garbage bags. That's, 7+ hours of electricity also. That's a lot of leaves my friends! Because a contractor sized garbage bag can hold at least 2 regular sized paper leaf bags. So do the math. If I had just used the paper leaf bags that the town picks up, I would have ended up with at lease 30 bags of leaves. AAAAA!!! I needed a better solution.

During my research, I found the Toro Ultra Leaf Blower and Mulcher (51598). I really cannot rave enough about this product. I really didn't want to purchase an electric leaf blower, because I was a little sick and tired of carrying around the extension cord and having to deal with spending money on electricity. However, I wanted to try out the mulcher. Which from the reviews I read, and from what was printed on the box, it said that it would mulch the leaves at a 16 to 1 ratio. "Wow! I have GOTTA see that!", I said. So I decided to purchase one. Oh, what a chore that was. I almost had to go online to get one. Why? Because every Home Depot I went to were out of stock. "Out of Stock?", I thought. "Geez, this thing has got to be great!"

I finally found one and couldn't wait to get it going because the leaves were falling like stones. There is one tree outside my home that is so bad, that when it started dumping it's load, I could no longer see my front lawn, or my CAR that was parked in the driveway. YES! there were THAT many leaves. So, I suited up, put on my gloves, goggles, face mask, strapped on my new Toro Ultra Leaf Blower and went to town!

It was so overwhelming powerful, I really couldn't believe my eyes! I was pushing a pile of leaves about 3 to 4 feet high with ease. Which may not sound like a lot of people to most, but believe me, that's a lot of leaves. You still have to blow them from the top down the pile, but it was still done with ease. As I was saying it took over 7+ hours (spread over 2 days) to complete the front and back of my house. This took about just about 3 hours total! to blow them into piles, mulch them, AND bag the mulched leaves. My time was easily cut in half! I would suggest to anyone, blowing the leaves into smaller stacks, instead of trying to create one big one. It's much easier to mulch the smaller stacks. Also with my older Toro 400, using it that long I should have used a headset for my ears. My ears were ringing after I was done. With the Toro Ultra, the machine is loud, but since I used it less than half the time, my ears were fine.

As for the Mulcher, the blades are metal, so mulching is a breeze. I was concerned about twigs, small pebbles, etc. Mainly because the suction is quite powerful. It grinded twigs, small stones, and a various array of small four legged rodents, like a Cuisinart!!! HAHA!!! I'm kidding about the rodents. I think you'll be quite pleased with the results of this mulcher. It's very useful. When you are using the mulcher, be aware not to suck up too many leaves. I would do this at times and had to shut off the unit, and clear out the nozzle once or twice. Once you get an idea of how much to suck up smoothly, you buzz right along. Dry leaves, wet leaves, even leaves with frost on them, I just crunched away!!

This was the deciding factor for me purchasing this item, the mulcher. And what a difference it makes. I went from having 15 to 20 Contractor sized garbage bags full of leaves, to a total of about 7 bags full of mulched leaves and twigs. Again, cutting my work in half!!!! Now that's a good product! When you can save me HALF the time to do a chore, that's well worth the money in my book!

One or two other nice little feature I should mention, is that it has an adjustable knob for the blower. So you don't have to always use it at full power. Very nice feature. Who ever thought of that in the design should get a gold star! I do like the overall design of the blower as well. The way it's contoured makes it easy to hold and handle the machine. Also, a gold star!

All-in-all, I've saved on my electric bill, plastic bags, and most of all, my time!!!! The only quirk I would have about this, is that they didn't include a belt, or strap with the machine so that you don't have to hold it. There is a strap on the mulching bag, but I mean one just for the blower itself. That would have been a nice feature. Other than that, I don't see how you could go wrong purchasing this item. In my opinion, this is money that is not only well spent, but something that saves you money in the long run. Excellent product! And if this thing is built like my old Toro 400, I'll have thing for 7+ years easily!!!

I purchased this itme last year and have been very happy with it. Its so easy to use and it is very powerful. I don't even have to have the power on all the way and it gets the job done. I love that adjustable power knob. And it is true what the description says about it reducing 16 bags of leaves to 1. It has a stainless steel mulching blade. The only bad thing i have to say about it is that there is no different shaped attachments for different jobs. Other than that i recommend this blower to everyone, it is the best! It will also work with 200 feet worth of cord. I bought 2 100 feet cords, and the blower works fine.

This is the third electric blower/vac I've owned. It is quieter by far, and the metal impeller is the feature that sold me, as I have chewed up the plastic impeller on the two previous models made by the other big manufacturer. The problem is in the vacuum nozzle, which is assembled with two pieces, and the junction seems to clog the flow of full-sized leaves. I find myself reaching in and freeing the clog at least once a minute. Perhaps in an attempt to increase wind flow the tube is too narrow. The blower nozzle has a small add-on concentrator that fell off and got lost the first day. To mount the blower pieces, you must coordinate the nozzle with a seperate mounting piece, and although the process isn't truly difficult, if you are switching back and forth between blower and vac, it can get irritating. The machine itself is strong - it's in the snap-on pieces that it's weakness lies. An elestic trash can adaptor would be a great optional accessory.

I purchased this Toro to replace a gas-powered piece of junk that was unreliable and finally refused to start at all. In pure perfomance, the gas unit held a slight advantage, but the Toro has been much better overall.

First of all, the Toro always starts with no problems. It is MUCH quieter, and after using it, I don't completely stink of gasoline fumes. The performance is very close to that of the gas unit, and the variable-speed control makes it easier to suck & blow leaves with minimal disturbance of landscape stones & bark mulch. Only disadvantage, obviously, is being tethered to an extension cord.

I found the Toro 51598 to be more than powerful enough to clear even wet leaves off my lawn & patio. It also did a good job clearing out my gutters, but I had to do it from the roof as there is no special curved air pipe that would let me do the job from the ground. There is also no angled accessory to direct air to the side. That would have been very useful when I tried to blow leaves out of areas next to the house and from other spots where it was impossible to get behind the work. Toro, are you listening?

Ok, so first off, I am not your normal consumer. I am pretty picky and when I say "pretty" I mean A LOT. I own two toro blowers, one at home and one at the cabin and both are more than 10 years old and are "still a blowin" with no probs. One note: I only blow with mine. I never use them to suck leaves up. I always have liked the feel and power of the Toros and they have always been a no hassle item in my life.

My mother recently started a small war with her next door neighbor, or maybe the other way around depending on who you talk to, over a large tree which resides in the neighbors front yard. The huge tree dumps literally tens on cubic yards of leaves every fall and my mother has to rake 5 times a week to keep her lawn from being completely covered, so........I bought her this awesome Toro 51598 blower. The first time we cranked it up, I mean plugged it in of course, it was amazing. Blew all the leaves from her entire front yard (45'x26') in about 3 minutes. Makes neat piles no more than 4 feet across. White flag, the war is finally over!!

This thing really blows too! Over 225MPH and and has a magnesium impeller if you plan on mulching stuff up. WAY better than a plastic impeller which will in no time get toasted if you decide to suck leaves. Personally I would never mulch with a leaf blower but you can. I prefer an actual mulching machine to grind up wood and leaf junk from my yard. That way the blower will live in human years not dog years. Much longer life!!

The problem is simple with mulching with a blower unit, if you suck up a rock or a stick or a piece of wire or debris unexpectedly, it grinds around and makes terrible sounds. I have a few friends who use these blowers to pick up debris in their yard and all have had problems.

Overview: Pros.....very fast and powerful, cool "dimmer" style switch to control the speed from 0 to 225mph, lightweight, attachments come with it including a mulching tube and a bag. Cons...In my opinion they should cut the price $10.00 and make the bad and mulching kit an accessory.

This thing is fantastic. The claims of its power are not exaggerated. I got it because I was sick and tired of wearing myself out just trying to START the gas-powered leaf blower my husband had to have. If I did manage to get it started at all, I'd be too worn out to actually use it. My husband claimed that an electric leaf blower wouldn't be powerful enough to do anything and dragging a power cord around would be far too inconvenient. WELL, the electric Toro is far MORE powerful than our old gas blower, and the cord doesn't bother me a bit.
I've only used it about 5 times and have only had it turned up to high once, just to see how high it goes. High is too high, I think I could blow the neighbors yard off from standing in mine... With it turned up to a little over medium I found I can get our large dogs large bed to levitate, the old gas one wouldn't even think about doing that!
I read in a few of the other reviews that some people had a problem with high/low switch/knob breaking. I hope those were isolated incidents. I like being able to set it at high, low, or anywhere in between. I change it constantly depending on what I'm doing, and hope I'm able to keep doing it.
Overall, I love this thing. I'm now able to get my yard clean in 5 minutes flat. I don't need help starting it, don't have to stop and put gas in it, and when I'm done I still have energy for other things.