Grass strimmer options

noclaf

I need to cut/mow a medium sized garden with v long and overgrown grass...couple of feet long in places.
I have a 10 yrs old petrol strimmer which doesn't maintain idle..konks out constantly and has not been well maintained so not a surprise.
I have a nearly new petrol mower however do I ideally still need a powerful strimmer/brush cutter to cut the grass down first or can the mower be used direct to very long grass? Another way to put the qu is it worth buying another petrol or powerful electric strimmer?

TELLIT01

Is it worth checking out the cost of getting the existing strimmer serviced? Should be a lot cheaper than a new petrol one.

DaftyDuck

Read up on carburetor adjustment on the strimmer. If it's farked at the moment, you can do little harm, and it is actually easy to do. Add clean new fuel and a new sparkplug, and it will work.

Ryobi? They always lose the carb settings!

EssexExile

Or just rent one if you don't use it often.

noclaf

Thanks guys. It's a Stihl model...I'm hoping.its.not completely knackered but will consider trying to find someone to check it out and give an opinion etc

Ebe_Scrooge

A petrol mower should be able to cope with very long grass - start off with it adjusted to it's maximum cutting height. If the grass is too long even for a petrol mower, then yes, strimming first to knock back the worst of it will help. Or simply ripping it up by hand or cutting it with shears if it's just going to be a one-off task (if it's then going to be mown regularly).

A petrol strimmer is a very useful tool to have though. As previously mentioned, it's a very simple little engine, and easy to strip and service yourself if you have any basic DIY mechanical knowledge, with any number of helpful videos and tutorials available online. Or a garden tool specialist will be able to service it for you. Or, if you happen to have a friendly local car mechanic, he might well give it a service for you for very little money - a petrol engine on a garden tool is the same as the engine on a car, just a lot simpler. Easy-peasy for any experienced mechanic. If the strimmer is otherwise OK, it's probably well worth getting it serviced, you should get many more years of use out of it.

Mistral001

Using a strimmer in long grass will throw grass and weed seeds all over the place and the strimmer head will tend to clog up with long grass/weed stalks. I would consider using a scythe mower:

https://www.cjhire.co.uk/product/horticultural-domestic/grass-cutters/power-scythe/

noclaf

I got a quote today from a local-ish specialist who sell and service Stihl strimmers. Based on the issues I described they are saying it's likely to be a £100+ cost to have the strimmer serviced. That includes labour etc It could be a bit less or.more depending on parts needed if any.

Kiran

As someone above has said, there's loads of videos on youtube showing how to service and repair the engines. It could just be a gummed up carb

snowcat75

most likely issue would be fuel left in, unleaded not only goes off the additives destroy the rubbers in the carb over time, Chinese copy's of stihl carbs are peanuts and there's little noticeable difference with durability against the genuine which are also made in PRC.

I really wouldn't bother attempting to clean adjust the existing carb as chances it will never run right put a new on there only about £20 for the whole unit.

Jackmydad

Sounds like the carb. Have you been leaving the fuel in it when it's not in use for periods of time? That's a bad idea.
If you're reasonably mechanically able, you should be able to strip the carb and clean it yourself. Be extra careful of the small bits and pieces. It's worth betting a rebuild set for the carb off eBay. Use carb cleaner to degunk, and compressed air to blow the small galleries in the carb out.
In some cases the whole carb is available cheaply from there. Worth a look.
Finally some people say they have no problems, but if you're not using machinery very regularly, you need to drain the fuel and run until it stops. They don't seem to like the ethanol in modern fuel. These days I use one of the "Aspen" type fuel mixes as it saves that bother. Quite a bit more expensive than pump petrol though.

ETA Snowcat's said most of this while I was typing.