"len gardener" wrote in message
...
having sold and serviced these sorts of machines etc.,. for a good
many years, it's not until you use them in certain situations that
some of their design weeknesses show up.

SNIP

Funny you mention this.
The local council has changed from stihl to shindaiwa, and a mate of mine
did mention a similar problem that you mentioned, but with the line heads.
I've found the stihl brushcutters to be quite good, and only 2 weeks ago we
couldn't figure out why the heads were clogging up when pruning the foxtails
at work with a 3 pointed star head, when the day before they were fine. It
was the dew on them. Other than that the stihls did not fail in the
foxtails.
Then again they do have a small disc that you put on to stop the grass
getting between the top of the cutting head and the flange of the rotating
shaft.
I have a stihl brushcutter, overkill but cheap to buy.
Only gripe I have with stihl is most of it's equipment seems to bog down
once started cold. By that I mean you start it when cold, try feed a little
gas on, and it's like it bogs down/floods, and dies.
Brushcutters, chainsaw and hedge trimmers all do it at work. But maybe it is
due to the fact we are running them at 25:1 when it's suggested 50:1 with
the stihl oil. But then it does leave a little room for error for some of
the misfits at work :-)

Cheers
Andrew