Doug Kanter wrote:

Do you or someone else take care of draining the gasoline before storing the
tiller for the winter? Others have said they have problems starting the
engine after a year or so, which makes me wonder if they did the type of
maintenance required of ANY yard equipment.




I have 2 Echo chainsaws and an Echo weed trimmer, and a 4-cycle mower,
and a new Honda tiller that is too new to make a judgement about its
reliability. I run the same gas in all the 2-cycle engines, and I run
them dry in the fall or whenever I'm not gonna use them for a while.

The Mantis tiller is the only one I've had any problems with; I thought
it had an Echo engine. The Mantis is the only one that has a carburator
that's partially made out of plastic, and last time the tiller was in
the shop (because it wouldn't start again) they said that plastic plate
was warped and they replaced it. It ran again for about a year. Maybe
the newer ones have a different design carburator; mine is about 11 or
12 years old. (the big chainsaw and the weed trimmer are much older)

Buy whatever you want, and good luck with it.

Best regards,
Bob