OutdoorKing Repair Forum Forums Repairs and Maintenance Questions on Trimmers and Brushcutters Two Stroke Trimmers & Brushcutters 4-in-1 Garden Multi Tool

Hi All,

I am thinking of buying this 4-in-1 Garden Multi Tool (line trimmer, hedge trimmer, chain saw and brush cutter) from Aldi.

https://www.aldi.com.au/en/special-...il-wk09/ps/p/4-in-1-multi-garden-tool-1/

Question: is a 32.6cc full crank, 2 stroke motor powerful enough to drive the hedge trimmer and chain saw.

Will only be used for cutting small branches and doing small hedges.

Regards
Buckets

Probably be enough power, the chain saw is only a 12" blade and those size saws will more often than not only have the 25cc motor anyway unless they are one of the more expensive brands. My main concern would be back up. Who is their warranty agent, where will you take it if it needs something done to it? Aldi have a habit of buying like a container full of one product, selling them all out at a low price for a quick turn over and then possibly never carrying it again. It looks a lot like the same unit that is sold under various names through Home Hardware and Mitre 10. My neighbour has one and so far he hasn't managed to destroy it other than the line trimmer head split when he hit a rock hidden in the long grass. Even from Mitre 10 it took him nearly a month to get a replacement head.

Yes I guess that's the $64 question, although I know the mower repair place near me services Bunnings no name brands, so maybe Aldi or whoever makes it have a similar arrangement with various mower shops.

My FIL bought us an Aldi chainsaw about18 months ago. Seemed like a pretty well thought out and constructed machine but there was something wrong. From memory the bar oil just constantly dribbled out. He took it back to Ali who were more than happy to replace it but he decided to get it fixed. Seemed simple enough. After getting the run around from their nominated local repair man he was eventually told Aldi don't like to pay him for repairs and he recommend just returning it and getting his money back. He spent a lot of time emailing Aldi and in the end it was too much heartache so he returned it. Got his money back, no questions and bought us a Stihl. Needless to say we are as happy as clams!

Aldi's backup on this sort of unit is pretty much limited to warranty refunds.

At that price point, it's essentially a 'chuck it if it breaks' proposition - even if spare parts were available, it wouldn't be worth the shop labour cost to fix it.

THIS US dealer's blog post explains it all.

And note that this unit only has a 12 month warranty. You get what you pay for...

Have decided yes - no - maybe, wi11 see what tomorrow brings

It like playing the lottery especially when your buying never heard brand of equipment. You just as well to kiss your money good bye in my opinion.

Here we have a company called Harbor Freight Tools that sells engines that don't work half the time straight out of the box and parts are nearly none exist even from them. When one these comes for repair I just send the customer on his merry way back to HFT for replacement if still under warranty but as noted most warranties are not even worth the paper they are printed on nowadays. Most times they will blame on a fuel related issue and charge you.

The biggest problem with this cheap stuff is it slowly strangles the local mower repair shop, they loose out on sales of better quality equipment and the cheap stuff is not worth them wasting time even looking at it, in the end it is loose loose for everybody. Sure I have bought cheap tools over the years (since cheap tools have become available) but only if I only needed it to do one job and it didn't matter if I had to throw it away afterwards

Norm, the likes of Aldi have come in at the lowest-price end of the OPE market. Their target customer is those who are never going to consider buying even a low-end pro quality machine.

The surviving servicing dealers have long abandoned this market segment, as it became impossible for them to make any money in it. So they now essentially serve the contractor and council market - users who make a living with their machines. And who buy quality, and will pay for servicing so that their machines can keep on earning.

That said, Aldi are notably easy-going about warranty refunds.

AVB, that must be why I've seen that mob referred to as 'Harbor Fright'.

Gadge you are right I was thinking that the mower shops would all close because Bunnings, Masters, Aldi have flooded the mower market sales. I forgot that the contractor market is quite large which I think would cover the council market because most of those are contractors anyway. I guess they will rationalize into a number of larger repair shops instead of the smaller shops we once had

Tnx, I needed a good laugh. Don't take me wrong they do have some good stuff but takes time inspecting what your buying and don't just buy something because of the low prices. You need to do your research before buying.

Here I still repair some these cheapo trimmers. They are fairly simple to repair as most of the time it dirty carburetor related and with the ultrasonic cleaner I usually can get by without needing gaskets or parts. Other times they are too far gone to save due either to the lack of parts or the cost of parts.

I am able to do these repairs because my labor rate is about half of the bigger shops in the area that have so much extra overhead and I have a lot of downtime. To me it brings the more profitable equipment repairs as some customers are just uncomfortable with a shop until they check them out. I don't blame them either after some the rigged repairs I have straighten out over the few years I have been in the business.

And I don't blame the larger shops passing up on these repairs as most times they waste a lot time repairing these when they can be repairing more profitable equipment. Good shops usually are very busy usually and don't have much time to spend on non profitable equipment repairs.

Still there customers that are willing to repair the smaller low cost units. Most because of the light weight and ease of operation. These are usually elderly customers that have one problem or another. Sometimes its the weight and other times they are having hard time learning a new machine. The later was the case for my mother as she was developing dementia. As long as she could remember how to use the one she had she use it. I probably had more than 4x what it cost to replace in it but it made her happy just to be able to use it.

There is times even the 200 USD 4 cycle trimmers cost more than they are worth to repair due to parts cost as most times they are only repaired by short blocking if it is anything other than the carburetor when it is engine related.

The other limiting factor is even though I can repair these I can't sell an used one because most customers are not willing to pay much for an used one even when they are good working order. They basically want me to sell them for less than it cost to repair them even if I just charge for the parts. A lot of this is the yard sale mentality where they have brought and got stung at these places.

It can work 2 ways, many years ago I had a Mcculloch chain saw and I took it to a shop to get it serviced and the only conversation from them was to "take it back to where I bought it". I went up the road to another shop and bought a new Farm Boss,from memory it was about $800 back in the early eighties. If they hadn't been so abrupt I would have bought a new one from them. Even with ride on mowers that are a bigger dollar value, most of the ones that end up on ebay are so clagged out that by the time you put a few parts into them the cost of the parts is greater than what people are prepared to pay. I repair a few of them but at the end of the day I get little for my labor and a lifetime of skills I have developed but it helps fill in the days and keeps me using the grey matter and hopefully will offset the onset of dimentia