Warranty Question
I purchased my 128LD from the local Lowes store last year. I...
Warranty Question posted May 11, 2016 by Xi shen
88 Views, 1 Comment
Question:
I purchased my 128LD from the local Lowes store last year. I used it for only one-season. Early this Spring when I tried to start it, it stalled. I had fresh fuel in the tank and changed the spark plug. I took it to the local dealer and was told the carburetor is "dirty" which is not covered by the warranty. One of the reasons I was told is due to the current mix of gas with Ethanol. I am really not happy about this. This is not my first trimmer and I never had any such problems before. One trimmer I had I used it for about ten years. I expect this 128LD at least should last about that long. Now I had it for one season and it won't work. This is poor quality product. Do you expect this trimmer works in a "clean" environment? Do you expect we use fuel other than from gas station?
Answer
This something that can not prevented currently. The fuel blends are mandated by the EPA and are constantly changing these as they demand cleaner and cleaner burning fuels. Also EPA is mandating how the carburetors and engines are tuned which also creates problems which manufactures trying to up the constant changes that required for equipment to remain certified.
Non-treated ethanol gas can go bad in as little as 30 days. On top that any ethanol fuel that is not keep in an air tight container will absorb moisture from the surrounding air. I actually did a test just to see if this was true and fuel turned milky within a few minutes when exposed to the air after which the water/ethanol mix settled to bottom of the container.
The only thing that I found that holds up for a few months is fuel treated with stabilizers; hence, I use and sell a Pro-Mix fuel oil for the 2 cycles. Even then there are problems when it dries in the metering ports clogging them. I just got though cleaning 4 of my mowers, that I use regular fuel in, carburetors and they were treated with fuel stabilizer before I put them away last spring.
Even buying non-ethanol is no guarantee that you will not have problems as is it the added ingredients that are part of the problem. At one time I brought only the mid grade unleaded fuel for my car. I was constantly having to change fuel filters even on the side of the interstate once (at least I knew of the problem and keep the filters and tools in my car at all times). It was a chalky ingredient in the fuel that clogging the filters. If I didn't had those filters in place it would have been in the carburetor. I switch to regular unleaded and that problem went away for me.
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