Homelite: Do They Still Exist ? Buying One Of Their Gas String Trimmers Quest's ?

[Robert11]

Hello:

Was thinking of getting a gift for a friend of a Homelite gas string trimmer.

Home Depot seems to sell them in the price range I'm in ($ 100 or so)

I have a 5 year old one, and it's worked pretty well.

But, i've heard that Homelite is (essentially) no longer in business, or viable, and that parts and repair are no longer available.

How true is this, and how concerned should I be about buying one ?

Thanks,
Bob

 

[No]

I thought I heard they were bought by John Deer?

They are in business, pretty much in name only. They are owned by the same Chinese conglomerate that owns Ryobi and others. Parts and service will suck down the road. I would consider them to be a throw away trimmer, once it breaks, toss it. Most any piece of lawn equipment sold at large chain stores will have poor parts and service availability, there are some exceptions.

Why not break out some more cash and buy something you can get parts for, and also help out a local retailer? Stihl for example makes great trimmers. A low end Stihl can be bought for around $150, and parts are easy to find.
Greg

 

[Duane Bozarth]

I thought I heard they were bought by John Deer?

Deere & Co divested themselves of Homelite in 2001 according to 2002 annual report... http://www.deere.com/en_US/investinfo/reports/annual/2002/fourthqtr02.html

A reference on a review from Popular Mechanics confirms the Ryobi connection...

 

[ottertailfamily]

They are in business, pretty much in name only. They are owned by the same Chinese conglomerate that owns Ryobi and others. Parts and service will suck down the road. I would consider them to be a throw away trimmer, once it breaks, toss it. Most any piece of lawn equipment sold at large chain stores will have poor parts and service availability, there are some exceptions.

Why not break out some more cash and buy something you can get parts for, and also help out a local retailer? Stihl for example makes great trimmers. A low end Stihl can be bought for around $150, and parts are easy to find.
Greg

Why not "break out some cash and help a local retailer?" Because they suck, their help are a bunch of high school drop outs, charge way too much to "fix" things, try to sell me a new Stihl when they can't, and because my "throw-away" Ryobi hasn't needed anything but trimmer line in 3 years, and my Murray (!) riding mower hasn't needed anything in 6 years of mowing just under an acre (compare that with my dads John Deere that needed two transaxles in the same amount of time the first less than 3 months after he bought it - not covered under warranty due to "abuse"). Maybe I get lucky.
tad

 

[No]

Ah, OK. Makes sense - My homelite trimmer has interchangable parts with some JD equipoment but its circa 1996. I'm waiting for the damn thing to die so I can key a Stihl or Husqvarna trimmer. I only feed the thing gas and string, replaced the head once or twice and maybe a spark plug.

 

[Duane Bozarth]

Ah, OK. Makes sense - My homelite trimmer has interchangable parts with some JD equipoment but its circa 1996. I'm waiting for the damn thing to die so I can key a Stihl or Husqvarna trimmer. I only feed the thing gas and string, replaced the head once or twice and maybe a spark plug.

....

From the referenced annual report apparently Homelite was bleeding $$$ big-time.

My JD-branded trimmer is some 20 years older yet and still going strong--it's one of the Japanese makers (I forget who, it's anonymous) and parts are still(!) available--the gas tank had to be replaced last yeat because it cracked simply from age-hardening and, to my surprise, the same identical one was available regular parts route in two days...

 

[sleepdog]

I bought one about six years ago from HD, still working fine. Just fed it gas and string so far.

I bought Homelite because years before I worked for a lawn maintenance outfit that had purchased five of them, two of which could be counted on to work at any given time. Because the owner was cheap and they were always breaking down (pull cords, springs, carbs, trimmer heads, etc.) I had to cannabalize the non-working ones all the time for parts. I always kept them in the truck.

But being able to tear them down and build them back up in a pinch to get the job done was a specialty of mine so I guess I got suckered by nostalgia.

I guess to Homelite's defense, we abused the heck out of them on our jobs. They really weren't built for 10-12 hours of continuous use day after day.