Why no forum for Ryobi ??

bertsmobile1

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Probably because most techs feel that Ryobi is a throwaway brand. Most of us refuse to work on them. Difficult to get support and parts, and if you can find help, cost to repair is more than unit is worth repairing.

Ryobi USA advertised their mowers are US made. Comment on that?
Down here we get Yardman , which is an old MTD brand
If I need mower body parts then I need to use US Ryobi IPLs
As I said in the first reply some are just rebadged major brands
As for the Ryobi petrol mowers I see down here they all come from China or Hong Kong
The models destined for the US market have those idiot bar blades and are grey imports while the local model has a 2 or 4 swing back blade system and uses Masport blades . They both have chonda engines with no service parts available other than air filters , not even gaskets and no Honda ones do not fit .
As for "made in America"
I just sold my last ret of Rotary gator style blades
There is a sticker that reads "assembled in the USA" with the rotary part number on it , stuck over the word Mexico stamped into the blade .
 

bertsmobile1

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FWIW I scrap about 50 ryobi line trimmers a year
I have about 100 of them in the graveyard
When some one asks if I have something that they can repair with their kids I give them a truck load of them
Some even come back for more .
As for battery or electric all I replace is blades, if I can get them through my usual wholesalers
 

StarTech

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Ryobi here are rebadged MTD mowers.

As the idiot bar blades they are a common item here but we tend keep our lawns rock, and stump free. But once a while some tries to cut a metal post in two. Now that does a number on the blade and crankshaft.
 

Tiger Small Engine

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FWIW I scrap about 50 ryobi line trimmers a year
I have about 100 of them in the graveyard
When some one asks if I have something that they can repair with their kids I give them a truck load of them
Some even come back for more .
As for battery or electric all I replace is blades, if I can get them through my usual wholesalers


As far as “bad mouthing” Ryobi. When you have seen enough crappy, sub par handheld blowers, trimmers and Tillers that are Ryobi, you have earned the right first hand to form an honest opinion. That is why I chose not to work on them as of 2024 any longer. I can not name a shop locally that will work on Ryobi . That speaks volumes.
 

StarTech

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Yes some OEMs earns the bad mouthing just like some distributors. It happens in all daily things. I recently was in the Horsepital under emergency treatment. The doctors basically kept me in the dark as to my treatment. Still really don't know all the things they did other than shock me and drained off 35-40 lbs of water. They treated like it was on need to know basic.

My GP is giving me info that apparently my Afib has got to lock heart rate of 200 bpm causing fluid build up around my heart. Currently I am idling at 49 bpm this morning. I only thing is now I am finally at my target weight range of 220-225 lbs. Four year of dieting I could never get below 235 lbs.

Not working on them is not fair to enduser that got stuck with the products but it a pain to get parts and info from OEMs. Some distributors are listing the parts under other OEM price lists too. I got particular engine line that one distributor lists the parts under Homelite and the other distributor lists them under Lauson.
 

gearz

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I’ll never forget when I bought a Ryobi self propelled lawnmower and gave it a bad review and about a month later I got a call from one of there engineers saying I had no right to give a poor review because they work so hard on the quality of there products. I said did you even read the review and he said no just saw the rating and assume it was a mistake. The 3 year warranty is good if you have a local repair shop and it doesn’t work if it’s fuel related. I have owned Ryobi products for years and a simple muffler is not serviceable so yes they are throw away machines that’s why they are cheaper in price and design.
 

StarTech

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It is sorta a bad review I gave an eBay screw supplier that lied to me several times and to eBay. The screws were supposedly in stock in Florida. Well they weren't and it over a week to even ship them out of North Carolina. The supplier demand me to take down the review because it ruin his prefect score. Then he was going to eBay take it down. Well I know eBay would contact me and I told him he was in violation of his agreement with eBay. Never heard more about it. What worst was a quarter of the screws were defective but I let that ride.
 

Hammermechanicman

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When someone brings in a ryobi or the like I used to replace fuel lines if that was all it needed. Not any more. I don't work on them at all anymore.
 

Tiger Small Engine

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When someone brings in a ryobi or the like I used to replace fuel lines if that was all it needed. Not any more. I don't work on them at all anymore.


Let me point out the main reasons I don’t work on Ryobi (or any other off brand handheld equipment any longer):

1). The juice is not worth the squeeze. Too much labor time for low profit return.
2). Mixed success. Not uncommon to spend a lot of time trying to get it run, only to have it run poorly or intermittent hard starts.
3). No compression. Scored piston, rings, and cylinder. Notify customer and they never come back to pay for diagnostic charge.
4). Repair often costs too much in relation to initial cost. Remember the 50% of retail vs repair cost ratio general rule of thumb.
5). The warranty is only as good as a local shop willing to do the work, or repair after the warranty. Let’s face it, the customer cheaped out and bought a crappy product and now wants a shop to polish a turd.
6). I don’t enjoy working on cheap, crappy equipment. Old equipment is better than cheap crappy handheld equipment.
 
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