A lot of power in a tiny package
Written: May 23 '06
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Light, powerful, clean, quiet, reliable, east to maintain.
Cons: None.
The Bottom Line: An excellent choice for most suburban and urban gardens.
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| ke8yy's Full Review: Mantis Tiller |
A few years ago I sold- really, gave away- a 2-stroke tiller that made a lot of noise and smoke, but didn't move a lot of earth. Every year, when it came time to prepare my garden, I ended up renting a 5HP Honda tiller that was really too big for my use, but that was the smallest usable tiller I could rent.
Around that same time a friend who's a professional landscaper told me he'd just bought a Mantis gas tiller, and that he was very pleased with it. He and his crew are pretty hard on equipment, so I assumed anything that could hold up to his crew must be well made; most of his gear consists of heavy 3-gang mowers, 12HP tillers and the like. I thought about getting a Mantis, but the price still seemed a bit high, and I was slowly getting rid of noisy, smoky, 2-stroke gas powered garden equipment and replacing it with manual and electric equipment.
Not long after that conversation, I was thinking about buying a Remington electric tiller on sale at Home Depot, but after looking at it in detail, decided that it probably wasn't any better than the cheap gas tiller I'd just gotten rid of. Then I discovered that Mantis made an electric tiller as well. It was twice the cost of the Remington, but it looked to be more powerful, and the Mantis tines looked as if they'd cut a lot better than the simple bent tines on the Remington. That, the free shipping, and that fact that Amazon was running a great sale on yard equipment clinched the deal.
The Mantis arrived a few days later, and it only took me twenty minutes to assemble it. (Hint to buyers: Watch the video first- or at least read the manual through- before you start to unpack it.) I took it out to the vegetable patch and following the instructions, set the speed to the lowest setting and pulled the trigger.
The tiller jumped in the air and felt like it wanted to take off. It also rapidly dug a hole in the packed earth, slicing through the foliage like it wasn't there. I tried the higher speeds, and found that this little tiller can churn through earth like a 5HP gas unit- and best of all, it does it with no noise or smoke.
I spent an hour out there preparing the ground, clearing some new patches, digging out weeds, and preparing some areas for new grass seed. From there I went to an overgrown patch of lillies that I'd been trying to dig out with little success. The Mantis tore through the roots and tossed them to the surface.
Any rototiller user knows that one of the most time consuming tasks in tilling it clearing the roots, grass and weeds that clog up the tines. But on the Mantis, you only need pull a cotter pin and the tines slide right off. You can clear both wheels in a minute or less.
Frankly, I can't say enough good about this little beast. It'll pay for itself through saved rental fees in six years, but more importantly, it'll be there in my garage whenever I need it through the year. I expect to be using it for years to come.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
ke8yy
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Member: Michael Edelman
Location: Huntington Woods, MI
Reviews written: 85
Trusted by: 3 members
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