Strengths Its Cheap - A Vermeer it is not, but it does not have a vermeer price tag. It will chip limbs and with prudent operation and care it will do this well a few times. It has a 10 HP Briggs and Stratton engine with OHV that runs strong. Any less than 10HP is a waste of time - I have tried the 6.5HP and it is a dog. I think it would be better to get a higher HP actually becasue if the engine boggs down while chipping it can lead to a jam (which means the end of your project until you tear the unit down (lots of time and effort!)

Weaknesses Its Cheap - The design is all about the bottom line with MTD Products Inc ( The company who bought the troybuilt name, but negelected to buy the rugged design and innovation unforunatly) The Impeller, flails and shredder blade are designed to the bare minimum standards that will do the rated job with no room to spare and the little spring clips that are suposed to hold the roller pins in place - and thus keep the flails in place and prevent a total friggin meltdown - are a sick JOKE! Hint - Buy some spare spring clips if you get one of these machines and inspect the unit after EACH USE - which means tearing it down (read lots of time wasted) if you want to have the minimum risk of an impeller assembly failure! Warning - If you find a clip that is bent, damaged or missing REPALCE IT immediatley - because if you don't and a flail comes off it usually results in the utter destruction of the impeller assembly ($300+ to fix - just parts folks! No labor in that number!) when the flail goes flying around inside the impeller housing at full speed and, at least in my case, it bent the impeller housing up a bit which required either I buy a new housing (very expensive) or do a little welding buildup to repair it to a safe operating condition. (The impeller housing must be stong enough to retain a flail coming off at full power - or you might be killed by a piece of the shrapnel - your choice!) Feeding is a nightmare - Feeding anything but straight limbs is an exercise in futility. You need to keep this in mind when preparing material to be chipped. Cut off and square up the material and things will go better. Now this uses more labor time and chainsaw time but thats the trade off for buying a less expensive chipper I guess :/ MTD Products service is a JOKE! - In case you didn't know it, MTD does not give a rats *** about you. They only care about selling their products to the distibution channel and getting that money - this is a far cry from the way t

Overall If you have a one time bid project that will pay for the unit in a single job - maybe this is for you. If you need a chipper that will last and that you can depreciate for several jobs - this ain't it! Look at a used Vermeer ( I know I am )

Strengths Good Engine -- pulls very hard but starts quickly

Weaknesses I've had three major jambs -- you have to take it apart to clear the jamb. recehntly a flail broke -- the cause was the lack of retainer clips for teh spiral pin --- a factoy flaw --- allowed a pin to slip out and one flail wedged and caused another to break --- all three remaining flaisl and the "screen" were bent. Troy- bilt customer service is a joke --- no response of quality and because I had disassembled the unit to get it unjambed the local factory authorized service company refused to repair it under warrante. Net is I have fix it myself and Troy built refuses to deal with me direct. The unit is not a great chipper -- it requires serious manual feeding to chip with any speed an

Overall I bought this for the good Troy-bilt name and now I will do my best to inform others of the POOR performance I have gotten from a so-called good name company