Earthquake Tazz K52 Chipper Shredder, 196cc Gas Powered 4-Cycle Kohler Engine, 5 Year Warranty

4 stars only because I haven't used it a lot yet. It does a good job with some minor design issues. I highly recommend getting the tow bar kit if you have a large/sloping/hilly yard and a lawn tractor, this thing is heavy. Assembly was easy enough, good straight forward instructions.Operation: it is a big engine and hard to difficult to pull start for some people. (advice trick) Place foot IN/ON front kickstand /support bracket Pull engine rope slowly, don't jerk it like on small lawnmower engines, once rolling engine do a quick re-pull of the rope start to keep engine rotating. USE the safety goggles or face shield it will sling/throw debris out the top when using top chute. USE hearing protection, it is loud. If needed use a WOOD BROOM handle size stick to stir/shuffle debris in top chute (chute has rather small bottom opening) to make it enter shredding cutters.Design issues : FILL CRANKCASE OIL before mounting 3 inch limb chute. Limb chute is in the way of oil fill cap. Needs an extension pipe or move the limb chute some how( to the designers). Top rubber chute deflector/guard is IMO a joke and top chute bottom door closure needs improvement for better slide closing. The top rubber deflector doesn't allow light weight (leaves and such) material to go in the bin easily, so I removed it. The debris bag is... ok ...semi easy to attach and remove. The zipper I don't see lasting very long ( 1 season maybe).Over all I am quite satisfied with the Tazz k52 it does do the job and seems to have enough power for what I need it to do, create mulch. 3 inch size limbs might bog down the engine so don't try to over feed too fast.

This review will echo a lot of the other reviews;1) It is a pain to put together - a lot of tight clearances and places you can't get a socket2) A lot of the components come with signs of wear (chipped/scratched paint, scuff marks on the plastic parts, etc). The machine I got was obviously assembled and then disassembled before shipping. As another review stated, the flange on the hopper was really bent up and required reshaping to get it to assemble.3) As other reviews state, the large chute for branches interferes with the oil fill cap/dipstick to the point that it's not possible to check or fill the oil without removing the chute (only 3 bolts, so not that big of a deal)4) As another review states, the label for the on/off valve for the fuel is entirely counter intuitive. So, if you open the valve, pull the starter, and the engine fires up and then cuts out after a few seconds and then you can't get the motor to start again...chances are you've closed the valve instead of opening it.All that being said, once the chipper was finally operational it did a really good job grinding through the brush pile that I've accumulated over the last two years. It's nice and compact - easy to fit into the garage. The engine feels a bit under powered -- it would bog down if a particularly heavy/wet load went through the hopper, but never stalled. If I hadn't had to fight with the thing so much during assembly and start up I'd have given it 5 stars - it's pretty decent value for the money assuming there are no durability issues.

It took a real genius to place the oil fill in an inaccessible position. And a nitwit to contrive bolting the knuckle busting task of bolting the rubber flapper onto the leaf hopper? The instructions are insufficient. What in hell is a combination choke and throttle and how does it work? The directions don’t say. Finally after screwing with it for two days, the damned thing won’t start. I would love to throttle the stooges who contrived this ripoff.

We used this twice and it broke the second time. we called customer service but they said the warranty was up because it had been more than 30 days (we didn't use it for the first 30 days). They said the warranty only covers the motor and its the blade that is jammed and not working. I can't believe we spend this much money to use it twice (well one and a half times since it broke during the second use).

I've had the same issues as others listed here, where the hopper is bent at the bottom when the box arrived (they really need to fix their shipping method, as this seems to be a consistent problem). I was also missing a washer. But after bending the hopper back with some needle nose pliers, I got the whole thing together in a little over an hour. It's pretty straightforward and not too bad of an assembly. I would suggest adding your oil after putting on the wheels, as this will give you easy access before putting the branch chute on.So we've used this chipper for about 8 hours so far (just did my 5 hour oil change two days ago) over the first week, and I"m impressed. We have a lot of branch and brush piles built up from the last 4-5 years on our property and I'm making my way through them. The branch chute will take anything you can fit in it (about 3 inches). If you get something big or tough, the engine will sputter, but then just back the branch off and it will roar back to life. Thus it does take a little finesse with the wider branches, but they get through just fine. We've done a tone of weedy/woody grapevines as well. We just cut down 3 10 inch diameter pines yesterday and everything but the lower trunk pieces went through just fine. The chips/mulch that come out are for the most part pretty small and uniform. The build is rugged and the branch chute is a VERY solid build. I'm able to leverage some bent branches through by torquing on them when they're in the chute. The engine starts up pretty easily, almost always on the first pull and I can get about 2.5-3 hours of chipping out of a tank of gas (takes less than a gallon max).So far I'm VERY happy with this purchase, and don't regret buying this machine at all. We get a lot of downed limbs/branches on our lot, so this will help in keeping our debris piles to a minimum. I have yet to use the included bag or the shredder, but will likely do so the next couple of weeks. I'll have to update with a longer term review, but we've used this chipper a lot this first week and it is solid. I don't think I've stalled it yet, and I've put a lot of wood through it.

Works well, but the loops on the bag tore within the first few hours of operation.