I bought this splitter used a while back and wanted to run it through the ringer before commenting on it. So, after about three cord of mostly oak and a little pecan..... No doubt, this was perhaps the best $550.00 I ever spent in my life. Not even the most knarly piece of live oak or big pin oak crotch has stopped it. Slowed it down to catch its second wind yes, but stopped it, no. The Honda engine is relatively quiet, starts on the first pull (every time) , and sips gas. Prior to my purchase, I was concerned with past issues relating to the trunnion weld separating from the hydraulic cylinder that occurred with some of these splitters in the past but, so far so good. (While MTD never did a recall, I presume they got the message and corrected this issue. Time will tell. ) As has been the case on virtually all of these splitters per my research, the screws holding the "log catchers" will break and I have had to replace one. Now, this splitter is NOT a speed demon in that the cycle time is slow, but it certainly beats the heck out of swinging a maul. Are there better log splitters out there? I am sure there are, but I am very satisfied with it.
I've had the same splitter for about 7 years now. It's splits everything I've thrown at it and does so in a timely fashion........meaning it's somewhat slow. The little "log supports" gave up the ghost within a month so I had to come up with a better solution...which I did. I used a portion or the original brackets and welded them to the main beam then bolted the table assembly to them. This was three years and 15 cord ago and not an issue.
