# New toy Troy Bilt Flex



## man114 (Nov 25, 2013)

Well I ended up with a new unexpected toy, a Troy Bilt Flex. Our Lowe’s was clearing them out and my wife was the one who always wanted one of these. They had the base unit and several attachments marked down, one of which being the snowblower attachment for $75. I didn’t really need a snowblower but it is kind of hard to refuse for $75. It seems decently made, only thing I can see being an issue is the unit has no reverse drive so you’d have to pivot and change the chute direction hopefully it throws snow far enough. Probably wouldn’t be my go to for that reason and no electric start but I’ll probably give it a few uses since I have it now.


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## tdipaul (Jul 11, 2015)

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Sounds like a good deal please post some pics and/or a video of it working

IMO reverse is not really needed on a wheeled blower and neither is electric start if its running good 

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## micah68kj (Oct 8, 2011)

Our Lowes has had these out front for months. JMHO but I think TB made a huge blunder manufacturing these machines. But.. For what you paid it seems to be a pretty good deal.


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## dbert (Aug 25, 2013)

micah68kj said:


> JMHO but I think TB made a huge blunder manufacturing these machines. But.. For what you paid it seems to be a pretty good deal.


I think the concept is sound. Would take up less space in your garage/shed, and there would be less of a chance for the fuel to go bad. 
Airens tried it in the 60's and it didn't work out then either. 
Scot has brought up this failed attempt here a few times. Photo is from his site.


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## Kiss4aFrog (Nov 3, 2013)

Ariens wasn't the only manufacturer to try it. Toro, BCS and Gravely come to mind.
I know there was a discussion of the recent Troy introduction and some concern of the coupler they used. I'm hoping that your's holds up and your wife gets to have some fun with it. :grin:

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## man114 (Nov 25, 2013)

I have an Ariens of that era but no attachments for it, in fact it’s been in my shed for two years because it was garbage picked and the bottom scraper has rusted off to the point where I’d have to weld a piece of metal on which I haven’t gotten around to. Was gonna do it this summer but I don’t like it hot so unless I get to it this fall it’ll probably have to wait until spring.

The coupler on the Troy Bilt seems like a decent metal, I think people might be thinking the one disk is plastic but if you look at it closely all that does is function as an engagement so it just transfers the cable pull to the lawnmower deck or snowblower to engage the belts. Anyone with and spare metal could easily make a metal one if the part became problematic but I don’t think it will as it’s not like it’s heavily stressed. I’m sure some question the Chinese engine but MTD warrants the power thing for 4 years and having had a Yard Man leaf vac since 2010 or so with a Chinese engine that has had hundreds of hours of use I really am not too concerned, I’m pretty confident in their Chinese engine sourcing. Plus swapping a Harbor Freight one on would be pretty simple anyway.

The unit itself seems really well made at least as far as recent Troy Bilt stuff. Troy Bilt messed up with a lot of things in this machine but it seems to go down to marketing and pricing.

They hardly marketed the thing, I saw maybe a few ads when it first came out then nothing. It was always kept on a shelf at Lowe’s so you couldn’t try engaging the attachements which is actually really simple. Even if they didn’t want people messing around with them in store demos certainly wouldn’t have hurt.

Price. It’s normally expensive as heck. With a normal retail of $399 for the power unit with no attachments it costs a lot. With the normal retail of the mower deck at $499 it would cost as much as other widely available Wide Cut mowers, mainly their own Cub Cadet and Craftsman ones. Blower? Well you’re up to $800 if you buy just the two which is on the high side for a 26” blower. 

For each individual purpose it’s more expensive outright. Only if you were to buy a multitude of attachments does it start to balance in costs, but you still have some drawbacks due to design. Troy Bilt should have aggressively priced the power unit and knocked a few bucks off the attachments. If they sold the power units cheaper people would probably buy them then scoop up the attachments as needed as opposed to buying things outright. I like the idea of the log splitter and shredder attachments but think they’re both about $100-150 too much but great ideas.

Other than moderate space savings and the fact you’d regularly use it so it would be easy to start it’s just too expensive and not marketed for any of its advantages. 

I did watch some YouTube videos on it last night though and it seems like some of the people who were holding out have started to buy them now that it’s been the market a while and it looks like from their website Home Depot is going to be a dealer as well. More exposure wouldn’t hurt. If I can get any of the attachments cheaper I’ll round up what I can, and just see how it holds up. It was cheap enough so it’s no great loss if it’s not the best, I do expect some compromises.


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## RedOctobyr (Mar 2, 2014)

I can say that, even on the lightly-inclined area of my driveway, I will often use reverse, vs dragging the machine backwards. Less risk of a foot slipping, or hurting yourself doing something awkward. But on level ground, it is admittedly easier. 

The combination machines do certainly have advantages. And maintaining 1 engine, vs 3 (or whatever) *is* easier. I guess it becomes a question of cost, what compromises were made, etc. 

A friend gave me a Craftsman weedwhacker with swappable heads. I've only used the big hedge-trimmer head so far. But he also gave me a curved-shaft weedwhacker head for it, so with 1 engine, I can do 2 things. That's cool. And you can probably get other heads too. 

It does seem a bit heavy (and this engine seems to vibrate a lot). But the length of it makes it quite a useful hedge-trimmer, as it has a lot more reach than my little electric one, which is nice.


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## tdipaul (Jul 11, 2015)

Gravely made the concept work. Most of the attachments kicked ass, and still do today. Their stuff was made to last forever


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## nwcove (Mar 2, 2015)

If the build quality is the same as the new tb machine i bought a few years back and sold at a loss before it had even had gas in the tank......flex is a good name for it! Ive never seen a machine so flimsy/flexy ....ever.


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## dbert (Aug 25, 2013)

So what other attachments did you get?


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## man114 (Nov 25, 2013)

dbert said:


> So what other attachments did you get?


So far I’ve gotten the snow blower, lawn mower, water pump, plug aerator and dethatcher. I’ve gotta take a slight road trip later this week I think I found a Lowe’s with the pressure washer and leaf blower marked down. The detathcher I needed the least but it was only $25. Actually the aerator and water pump are probably the most useful of what I got thus far since I already had stuff to do most of the other tasks.


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## man114 (Nov 25, 2013)

nwcove said:


> If the build quality is the same as the new tb machine i bought a few years back and sold at a loss before it had even had gas in the tank......flex is a good name for it! Ive never seen a machine so flimsy/flexy ....ever.


Everything seems outwardly sturdy, time will tell.


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## man114 (Nov 25, 2013)

Actually assembled this today. It’s... interesting. Weird combo of the 26” bucket with the short chute they use on the Lowe’s Bolens and Black Friday Craftsman blowers, but the Flex has way more engine power. I pretty much figure they did what they did because of having the chute controls up top with the power base would be difficult. 

This would probably throw a decent amount of snow volume wise but not as far as a higher chute blower, won’t know for a bit but have enough blowers to know.

Doubt the traction will be a issue. “The beast” my old Roper 8/26 has similar tires slightly larger in diameter but traction was never an issue and weight wise the flex is heavier on the tire side. Doubt it even needs the tire traction sleeves the blower attachment comes with.

Ultimately I think it will be a less distance throwing unit that will move comparable volume to its engine/bucket ratio. 

Probably the biggest drawback will be no reverse gear. You’ll be switching the chute back and forth to avoid pulling it backwards.


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