Product review: Stihl FS 40 C-E Trimmer
The Stihl FS 40 C-E Trimmer is your low cost solution to weed and grass trimming around the home for landscaping and general control of your weeds and grass.
Ease of Use, Performance: 20/25
Look & Feel: 23/25
Features 23/25
How much I enjoy 20/25
Total: 86/100
Buying a grass trimmer is a lot different these days with not only cost being a large factor but the ever increasing features that add to the price tag as well as the confusion. Stihl is a national leader in home landscaping as well as professional quality tools for lawn and yard care and offer a wide range of tools for the home owner.
The Stihl FS 40 C-E HomeScaper Trimmer offers a good feature set for the home owner wanting a trimmer without all those fancy features at a good cost. The Stihl FS 40 is a low cost trimmer with a powerful 27.2 cc engine that can handle your weekly yard maintenance as well as that occasional overgrown weeding or garden clearing.
The Stihl FS 40 C-E is a curved shaft trimmer with a large front handle for easy control and simple push button off switch near your front handle. This allows quick cut off for regular use as well as those accidents to prevent injury if you happen to hit something you’re not supposed to.
The Stihl FS 40 has an Easy2Start engine that has started for me on the first two or three tries when dead cold and on the first try just about every time after I have run it for a minute or two. I received the trimmer from a Stihl representative just before purchasing a new home and have used it extensively not only at my old house for weekly yard maintenance but more.
My son cuts and trims grass at a day care my wife works at so he got to try out the trimmer there and found it worked well except for one feature. I also found the trimmer worked very well except for bump feeding line out the head that would sometimes not work quite well enough.
The line fed well enough but at times I would have to stop the motor and fiddle with the bump feed mechanism to get more to come out. Other times I would have to refeed the line through the holes as the line would be completely cut from the outside of the trimmer head.
This happens with just about all trimmers I have used and have been cutting lawns and trimming grass for a long time even professionally when my father owned a lawn care service. Trimmers with the bump feed work well but at times the line gets twisted or hot and melts inside the head to create a jam that you need to unwind or unjamb by hand.
I think a better head like the fixed cut with two pieces of 8” string would be better but you can decide which trimmer head you prefer. This was the only down side to the Stihl trimmer I could find but is one that is common to all bump trimmers.
The Stihl trimmer was very easy to start and my son even said he could run the trimmer without any instructions or having read the manual. That is something to say about a trimmer when its operation is simple enough to be used without having to read directions on how to start it.
Safety is another important factor and the shut off switch near your front handle makes for one nice feature but safety starts with proper knowledge like reading the manual and using proper gear. Safety glasses, gloves, hearing protection and long pants are a required set of safety devices when using any trimmer so you need to start there.
Other features like the easy to start engine using the Easy2Start system makes for a nice way to start the engine with very little priming and a simple three step choke system. The Stihl FS 40 has three positions for the choke system with a full on, partial and off choke positions that worked very well.
Once the engine is warmed up any amount I found using the off position worked well but only had to use the full choke position a couple of times when starting. I usually started the engine with the choke in the partial position and would start the engine on the second or third try.
The primer bulb is also easy to use and the white plastic tank allows for easy visibility of fuel levels so you can easily see when you pick up the trimmer the fuel quantity. You should use good mixed gas with the Stihl brand of 2 cycle oil mix for best results from your Stihl trimmer.
A really nice feature is the tank with its tethered gas cap that has a flip lever handle and two prongs to hold the cap in place that works well for quick filling of the tank. Simply flip the lever up and twist the cap to remove it from the locking prongs and pull off to fill the tank, then push back on and twist to lock it in place and flip the lever back over to store it.
The trimmer works well on regular unleaded fuel mixed with a 2 cycle oil but I would recommend going with the brand named oil additive from Stihl as it is blended specifically for Stihl engines. The trimmer string is another area I would recommend getting a better one as they work better with strings that are designed around the brand of the trimmer.
Generic string does not work as well and is not made to the same standards as the Stihl string is so you should not skimp on string quality. The Stihl trimmer worked well and for the most part I could run the trimmer for several minutes of uninterrupted grass trimming.
I found the trimmer worked well on regular grass but also on tall flowers and weeds that I am clearing at my new home that my wife does not want. The garden here at our new home has plenty of flowers and other plants and we are removing so using the trimmer is a perfect test of its prowess at taller thicker vegetation.
The trimmer handled the thicker flowers and tall weeds well and made quick work of an area around a tree with plants that had woody stems a quarter inch in diameter. I had no problems cutting down several three and four foot diameter areas of plants in a few minutes and just had to go back over the areas a couple of times to cut them down to the ground.
The trimmer handled this thicker cutting well and I did not have many problems with the trimmer feeding as I have with other, less expensive trimmers. The Stihl FS 40 did a great job for me over the past two months and I really do recommend this trimmer as an all around home tool for that weekly yard maintenance work.
The Stihl FS 40 C-E HomeScaper Trimmer is a great trimmer for weekly yard work and well worth the cost of about $200 at local stores or from the internet.