Michigan Raptor 900

Great for awhile – The machine is roughly 2.5 years old and I had a good run mulching native garden trimmings but this week the mulcher jammed with a two inch green stick and broke the drive shaft!!. No spare available as I was told it was part of the motor and a new motor would have to be purchased. Todays price roughly $390. I have now bought a BELT DRIVE to avoid the shaft drive issue. The shaft had far to much weight on it for the size of the shaft. Show details

Edison's are the people who are less than honest, Michigan USA HaHa,Chinese company that manufactures the product – Left outside for two years still starts but is more effort than it's worth better off loading the trailer up if you have one taking it to the dump or a great excuse to have a beer in between breaks considering the machine seems to work so hard with little result. Show details

Get what you pay for – My experience hasn't been too bad just to be fair. I've owned the machine for just over a year now and in that time I'm on my 3rd tank of fuel. I haven't had any issues with the engine and it generally starts first pull every time providing you follow the start up procedure. The engine at full revs easily cuts through thick material but it sure… Read more

does need to be straight to feed into the branch chute. It's very frustrating if there is a bend as you simply can't push it through. The only issues I've had so far is the fuel cap leaks so don't overfill the tank and 1 off the mulching blades snapped. No idea how that happened as i rarely use the mulching hopper. I've since ordered another blade but if another one breaks I'll be looking at getting an engineering place to make me one out of hardened steel. FYI the replacement blades cost $31 each plus 10 postage. Seems a little steep for a small bit of metal. The mulching hopper is rather useless and most materials get spat out looking almost the same as when they went in. Forget about trying to mulch any kind of vine.

Having said all of that..... for 500 bucks i didn't expect much more from this unit. I'll continue to use it until the wheels fall off while i save up for a better one. The poor man pays twice as they say!

Oh and for anyone wondering..... Michigan USA is the name of the building in China where they are made. This is how they get away with stating they are made in Michigan USA

The crate it comes in lists the country of origin as PRC (peoples Republic of China).

Works well, but has it's issues – So the reason I bought this was that I needed something bigger than the electric ones, plus I didn't want to fork out over a $1000 for a brand name small petrol one. There seems to be a price gap in the market between electric and petrol shredder/chippers, and this does fit well in that gap. The good - It's been fairly easy to start, mostly on… Read more

the 1st or 2nd pull. Will deal with decent sized branches, 2" dry gum tree is not an issue, but 3" dry is probably pushing it, but 3" wet it coped with. Large hopper is good. Accessories, eye and ear protection are pretty reasonable. The exit chute has never clogged up on me.

The OK - It's pretty noisy, so your really do need to wear the ear muffs. The bag is long and thin and is a little awkward to tie into place on the exit chute. The bag also came un-stitched after a few uses. The oil fill hole is a pain to get to and also pretty small, so it's not super easy to fill with oil. For some reason mine won't stop running. I can turn off the fuel, and the engine, but it just keeps going. The only way I can get it to stop is to pull off the spark plug. Really odd.

The quite ordinary - The hopper chute hole is only about 130x50mm so it can get clogged fairly easily, you need a poker stick to loosen up the stuff you're shredding and sometimes need to poke it down, kind of like stirring a pot... The build quality isn't great. Whilst I haven't had some of the issues that others have described the muffler is starting to rust. The large branch chute is fairly narrow (I guess to stop you putting stuff too big down it) but it does mean the stuff you stick down there needs to be pretty straight.

Overall I'm pretty happy with it for the price I paid. It does the job I need it for, and seems to be coping pretty easily with it (whereas an electric one would not have).

Chinese Rubbish so far – Engine would start but when got it to start wouldn't run for more than 30 seconds found had to leave chock on 25% to keep it running. Motor runs like a 1970s Briggs and Stratton and is loud I too doubt if it's 8hp Stalled on freshly cut 40mm diameter hedge branch only ate about 500mm of it Motor is trully GUTLESS Top shoot is impossible to use… Read more

especially with rubber safety cover in place. The feed hole of shoot is only about 75 x 150mm trully to small you need a big stick to force small twiggs and leaves into it. Now about that 40mm freshly sawn hedge branch IT STALLED Why Motor Gutless Guess what the cutters/hammers are all jammed up and I have to take cutting chamber apart tomorow and waste more of my valuable time unseize cutting head TERRIBLE DESIGN.

The other part that is A RUBBISH DESIGN IS the side chips shoot and the shoot cover Why it clogged up in under a minute forcing me to come home to conduct repairs on this CHINESE JUNKY designed mechanical nightmare No wonder lots of vendors have decided these pieces of OVERPRICED scrap metal have stopped selling them In short Waste of Time Pathetic Quality Not fit for purpose Overpriced Primitive Engine internals Exhaust load and rattles lose Jams up at will Not recommend for hardwood Ok good thing is you have an excuse to go to the pub when this junk stuffs up