I can only say for Stihl blower vacs in general because i have a older BG65 which i primarily used for leaf clean up this year. If you run it wide open, it will pulverise dry leaves great and mulch damp leaves decently. The problem comes if you try to suck wet leaves the unit will clog. The bag is easy to empty into a 30 gallon can even one handed. The downside is sticks tend to jam in the impeller requiring you to shut off and disassemble the unit to clear the jam. Each year i am amazed at how fast it will go through a giant pile of leaves in no time at all. Overall A+ for Stihl.

 

For situations where no other method will clean up the leaves, the vac works OK. Like an isolated courtyard area or the bottom landing on a sasement staircase... For the lawn, forget it.

They also do a decent job on shrub trimmings, that aren't very woody. Like the last person said, you MUST avoid sticks, mulch, lava rock, and anything else that it can suck up but not pass through the fan/blades. I had one, and it's dead now...

*edit. I used mine 99% as just a blower, but the bearing on the crankshaft that the fan attaches too wore out. More than likely from the ABUSE from using it as a vac.

 

Thanks for the responds. THis is for home owner use. This time of the year, there are soooooo much leaves I can't fit into the recycle can. I blow it to the curb and that's the end of it. I am thinking of using the shred and vac to pick the leaves up after blowing to the curb. It should fit in the recycle can after shredding.

Also through out the year, there are always a little leaves by the curb from cars driving by and blow the falling leaves to the curb. It would be a lot easier to vacuum up than to sweep every week.

 

for homeowner use it will be great. just avoid the sticks and rocks and you should be fine

 

I have a BG 86 and it is good for flower bed and such. If you get too big of a pile it takes forever. I use it for blowing more than vacing though.
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Mine has been to the dealer six times in 16 months with multiple carb issues, a new starter rope, and the retaining nut for the metal shredder vibrated off and lodged in the housing. It is not used commercially. I would consider it only for occasional homeowner use with a small property. It is the least reliable piece of equipment I own, but I have yet to find a better solution.
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Great unit for Homeowner use. I personally have one at home and love this machine. Anyone consistently having Carburetor issues is the owners fault. Sorry.

An even better blower. Does an ok job mulching the leaves as well.

 

Anyone consistently having Carburetor issues is the owners fault. Sorry.

Mine has been hard to start, sometimes taking 20+ pulls; exaggerated enough to warrant rope replacement. Fuel economy has been poor, and uses more fuel than my fs250r or other 31cc 4 mix machines. When cold, the unit smokes for about 2 minutes after startup. The choke must be used each time to start the unit.

I only use 93 octane and HP Ultra Synthetic; never more than two months old. Clean spark plug and air filter.

What is the cause and remedy of these issues?
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Mine has been to the dealer six times in 16 months with multiple carb issues, a new starter rope, and the retaining nut for the metal shredder vibrated off and lodged in the housing. It is not used commercially. I would consider it only for occasional homeowner use with a small property. It is the least reliable piece of equipment I own, but I have yet to find a better solution.
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Sorry to hear you have such an issue with it. I read enough about the Stihl 27.2cc engine to know it is a very well provened engine. The enigne in your SH-86 is the same engine as all the HomeScaper trimmers like the FS45, FS55, YardBoss etc. It is beyond provened already.

To every brand, there are lemons. Like my $420 Honda brush cutter that supposed to be one of the best and is a Honda. Crapped out after 10 months!!! Later found metal fragments inside the carb. I had the Mantis gear box jammed 6 months after I got it just to found out there was no grease inside the gear box!!! It happened to the best!!!

Sounds like you have a carb issue. If you are a home owner, dealer aways use the lame excuse that your gas is too old to avoid warranty repair!!!! I suppose you have this problem from day one, you should have brought it back. But now, you might want to post in the machenic and repair section and give better description so people can help you trouble shoot it. You might have to buy a new carb and change it yourself. If the dealer gave you the run around, they might keep wanting to charge you for more service.

 

After tuning the carb twice and installing a "carb kit", a dealer has offered to replace the carb, but only after I contacted Cramer/Blue Mtn Dist. In regards to the warranty, many pieces of Stihl equipment have carb and fuel system warranty coverage extending beyond the general coverage, and the reason why this unit has been to the dealer so many times. I will be taking it in for repair after the holidays.
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I had a conversation with my local dealer on these blower/vac's. Every time the vac mulches, the motor looses torque from its torque curve. Once the engine lacks the minimal torque to run the engine hence; pulling, pulling, pulling, starts to run, and stalls. It becomes a disposable item. Basically the engines lack the power to pull the vaccum/mulch duty.

 

I have one(Stihl SH85), it's fairly useful for cleaning up little bits of debris around a hedge after trimming it. I use it to clean leaves out of window wells too.. Of course forget about any large volumes of leaves.

I've ran everything imagineable through it, twigs, rocks, large mulch chunks, I've literally beat the crap out of this thing over the past 4 years, and it's still going.

 

Mine has been hard to start, sometimes taking 20+ pulls; exaggerated enough to warrant rope replacement. Fuel economy has been poor, and uses more fuel than my fs250r or other 31cc 4 mix machines. When cold, the unit smokes for about 2 minutes after startup. The choke must be used each time to start the unit.

I only use 93 octane and HP Ultra Synthetic; never more than two months old. Clean spark plug and air filter.

What is the cause and remedy of these issues?
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Here's something that may help. If it doesn't start after 3-4 pulls on full choke, take the choke off. Sounds like your flooding the machine.

 

Allan........I have the BG-86 as you know. The SH-86 has a steel blade in the intake turbine wheel for added chopping while the BG-86 only has a plastic one. I think it would be ideal as long as you avoid sticks and stones and bark pieces. I love the blower end of my BG-86........it is noooo backpack but for it's size and price.......the power is hard to beat IMHO :clapping: The blower vac has been very improved over the BG-85

 

I just bought the SH-86 in September and I like it very much. The machine starts very easily, is very good on fuel once the break in period was over, and it does quite well in vac. mode. It will pick up and shred leaves very efficiently. However, like others have said, it is not meant to pick up huge amounts of leaves nor sticks, branches etc. I usually use it to pick up leaves in window wells, down stairs, or the ones that get stuck under hedges and bushes. It also empties very easily. The other thing I did this fall was to use on of my two backpacks (Redmax 8000 or Stihl BR600) in my right hand while holding the SH-86 in my left hand. This produced about 1100 cfm of air and helped to move leaves very quickly.

All in all, it's been a very nice unit and I highly recommend it. If you use it for its intended purpose, it will be fine.

 

I have the stihl shred/vac and believe it or not the echo 2300 works way better! Not the bigger echo one because the heat shield around the motor clogs up,over heats a boom done.The smaller echo is perfect for cleaning up in pee-stone and so on.

 

Okay how do you do a new post please???? I know how to reply but new post??? I'm not a moron!! I just don't know how dammit!!

 

I have the cheaper stihl sh55 (I believe) and I have never had a problem with its performance to date. It has the metal blades that chews up shrub clippings and leaves. Every once in a while I have to clean the spart arrestor because the crabon clogs the screen and steals the power but I have put many hours on it and it still works great so a bigger model would most likely be better.

 

Yes the stihl works great but the echo is stronger suction.Once in a while put the garden hose in the suction tube and run it for a short bit to keep it from clogging with mud/dirt