Updated 3 Oct 2017
Stihl
FS 55 RC
Snapshot: The Stihl FS 55 RC petrol line trimmer has 2 cutting lines and weighs 5.4kg. But how effective and easy to use is it?
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Test results
Overall score
Cutting & trimming
Ease of use
Good points
- Excellent vertical cutting.
- Excellent horizontal cutting.
- Excellent long-grass cutting.
- Easy to use.
- Excellent line feed.
- OK to re-spool.
- Easy to start.
- Very well balanced.
But
- Fairly heavy.
- No edging guide.
- Fair amount of vibration.
- Noisy enough to need ear protection.
How we test
Overall score comprises performance (50%) and ease of use (50%).
Performance is based on horizontal and vertical trimming and long-grass cutting.
Ease of use is assessed on handle comfort, shaft length, weight, balance, cutting visibility, controls, vibration, starting, line-feed effectiveness and ease of re-spooling.
Price is from a September 2017 survey.
Our recommendation
We recommend petrol trimmers scoring above 85% overall. While the performance and ease-of-use of the best petrol trimmers in our tests has hovered at or above this level for a few years, battery-electric models continue to improve year on year.
We raised the bar for the performance of battery-powered trimmers to 80% after a batch of 7 cordless models returned impressive performance in our 2017 test.
