MY THOUGHTS: My first thoughts with this blower is that its no good to be used with the high speed nozzle. I used it for the first time with it on and it did not work good at all, because it focus's the air in a very short pattern, thus decreasing air volume. My friend and I did a bench test, and both of us agreed, that even though you would think that the HP nozzle would improve the air flow, it does not. You will actually have more air volume if you don't use the HP nozzle, and thus will improve leaf blowing efficiency.Most hand-held blowers, won't do 200-MPH, so Poulans biggest selling point is the fact that theirs will. So in all actuality, Poulan is using marketing hype to sell their product. It doesn't necessarily mean that it's a bad leaf blower. It just means, don't believe everything you hear. I recommend that you never use the HP nozzle. Test it out and see for yourself!EXPERIENCE: My experience with this blower has been overall good, I just want to point out a few things. First of all, it is not that hard to start it, as long as you follow the proper procedure. If you don't, you will probably flood it, and then have a hard time starting it. I would recommend you only use synthetic 2-cycle oil in your mixed gas, that's why it comes with a bottle of synthetic, as it is a cleaner burning oil vs regular oil.BLOWING: As for its blowing ability, I think it does an excellent job, definitely on par with my electric blower at least. It will move leaves, grass, dirt, pine needles, and other debri easily, even at lower throttle settings. At higher throttle levels, its like a hurricane! The engine actually runs very smooth and it idles well. Though I believe I could adjust my blower to idle lower, I choose not to, as the engine could easily die at idle when it is cold.This blower is very gas efficient. I filled the tank all the way up and then ran it for 20 minutes, still has a full tank! I ran it a third time for 10 minutes, still almost has a full tank! So what does this tell me? It tells me that you can get at least an hour of use before the tank is dry, which equals a lot of leaf blowing!VACUUM: As mentioned in the introduction paragraph, this leaf blower has the ability to vacuum leaves as well and mulch them up via the plastic impeller. I am less happy with this function because of the fact it uses a plastic impeller. My electric blower has a metal impeller, which means it can not only mulch leaves, but small twigs and pine cones as well. I highly don't recommend you suck up things like that with this gas blower, as you will damage the plastic impeller.As far as how good it mulches leaves? Seems to do ok, I would think the 10:1 mulch ratio would be accurate, as it seems to reduce the number of bags you would normally have without the mulch function. This is great cause most of you need to get rid of your leaves through your trash pickup service. However, the included bag does fill up quickly, so you will have to empty it often, but that's no problem.DEPENDABILITY: The biggest thing you need to keep in mind is that this is a low end home owners model, I would never recommend it to any landscaper. Though it passes emissions tests for the first 50-hours, chances are, the blower will not last till then. I would give this blower 20-hours before it dies. In which case, something will need to be replaced on it to get it going again. The first thing to usually go with these is, compression, so bare that in mind. This is also why its highly important that you follow my recommendations in regards to maintenance!CONCLUSION: In conclusion, I think this is a good blower for a home owner, who will only use it maybe 5-hours max per year. I recommend you follow the maintenance tips I have laid here in, and I also recommend only using fresh mixed gas at the proper 40:1 ratio. I like my Poulan leaf blower and would probably buy another one. I give this blower a 3 out of 5.
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