Buyers Products 3039632R Grounds Keeper All Season, Broadcast Walk Behind Push Spreader, 100lb Capacity, For Seed, Fertilizer, Winter Salt & Snow Melt, Included Grate & Cover With Enclosed Gearbox

This product has a great video, however the actual product is not up to par. I bought this spreader for winter salt use and to begin the pin inside the hopper broke. I used my hand to loosen the salt. Also the black shield flaps did not stay in place and you have to constantly readjust for directional spreading. I ended up buying a box of pins from Lowes to replace. Also the spread rate was not in the instruction booklet. You have to guess. Which brings me to my last point the adjustment lever system is the worse. It has too many linkages to be effective. I have been using spreaders for over 30 years and this was a serious investment me for me.

I purchased the Groundskeeper spreader to put fertilizer and pesticide over a 4.5 acre area. I bought this particular one as it I liked the welded frame and adjustable deflectors. The unit arrived with a hole in the side of the box. I opened up the box and found the metal grate and handle placed inside without any wrapping or method to hold them in position. The spreader was mostly assembled which was nice. However due to lack of support packaging the handle stem pierced a hole through the box side. I also noticed the grating was damaged as was the side of the plastic hopper. I then discovered that I was missing the rain cover and also the parts for the flow regulator including the adjuster handle and rods. Just to further check the spreader out, I placed the main handle in position on the stem. Looking at the unit, the overall build quality was excellent. However I did note that the deflectors interfered with the wheels and had to be bent to move them up or down. This is a sloppy design in my opinion. Then I attempted to wheel the spreader around my driveway without any fertilizer material inside. The there was a lot of resistance coming from the left wheel such that it was skidding along the driveway and was barely turning the spinner. I inspected the gear box closely assuming to find something obvious that was not right but I found nothing out of the ordinary. I am assuming there is a design flaw with the gear box either in the ratio of the turns or some type of interference causing the excess friction and wheel not to spin freely. I placed all of the components back into the box and returned the unit. I haven’t written a review in a while but felt I needed to comment on this purchase as it was so wrong in many ways. This could be a fantastic spreader but the manufacturer needs to make improvements to get it acceptable for use. I purchased a Chapin spreader as a replacement and although the build quality isn’t as nice, it is pretty robust and rolled along the ground smoothly as you would expect. I believe the Chapin spreader will give me many years of good use. Beware buying the Groundskeeper spreader; learn from my review and others with similar experiences.

I was reluctant to spend this much money on a salt/ice melt spreader, but I am very pleased with my purchase. Winter has been brutal all over the country this year. I have lived in Chicago all of my life, and you really never get used to winter. We have had a boatload of snow this year, and so I decided to pull the trigger and buy this machine. There isn't too much to assemble, but I highly recommend watching the video because the instructions do not give you a clear picture of how the control handle and linkage assemblies are secured. It is much easier when you can get a visual. Also, you will need 2 10mm wrenches and 2 half inch wrenches (the guy in the video said 13mm which is what I used) to secure all of the lock nuts, so make sure you have those tools handy. This is a real time-saver as the alternative is to walk back and forth with tupperware containers, and you really never got a thorough and uniform spread this way. Just make sure you do a good job of clearing the snow before you use this, and you will be pleased with the results. The large wheels make it easy to move around. I went through four 25 pound backs pretty quickly, but within an hour or two, our driveway was nicely thawed. Just be careful that you do not leave the hopper open or all of your salt will spill out! You can control how much salt you want to distribute, and I set the control right in the middle. I expect to get a lot more use of the spreader this year as snow seems to come every other day. I highly recommend this product if you want to minimize the amount of maintenance in your life!!

I needed a spreader with large wheels to use on a slope with lots of mole holes and depressions. This one comes with inflatable inner tubes on 4-inch-wide, 12-inch-diameter tires--makes it very easy to push loaded with 50 pounds of fertilizer pellets. Assembly required, instructions detailed and clear if you read carefully and pay attention. Adjustable flaps on both sides and front intended to control how the product is spread; but I find it easier to just leave them wide-open and watch where the fertilizer goes. Control of rate of product release is quite precise. And shut-off is secure. But you have to use your own judgement about the setting, since it is not calibrated to anything published on fertilizer bags. Be careful when opening the control lever. It's easy to yank it back and shift the position of the stop point you've set, and end up dropping more product than intended! My neighbor has already used it to do his lawn. We're happy so far. I give it 4 stars mainly because it seems pricey. But it is very sturdy, and the gearbox is completely enclosed, so it should give service equal to its price.

Great design, simple assembly

Does not work very well with traditional rock salt. The holes are too small and willl back up easy. If you use calcium pellets or ice melt, this spreader works great

Excellent

I bought this Buyers Products Grounds Keeper spreader about two years ago. In that time it has probably been used fewer than a dozen times, which tells you two things: I don’t do a lot of spreading. This machine is so aggravating that a dozen uses feels like a long-term relationship. Let’s begin with the gearbox. This thing makes more noise than twelve wingnuts rolling around in an empty metal bucket being kicked down a flight of stairs. My neighbor actually walked over the first time I used it because he thought I was grinding scrap metal in the driveway. Now the edge guard gate. According to the product description, this feature is supposed to keep fertilizer from spreading where you don’t want it. In real life, it functions more like a polite suggestion. If you’re hoping to protect your flower beds, sidewalk, driveway, mailbox, dog, and possibly the neighbor’s pickup truck from fertilizer overspray… you’re going to need a different plan. Then there are the little pivot flaps on the sides that are supposed to block flow. On paper, great idea. In reality, they stay in place with about the same level of reliability as a screen door on a submarine. Five minutes into the job they’re flopping around doing whatever they feel like. Next we have the hopper design, which appears to have been engineered by someone who heard about gravity but never personally met it. As you near the end of your application, a generous pile of product simply decides it’s comfortable right where it is and refuses to slide down into the drop holes. You end up shaking and tilting the spreader like you’re trying to get the last ketchup out of a bottle. Now let’s talk about using this thing with weed-and-feed on wet grass, which is how a lot of those products are actually supposed to be applied. By the time you finish, the underside of this spreader looks like it was dipped in glue and rolled through a fertilizer warehouse. Half the product sticks to every surface under there like it’s filing for permanent residency. I’m an average-sized guy, about 5’10”, and the handle angle makes the spreader ride like the front end is trying to lift off while the back wheels dig for oil. Keeping it level requires the posture of a man pushing a stalled pickup truck uphill while reconsidering his life choices. And finally, the marketing folks decided to call this thing “heavy duty” and “commercial.” Bless their hearts. There is absolutely no way a commercial landscaper would use this machine every day unless it was part of a court-ordered community service program. Now to be fair, I do want to mention the one genuinely positive thing about this product: After two years of ownership, the red color of the hopper has only faded slightly. So if you’re shopping for a loud, poorly behaved lawn ornament that occasionally spreads fertilizer while sounding like a toolbox in a clothes dryer, this might be exactly what you’re looking for. Final verdict: If this is what Buyers Products considers “commercial grade,” I’d hate to see what they label as “consumer.”

a good quality spreader.

With any weight in the hopper the gearing won’t allow the spreader to spin and it grinds nothing comes out unless you trickle feed it which is what’s the point in spending that kind of money for something that doesn’t work pure garbage do not recommend

Les ouvertures pour laisser passer l’a engrais sont trop grandes même au plus bas Ce n’est pas fait pour les engrais mais pour le sel l’hiver. J’ai tellement payé trop cher!!! Très déçue

Do you have to shake it to get the salt to come out