Although grandson and I are getting ready to buy a large tiller (direct drive, no belts or chains) I have a Mantis that has been a workhorse for the past 4 years - never a single thing gone wrong. We use it for small areas such as beds.

After cleaning and replacing a few carburetor parts on a Mantis tiller I have I got it running. This tiller was a freebie and had not run in years. The gas tank was full of hard chunks of varnish and dried fuel so I new the carb was in bad shape. After cleaning it twice and replacing a few parts it still would not get fuel. Turns out there was a small piece of varnish in seat where the needle sits and no fuel would get through even after two cleanings. It took a magnifying glass to see it. I had to poke it out with a small wire and that did it. If you have ever worked on small engines you now how tiny the parts to one of these carbs are. I pulled up a manual online for this particular model and it had all the specs for the carburetor adjustment and spark plug gap. That was enough to get it started and then I adjusted the carburetor to where it ran the smoothest. It works great.