Hozelock60m 2 in 1 Empty Hose Reel

this hose took three of us to assemble...and one of us a real handy man with years of experience. We purchased this expecting it to be fully assembled.... we were in lock down when purchased so on line for what we would buy normally seemed okay....how wrong we were ! instructions on the package were poor and impossible to assemble without drilling holes for parts to be connected. If we had bought this from our normal shop it would have been assembled and ready to use .... would not not not not buy this again and would advise same for anyone else !!

I'm going to deduct 2 stars because of the faff I had trying to stop the internal connection in the reel from leaking. I worked out in the end that the connector isn't as tight as it needs to be for the teeth to grip the hose. A bit of lateral thinking fixed it. Make the hose thicker so the teeth grab the hosepipe. Two words - gaffer tape. Worked a treat. If you do this from the word go it's easy. I did this only because I'd had the hose for a week or so and it was already set up. If it hadn't been for that issue this would have been a 5 star review. For the price though I'm happy.

Like many others who have reviewed this product, I found significant difficulties getting a watertight connection between the spindle connector that fits into the reel and the hosepipe (see photo). After contacting Hozelock I realised that was because I had fitted the anti-kink spring (which goes inside this connection) incorrectly. The guidance in this respect is totally inadequate. I eventually found the best way to fit the anti-kink spring correctly is to pass it through the connector from the outside end of the connector until it will not go any further. I also found it was too tight to push through from the outside and resolved the problem by fixing a piece of chord to the end of the spring and pulling it though the connector from the outside end to the hose end. It is too tight a fit to push through, but it will pull through. Once I had the spring in the right place there was no longer a leak and everything was fine, but the assembly pictures on the box are grossly inadequate in this respect. They suggest the spring should be pushed into the connector from the inside (hose) end, but no way will the wide part of the spring where the hook end joins the spring end go through the width of the hole. Unless I had a 'bad' spring, pulling it through from the outside end is the only way. Hozelock did send me a PowerPoint presentation which showed me that I had fitted the spring incorrectly, but not in a million years would I have worked out the correct way without it.

I was not expecting to assemble this product - the picture shows it complete.The instructions are printed as tiny pictograms on the box lid almost illegible as they are so small. The box contents are not clear ( no proper check list ) and when you finish assembling it there are a spring and two screws left over.

This product looks very nice. It looks like it would do the job it was made to do. With Hozelocks pedigree you would hope that it had been extensively field-tested and tweaked. Think again.This hose was bought to replace an old wire reinforced one that had served me well for many years but was too short to reach the far end of my garden. This old hose never kinked to the extent it stopped passing water. It never kinked itself into a knot which instead of sliding back onto the reel got caught up around plants or ornaments. I now leave it strung out along the length of my garden because it makes life easier. It's practically flawed in design or the design has been compromised due to a cheap or poorly reinforced hose. I wish I hadn't bothered.