Review of the
Rohrer Manufacturing
98E-W Post Driver
Rohrer calls this a "Mansaver Post Driver".
I have other names for it.
Mansaver Review - March 10, 2023
Don't buy this – This tool has LOTS of problems, and Rohrer Manufacturing, the seller/manufacturer of these post drivers, NEVER responds to emails or calls. NEVER.
To say that Rohrer's customer service SUCKS is an understatement. Their customer service is nonexistent.
If you want a tool to work WITH, one that works as advertised,
buy something else.
If you want something to work ON, buy a Mansaver Post Driver. You'll spend LOTS of time trying to get it to work. And you'll get NO help from Rohrer.
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Do yourself a favor and buy your driver from a company that cares about their customers.
Rohrer certainly does not.
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I bought two Mansaver Post Drivers in November, 2021 - a 98E Basic T-post driver, and the 98E-W, which is SUPPOSED to drive up to 3-1/2 inch diameter posts.
Total price including shipping was $1577.92. I expected to get top-quality, American-made, labor-saving products. I got problems and headaches instead.
Maybe I should have realized immediately that these wouldn't be all that great when I opened the oil-soaked boxes the units shipped in. I guess this was a sign of things to come...
It seems Rohrer wanted to be "helpful" so they tossed a plastic squeeze bottle of oil into the box along with the driver.
Wanna guess what happened to the bottle? Yep, the heavy chunks of steel bounced around and punctured the oil bottles. Nice work, Rohrer. Could you ship the oil separately... or at least protect the bottle?
I finally got around to trying to use the 98E-W in November 2022. I haven't tried the T-post driver yet, and I'm not really looking forward to the experience.
I managed to drive only seven (7) posts in two days with this thing. I was NOT happy.
I tried calling Rohrer for help, but they didn't answer the phone and didn't call me back, so I emailed them asking for advice. As I type this it's been four months, and so far, NO RESPONSE.
I actually called again three days prior to typing what you are now reading. Left another message. No response. Again. See any pattern here?
I am driving 3 inch schedule 40 steel pipe 36 inches into clay soil with some rocks and roots, but mostly just clay.
Of course this is not soft soil, but I've driven wood 4x4s into this same dirt using a drop-type 3-point driver and they went in much faster than the 98E-W is driving steel posts, which surprised me, because everything I found online indicated these were really fast post drivers. Really fast for T-posts, maybe, but not for pipe fence posts.
I pre-lubed the driver with a couple of tablespoons of the remaining oil from the broken bottles Rohrer sent. I'm using a regulated air supply at 90 p.s.i. with inline oiling, which is exactly what Rohrer recommends. I've also swapped out the weight on the valve with the plastic sleeve as recommended. The driver is not leaking any air, but it seems to only provide pneumatic power on the UP stroke - it does not seem to help at all on the DOWN stroke, and down-stroke power is what is needed and what they advertise.
It seems to cycle up and down as rapidly as advertised but it drives posts SLOWLY. Each stroke drives the post roughly 0.010", so it takes about 100 strokes to drive a post one inch.
I could actually dig post holes faster with a hand post-hole digger and then tamp or concrete them in place, but I sure don't want to.
There are several problems with this unit including:
(1) Difficulty accessing the on/off valve when the unit is cycling - it's really hard to do this, so I recommend using a remote valve on your air supply so you don't need to catch it while it's running...
(2) Often when the air hose is first connected the unit won't start by opening the valve - you must instead connect the air hose with the valve in the "On" position, which of course starts the driver immediately. Again, using a remote valve fixes the problem.
(3) The clamp screw is WAY too small for the 98E-W - probably OK for the T-post driver - more on this below.
(4) A pin to hold the inner sleeve in the fully retracted position when sliding on or off a post would be very helpful. I made a retainer pin for my unit: With the sleeve retracted, I drilled a hole through both inner and outer sleeves, threaded the outer sleeve 3/8-16 and ground the tip of a short 3/8-16 grade 8 cap screw to fit the inner hole. The only problem with this arrangement is finding somewhere to keep the bolt when it's not in use... probably should come up with a better idea.
More on item (3), above: A serious problem with this unit is the clamp screw/bolt that secures the inner sleeve to the post. They use the same 7/16" cap screw for all their drivers, and this is totally inadequate for a driver as heavy as the 98E-W.
Even several of the "Testimonials" on their website mention that the screw must be continually retightened because it works loose.
The 7/16-20 clamp screw also flexes like crazy as the unit cycles up and down, which in my case resulted in the screw stripping the threads in the collar after only driving eight posts.
With these threads stripped, the Mansaver is useless. So a $1,000.00 tool drove eight posts and broke. Nice.
And there appears to be no way to contact the crappy company that sells these. Very nice.
The threads in the original collar could have been repaired using a HeliCoil or other thread repair insert, or I could have simply added a new threaded hole, but I wanted to drive more than a few posts before the clamp screw hole stripped again, so I replaced the flimsy collar with a much beefier collar drilled and tapped to accept a 3/4-16 grade 8 cap screw - much more suitable for this application, in my opinion.
When I emailed Rohrer in November 2022, I told them I was considering adding a weight to the 98E-W to help with driving through rocks and roots.
Since they never responded I decided to go ahead and add a weight.
I disassembed the 98E-W to prevent damaging heat sensitive parts and welded a temporary piece of threaded rod to the top of the driver so I could experiment with different amounts of weight using steel "donuts" similar to weight-lifting bar weights.
With the 98E-W reassembled, testing indicated the optimum add-on weight to be about 14 pounds, so I disassembled the unit, removed the temporary rod, and welded a short section of a 3-inch pipe coupling securely to the top of the driver.
After weighing to determine the lengths needed, I cut a section of 3-inch steel pipe and welded a 3-inch solid steel pin into the pipe. Other types of weights could be used, obviously. I used what I had on hand.
The threads allow me to use the driver with or without the weight, which is especially helpful when lifting the driver on or off the post.
Also, the driver seems to work better without the weight unless roots or rocks are encountered.
The weight definitely helps the driver punch through roots and helps quite a bit when the post hits small or medium rocks. I don't expect to drive through solid rock, of course.
To summarize, I definitely would not recommend the 98E-W. I will probably keep using it until I find something better, but this thing has been a real PITA for me. Your mileage may vary...
I also would NOT recommend anything Rohrer sells, because they are guilty of what radio financial guru Clark Howard used to call "Customer No-Service".
Their drivers MIGHT work on T-posts, but if you have a problem, you'll have to figure out how to fix it on your own.
If you try to use a Mansaver driver for anything bigger than T-posts, you'd better be able to weld and do basic machine work, because your driver will almost certainly require extensive repairs.
I'll say it again -
Do yourself a favor and buy from a seller that cares about their customers. Rohrer certainly does not. ________________________________________
For what it's worth, there are no negative reviews on the "Reviews" page on the Mansaver website – maybe that's because when you click on "Reviews" you are sent to a "Testimonials" page instead.
