Makita power head question

[MerlinsBeard]

So I bought a Makita string trimmer and I’m trying to insert the attachment into the shaft and I can’t physically force the attachment into the power head. I have the locking lever rotated so it’s pointing away from the power head, aligning the attachment with the shaft nub going into the slot. I pushed that shaft in and felt a ton of resistance. I put a lot of force and I could not get the attachment to seat into the power head.

When I tried to remove the attachment, I had to get grip gloves to be able to wiggle the attachment off.

I tried loosening the two Allen key screws further up on the power head, but that hasn’t made inserting the attachment any easier. Before I call the vendor, just wondering if this has been anyone else’s experience. Maybe I’m doing something dumb, but it seems like the attachment should just slide in. Maybe I can get calipers and see if there is a size issue?

The attachment is a EM405MP with a power head GUX01. Anyone know what they would do in my situation? I ordered this from Home Depot online and nearest store is about an hour away.

 

[MerlinsBeard]

So as a follow up, I was able to return the Makita to Home Depot and ordered a replacement. The replacement works fine (still XGT 40V), but I'm having second thoughts about battery life. I do a decent amount of edging with the string trimmer and I can only seem to get about 15 minutes of work done before the 4Ah battery clunks out. For edging work, I have to run at power level 2 and if it normally takes me about 1.5 hours with a corded string trimmer, I would need to potentially drop more money on batteries... which I'm not already in the ecosystem since I'm largely Dewalt.

I appreciate the features and power (I feel that power level 3 is more than I need), but I can't seem to make a case to stay battery powered with my string trimming habits. Anyone have feedback on the Makita or battery string trimmers in general? Maybe Makita is on the lower end of battery life? I would say that using the string trimmer as an edger is probably 60% and 40% using the trimmer normally.