coveredinsap said:
The Stihl was a MS390...and there is no getting around that it was a piece of crap. Now whether it was a piece of crap from the factory or it crapped out on the job...it was still crap. About the only thing the dealer did do was refuse to back his piece of crap saw.
Sure it could have been a Husky. But it wasn't. It was a Stihl.
Set up? What needs to be 'set up'? They come with the carb pre-set from the factory, particularly here in California. Only for high elevations do they need to be tuned different than factory settings. I'm at sea level.
It wasn't about cutting performance...the Stihl cut well. It was about durability...with the 45cc Homelite showing no ill effects after doing the same work that people are claiming that the $500 Stihl is not suitable for. That's the real joke here....the little cheapo Homelite put the big bad Stihl to shame in a ripping test of endurance. Deal with it.
Sorry, I thought you said it was a 310.
Anyhow, you got a lemon, and bought a saw that wasn't intended for the use you wanted it for. The problem was the dealer, not the saw. If he wasn't useless, you never would have been sold that saw. If you were to keep running that Homelite in that situation, I have no doubt it would soon die. They aren't built as well as even the admittedly less well built homeowner models like the 290-390. A good dealer would have never sold that saw for that use, and would have taken care of the problem if it was to have arisen as it did. You bought a saw from a bad dealer, and had problems, so now you're going to keep that sour taste in your mouth, instead of waking up to the reality that your dealer was the problem all along. Stihl makes very good saws, but they too have some issues, but a good dealer will make them right. Guess what, Husqvarna has bad dealers and puts out saws that are lemons too. If you had a good dealer, he would have sold you the appropriate saw for your use, set it up correctly, and looked after you in the case of a problem. He should have recognized the fact that you were using it for milling, and the saw was not going to be suitable for that use. He didn't and that is his failure, not the saw's. He also failed to catch the likely pre-existing crack in the oil tank, which again, while it is a factory defect, that does occur and can't always be prevented, but a good dealer can look after you when you do have issues. Your issue here is with a bad dealer, who sold you a model that wasn't suited for that usage. That he happened to sell Stihl shouldn't be a black mark on their saws, or their dealer network in general, it should fall solely on him.
Like TreeSlingr says of his dealer, the ones around here all have to deal with customers who won't take any BS. They know what they want and need, and if he can't provide it, they'll go elsewhere and he will go under. If you had instead been fortunate enough to have found one of these dealers, he would have sold you an appropriate saw for your needs, and backed it up with service to match. You'd be on here praising Stihl instead of pissing and moaning about how bad that one particular dealer was, and washing their product with the same brush. I'm glad that you're happy with your Husqvarna dealer, and your new saw. But by failing to focus on the real issue here (your Stihl dealer) and instead saying since his service was crappy and he sold me the wrong saws for my needs, all Stihls must be bad, you are doing a disservice to the good dealers that do exist, and the products they do make that are much better quality and more suited to your needs.
On the issue of carb seup, just because the carb is set at the factory doesn't mean it is set right. They set it at the factory to meet emissions requirements, not maximum power or engine life. Those fancy little limiter caps are removable and any decent dealer will pop them off, set the carb right, and then pop them back on. Factory settings aren't correct for almost anywhere. The carb needs to be tuned for where it is run, even if that is low elevation in California.
