Stihl sucks at customer service

[Dave P 71801]

Hello everyone I’m fairly new here but I’ve been reading extensively for a long time and have learned lots. I’m hoping that Someone can help me I recently bought a new Stihl MS 461 and within 30 minutes the cir clip came out and the wrist pin did lots of damage. It knocked a chunk out of the cylinder, it disintegrated the piston
, it left huge gouges in the crankshaft, it left huge gouges and dents in the bottom of the case, one of which you can feel from the outside, basically everything inside the engine was totally destroyed or damaged. I took it back to the dealership they kept it a couple of weeks and then they called me and said it was ready to pick up. I went and got it to find out that all they did was replace the piston and cylinder, they did not do anything about the bearings that most likely had metal chunks go through them, they did nothing about the cases that have huge gouges in them, or anything about the crankshaft that has a gouge in the side of the counter weight. I reluctantly took the saw and ran it for a day and it ran like ****, I take it back to the dealership they keep it two days again, and I picked it up and it still runs like ****. It feels like there is low compression , it’s too easy to pull over and it has very little power. So I take it back for the third time now it is starting to smoke a little when you crank it, he keeps it 2 days and says he has to adjust the carburetor and gives it back to me and it still runs like ****. To give you an idea of how bad it is running with an 18 inch bar 3/8 skip tooth chain it will not pull in a 16 inch Pine log with just the weight of the saw no pushing, no lifting, just throttle up and set on there and let the weight of the saw carry it through. It will not do it no matter how hard you try. So it went back for a fourth time, again he says it needed to be adjusted and it’s breaking in and all this other ********. So this time when I got it home I did a compression test it has 105 psi of compression and that’s with about 10 to 12 pulls. I don’t know what it supposed to be but I know he should be more than that. So if anybody can give me some guidance on what I should do please let me know, if you PM me I will give you my number and you can call me or whatever thank you.

 

[RED-85-Z51]

Warranty is thru Stihl...go to another Dealer

Sent from my LM-G820 using Tapatalk

 

[PV Hiker]

Well that is not good. Should be a lemon law or something. Have you started to asked for money back or swap with a different saw? Go up the chain?

One suggestion. Your post is hard to read as it is one continuous sentence. Oh wait there is one period in the middle. Not sure what device you are using to cause this.
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[holeycow]

Obviously you should have gotten a new saw immediately. Your dealer is a moron.

 

[Dave P 71801]

Well that is not good. Should be a lemon law or something. Have you started to asked for money back or swap with a different saw? Go up the chain?

One suggestion. Your post is hard to read as it is one continuous sentence. Oh wait there is one period in the middle. Not sure what device you are using to cause this.
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Apple sucks

 

[Dave P 71801]

Warranty is thru Stihl...go to another Dealer

Sent from my LM-G820 using Tapatalk

I tried that but because of the problems I’m having no one will touch it they said I have to go back to the original purchasing dealer

 

[Dave P 71801]

Obviously you should have gotten a new saw immediately. Your dealer is a moron.

I agree 110% you spend that kind of money on a saw that you have been able to use for a total of one tank of fuel in a month

 

[OM617YOTA]

That kind of customer service is a great way to make lifetime Husky or Makita customers.

Call corporate, someone up the chain needs to know they have a dealer treating customers this way.

 

[RED-85-Z51]

Try calling your regional sales rep and see if you can find an ear.

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[buzz sawyer]

Assuming you have kept dealer records of each attempted repair, time to call Stihl direct. btw, did I understand that you tore the saw down initially to see what the extent of the damage or did you view it torn down by the dealer?

 

[Dave P 71801]

Well that is not good. Should be a lemon law or something. Have you started to asked for money back or swap with a different saw? Go up the chain?

One suggestion. Your post is hard to read as it is one continuous sentence. Oh wait there is one period in the middle. Not sure what device you are using to cause this.
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.

That should be better it’s probably still not right but I’m not grammatically correct most of the time anyway

 

[Dave P 71801]

Assuming you have kept dealer records of each attempted repair, time to call Stihl direct. btw, did I understand that you tore the saw down initially to see what the extent of the damage of did you view it torn down by the dealer?

It was tore down by the dealer but I knew enough to be there to make sure I knew what happened so I would know if it had been fixed properly if that makes any sense

 

[Dave P 71801]

This may have been my dealer lying to me but he said that the rep at Stihl Southwest is who told him he could not replace anything but the piston and cylinder but like I said he may have made that up I don’t think so because I graduated high school with the guy and we have been very good friends for over 20 years

 

[Dave P 71801]

Try calling your regional sales rep and see if you can find an ear.

Sent from my LM-G820 using Tapatalk

I only live 45 minutes from there I’ve been tempted to drive up there with the saw and have somebody bend over and I’ll put it somewhere

 

[Dave P 71801]

I was hoping that somebody on here had a friend that works for Stihl in a position that could help

 

[holeycow]

If Stihl is any company at all, they should want that saw back to diagnose it themselves. Too late now.

I repeat, your dealer is a moron. Cheap son-of-a-bee who could care less about his customers, only about the 20 bucks it cost him initially to tear it down. Big time a-hole. Now he's into it even more. Disgusting behaviour. We've all seen that with our own purchases over the years. What a pita.

good luck!

 

[Dave P 71801]

The only thing I have done to the saw is remove the muffler cover like if I was going to clean the spark arrester screen spots so I can get a look at the piston cylinder. Removing that cover is in the owners manual as part of the procedure for cleaning the screen as routine maintenance

 

[holeycow]

This may have been my dealer lying to me but he said that the rep at Stihl Southwest is who told him he could not replace anything but the piston and cylinder but like I said he may have made that up I don’t think so because I graduated high school with the guy and we have been very good friends for over 20 years

that complicates things.

 

[Vintage Engine Repairs]

Walk into the shop and tell them you’re not leaving until you get a refund. I wouldn’t buy another one from there. Get Stihl on the phone while in the shop and tell them the managers name and the shop. Kick up a fuss.

 

[jp233]

That really stinks. Since there is a documented history with the dealer, and the fact that it has low compression - that compression is out of spec and Stihl needs to fix it. Talk to the Stihl regional people first, maybe they will open a "case" and they may discuss with the dealer. Go back with the saw and call Stihl on the spot if need be right after depending on what Stihl regional/national says.

Make sure that the LOW COMPRESSION is the item to talk about - it is a testable, verifiable value and the service manuals all have specs for it. MAKE THEM VERIFY THE COMPRESSION - AND DO A LEAKDOWN TEST.

The road to fix/replace begins and ends there - if the cases are leaking since they were damaged because of the original failure, or if the crank is damaged, or seals were not replaced so it has an air leak, regardless it can be addressed. If you have a bunch of saws and especially if you are in a tree biz, they should want to keep a customer and should just replace the saw. They can fix/eat the saw...