What's up with Stihl?

[AJLOGGER]

I own Stihls and love them, and I agree with bwalker, I can not see any difference between the 372 and the 044. Now this buisness with stihl cheapening their product. Every car maker including BMW and the big M have cheapened their cars, cars anymore are junk! My brother is a State Trooper for Indiana and drives a crown victoria and has blown the intake 3 times because it is plastic, I like Chevy and GM but now their intakes are plastic, same with saws ALL are not as good as they used to be for whatever reason. I owned a couple of huskys and one in particular was especially junk, I couldn't even adjust the saw because the stupid plastic screws would vibrate out of adjustment, so I got another and it was a piece of crap in other ways. I am not saying one brand is crappier than the other I am just saying that the day and age in which we live everything gets worse because of cost and mass production, and because we move eveything down to Mexico.

 

[ac45]

I think a lot of the newer saws seem cheap compared to the eqivalent model 20 years ago. A lot of this is the plastic. The new huskies seem light on the back end compared to my old husky. It may be a little heavier, but I think the balance , and feel is better. The overall fit and finish of the older stihls seemed to look a little better , than the newer ones, but the contained more metal parts which means more weight.

 

[confused]

I have a stihl and would buy another if i needed it (but i dont) Personally i dont have any experience with any of the other saws so i wont trash them.

 

[My2cents]

Typical not so great Corperations. You just have to pick the best of the worst. I am amazed at the problems people discuss yet I don't hear about any company recalls. Its seems the manufacture just shrugs off the problems or sometimes fixes them thru new saw models.

 

[Tony Snyder]

By asking "Would you buy another Stihl saw" you have biased your poll toward Stihl fans (those who have already owned one). There is a lot of blind loyalty out there. If you susbstituted the name Husky, you would probably get an equally biased result. What you have really done is a dissatisfaction survey, with 25% of the respondents being dissatisfied.

You might try doing one for Husky and see if results are similar.

 

[ac45]

It is kinda of ike the old saying that goes something like, for every good thing you have you tell 2 or 3 people about it, but for every bad thing you tell 20 or 30. I ve been on other forums such as automotive ones, and from the omplaints you would think every vehicle on th road was junk, but you only here about the bad ones.

 

[FSburt]

Kinda interesting reading scotts reply about the husky 372 bottom ends going. Have been using the Husky 268 since 1992 and have had very few of teh bottom ends go just slap another top end on and bam good to go but these 372 we have switched to have had the bottom ends go after 2 years farly consistantly. So we are trying some Stihl 440 to see if we can get some better reliability out of our saws. I am a TSI crewleader and put on 500 to 700 hrs of saw time a season thinning precommercial sized trees on the west slope of the Sierra Nevada. We are the only crew left on our forest who stuck with Husky after all the Shot crews dumped their husky 372 for stihl 046 because of the bottom end failures. We just had too much $ invested in parts and saws to give up that quick but with reliability in serious question with Husky we decided to try stihls. Got to run one of our new 440 yesterday and was pretty impressed with the feel and power for thinning. Only complaint is the dogs are too small and there is only 1. We have 90 days to put them through their paces bafore the factory warrenty expires so I'll keep you guys posted what we think of them as time goes on. I liked the husky 268 but the 72 has way more power and a better AV system too bad thay can't make these saws more durable like the 68's were.

 

[John Ellison]

I would vote yes, with a big BUT. In a logging camp, fallers will pack their tools in to their strip and leave them until finished. Nobody else around to worry about theft and sometimes a long hike in. So you usually never bring your saw in to camp unless something is wrong with it that you cant fix quickly.
Most all of the cutters are from the P.N.W. If you cant drive to the local saw shop every night to get parts or buy a new saw you have to have something reliable with spares. A small camp might have only two fallers but a big one might have twenty. It seemed to me like it was about 55% Stihl and 45% Husky or even 60/40 minus the few "other" brands. It was easy for me to form a reliability opinion by watching who would be packing a saw in at the end of the day to do some type of repair. IMO there was no question that Stihl was the more reliable saw. At that time it was 066's.
My last two Stihls here were ms460s. Mostly EPA related, but they both had small problems right off the bat.
Good reports on here{AS} have convinced me that a lot of manufacturers now make some nice saws. Maybe they did before and I just wasnt around them.

So, Yes but I am going to try some brand x saws first.

Dolmar 7900 For me it seems- after about 8 tanks it feels very strong and [what I like most] is smooth. The stock muffler is not near as restrickted as the 460s. The HS screw on the carb is set where I felt it should be on a new saw. Instead of Screaming lean at the richest setting. I do like Stihls chain tensioning and the clear fuel tank but can live without them. I have had the same problem as Wiley with the decomp button. With me its my chaps hitting the start handle, turning it sideways and into the button. Hasnt happened many times , still too early to tell but so far I am real happy with my new off brand saw.

John

 

[a_lopa]

when someting comes on the market that compares to a 46 ill try it,untill then ''no thanks''25'' allday everyday.

 

[TJACK]

Let me discuss what is/was going on with the bottom end or crank bearings on the 372 & 385. These saws are made for heavy cutting in larger logs. When this saw is cranking at 13,500 + RPM's limbing or moving between limbs (yes, people do this), it is hard on the bottom end. Husqvarna has these saws currently on test with different crank bearings and limiters to correct this issue. The boot issue on the 385 was correct quickly.

I can tell you first hand, Husky is committed to providing the professional with a professional grade saw. They are testing and continue to test after the saw is sent to market to ensure the consumer is satisfied.

No I do not work for Husky

TJACK