Why do Dolmars have such a hard time?

[Grande Dog]

The product is way better than it's managers.

Grande Dog
Master Mechanic
Discount Arborist Equipment and Tree Care Supplies

 

[P_woozel]

Sure there are, but they are not of much use when you are trying to get a saw up and running for the next day.
Put it this way. Say my Husky 372 has a base gasket fail. No problem, run down to the local dealer and pic one up, or in a worst case scenario he will pull one off a saw he has in the showroom.
Same thing happens witha 7900 and you are waiting for weeks for parts. Trust me I know...

Thats why you have at least two of your primary saws. My backup runs as well as the primary. You're right it does take a bit of time to get Dolmar parts. But its not that big a hit to production. :umpkin:

 

[klickitatsacket]

some where in this thread I read that it was possible to have to wait a couple weeks for parts. I would say that it was a poor dealer who did not have depth to his parts inventory. Not to say that there would be no fault to the manufacturer for not having parts at a readied ware house in that region. The occasional odd part I understand but most failures on saws tend to be typical and having a good supply of parts should be a part of good business.

 

[spacemule]

Sure there are, but they are not of much use when you are trying to get a saw up and running for the next day.
Put it this way. Say my Husky 372 has a base gasket fail. No problem, run down to the local dealer and pic one up, or in a worst case scenario he will pull one off a saw he has in the showroom.
Same thing happens witha 7900 and you are waiting for weeks for parts. Trust me I know...

I wouldn't want to buy saws from a guy who'll rob parts off of them before they sell. I've never liked that practice.

 

[Saw Man]

Grande Dog,
Sad but true.

 

[Molecule]

yea ... good question ...

one of the reasons I've decided to feed my addiction with Makita is that, aside from the fact that I like the brick-s**t house construction and simplicity of the German-Dolmar designs, if I need a small part or large one ... 1-800-4-makita. Admittedly, their national center has some of the parts for older saws on backorder (like the jug and piston for the 5100i), but there's never a question of .... "Well, we don't have one of those $1.00 parts in the shop today, so why don't we look at a new saw, since I know that you're saw won't work without that $1.00 part" [Hey buddy, I like to munge up my own saws, and I need a $1.00 part, not a new saw.] Yeah, whell ... there's more back-breaking paperwork in ordering (or stocking) a $1.00 part, than there is in selling you a new $600 saw ... and like they say ... the less paperwork I do, the more profit I make." I don't blame a dealer for getting "tired of doing parts paperwork on special orders of $1.00 parts." By the time he scrounges around and find the updated and correct part number, on the 3rd $1.00 part, and does the paperwork, and orders it, and tracks it, and etc. and etc. Meanwhile, I get to make two trips to the store, to have more of his wall street bubble gum poked into my eyes.

With makita, if you need expanded parts sheets with part numbers, download it. If you need owner's manuals ... download it. If you need the shop manual for you saw, call them and ask for it. They will email it to you. [observe the reaction that creates ... Oh my God - they can't do that ... that's the top-secret domain] apparently Makita parts operation is set up expressly for the purpose getting you the right part number. Yes, you pay UPS shipping, but you save yourself two trips for the odd part, and you get the correct part number, since their database is updated. Try that with Stihl or Husky--unlike Makita, they treat their parts lists and service manual like they were the hidden gold of a top secret military operation [only the chosen can peek, but if we are nice ... but we can't touch] like part numbers are some kind of covert military operation, and us customers who do our own maintenance, are like big-butted welfare queens who are gang-raping their party.

Is dolmar somehow better than makita? classier? ... I get the odd feeling that the M-word is a kind of "sneaky" word around here ... can I call a 1-800-stihl, or husky, or dolmar number and order a new jug, or a $1.00 clutch spacer ...

 

[Lawn Masters]

Molecule, I agree with the point you make completely. Stihls part numbers arent even always complete. My 038 air filter cover has a part number not even listed in my IPL.

 

[njforestfire]

hmmmmm....I RARELY see any Makitas or even Dolmars for sale.......wonder why! Maybe my next saw will be one of these......

 

[bwalker]

hmmmmm....I RARELY see any Makitas or even Dolmars for sale.......wonder why!

\
Maybe because there are so few out there?

 

[Molecule]

makita philosophy ?

It's kind of interesting ... when I heard that Home Depot rents Makita 6401s and is now required to rotate out their rental stock at 24-30 months, no matter how well a particular rental saw may still be running, I decided I'd have a look. At the store I went to, all of their saws had seen *plenty of use and abuse, and the even most banged up amongst them still just loved to run and *dang!, was running strong, even though the muffler screen was almost totally caked up. As I was pulling the muffler to shine a flashlight in there etc., (the nikasil was still shiny with no scoring -- rentals include 1-gal a day free gas-mix) it occurred to me that as their business plan, what Makita and Dolmar might be doing ... for their profit/production plan (instead of the "now popular" but anti-American Wall-St prettyboy plan of "better profit by paperwork"), it looks to me they would decide on the best part each part of the saw, during "quality" review of the design phase, and then they would stick with it for the life of that saw-even 10 years.

this observation is not without its historic context ... To anyone who knows the "American System of Physical Economy" (as opposed to the British System of "Free Trade and even cheaper men") Gen. Douglas MacArthur (who was fired by Truman, a terrorist-coward who preemptively dropped two nuclear bombs on !civilian populations, in order to protect the right of Wall St. bankers to rip off America) ... MacArthur brought in an advisor named W. Edward Deming, who like MacArthur was a student of Hamilton, Lincoln and Lincoln's economic advisor, Henry Carey, who helped build the transiberian railroad. It was Deming who "set up" or framed the economic philosophies of many of Japan's modern companies. In the words of Hamilton, profit is expressed by a qualitative increase in "the power of artisan labor," and not in the quantitative paperwork fantasies of Wall St. bankers and their "free-traders." Now, this parts management philosophy is called QC or "quality control."

(And, no I don't work for Dolmar, Makita, or anybody related ...)

 

[woodshop]

Molocule, while I sometimes have a hard time following the continuity of your posts... (I guess I'm a little slow because I find myself having to read it several times before I get it, if I even do)... I gotta say, they are definitely interesting reading

Dave

 

[SawTroll]

Most people in Norway haven't even heard of Dolmar.
The only dealer I have heard of is the Importer, so service is not easy when you live in another part of the country.

I have seen exactly no marketing here, exept for the importers website.

 

[bwalker]

Most people have not heard of Dolmar in the US either.

 

[Javelin]

I quess it depends on what part of the country you are at. In my area Dolmar is strong!

 

[TonyM]

It surprises me how many people haven't heard of Dolmar, but as soon as you say Sachs-Dolmar, "oh yah, sure." I even had one guy say he had a Sachs chainsaw, but he didn't think it said Dolmar on it anywhere.

 

[chainsawworld]

i'm a sachs/dolmar-makita fan. i have two 120's a 112, a 116 a 153 and a 6800
the only "problem" i see is that they are a little heavier than say stihl or husky. the differance in cutting speed is mostly noticable with a stop watch. i have great luck with them in a pa show against stock saws in their class. unfortunately a certain group of people show up with hot saws and i have trouble. like when the average time for three cuts for most of the cutters is in the mid twenties(seconds) and say(we'll call him mike) finishes in 15(seconds) for three cuts. spectators will look at the two saws and say"what did you expect running a sachs against a stihl"? the average spectator doesn't understand the saw has been worked and the official says "a 10 second lead in three cuts, that's possible". marty

 

[canguy21]

I wrenched at a Sachs-Dolmar dealership in the mid eighties and really liked them. A little heavy but well built, except for the plastic 100. Dolmar is only available here as a Makita and is sold through the tool stores. No service centre.
As has been mentioned, no marketing and no after sale support. The best product in the world is useless without these components. The big guys know this.

 

[bwalker]

Its really a shame Dolmar doesnt get their act together. They truly do have a first rate product that is superior to elux and stihl in many respects.

 

[SawTroll]

Sachs-Dolmar rings the bell for more people than just Dolmar here too.

The Army has used at least one Sachs-Dolmar model, but I don't know wich one. If I had to guess, I would think the 115 is the most likely one.