Stihl warranty issues
 

Has anyone else had issues getting stihl to honour their warranties? I bought a chainsaw (an ms291) about a year and half ago and it died a few months ago. I brought it in and the clutch was fried and overheated, fuel I used was good, used their specific oil and the tech seems to give me 2 Stories on why it’s gone. On the bill it said it was run with the chain brake on but in person he had told me there was no sign of the brake over heating... either way this makes no sense to me, either the brake didn’t stop the chain from turning or give me any warning the brake was on and it fried the clutch. The other possibility is the clutch was no good and wore out quickly, overheated and it’s done. To me this is a warranty issue, either the one safety feature failed or the machine itself failed, it isn’t a heavily used saw, maybe felled and bucked up 20 trees. I’ve been using chainsaws for years so it’s not like I’m a rookie, ran a poulan for more than 10 years and cut down far more trees without issue.

Sounds like a bunch of bs. Go over his head whoever you were talking to. That’s a fairly expensive saw and should be problem free this shortly into ownership.

You have either an issue with the guy you are dealing with being full of it, or you have a bad dealer. Stihl is usually really good with warranty. If they weren't it would not take long to loose the large following of dedicated Stihl users. Talk to the most senior guy at the dealership, no joy, take it to another dealer or contact Stihl direct.


As far as the line he is giving you, you can't run a saw with the Chain brake on, if you can something isn't working right to start with.

If you paid for the repair, get the old parts back.

That is surprising to hear. They usually are great to deal with and I have bought many items over the years from them. I would phone the company direct and somehow get ahold of the upper management if you can. Also ask the shop who the local rep is for your area and chat with him.
Whenever I get the run around from a big company I will not let it go and I also mention that they will be slammed on social media. They don’t want that. I’m sure you will get it rectified with a little work.

I haven’t paid for the repair nor will I likely do that, they want to charge almost as much as I purchased the saw for to fix it. I assure you if they aren’t going to honour their warranty I will never be touching a stihl again. It worked fine for a year and a half as one would expect a $700Ish saw to do and didn’t really cause any issues until I was bucking up 1 tree that had fallen and overheated. Didn’t have any inkling that the brake was on or any clutch issues other than bucking it up marginally slower than usual which I though was just because the tree may have been a little green. Went to fill up gas and bar oil (there was still some oil) and it was really hot, I let it cool down and tried restarting it and no joy. Did some inspection and saw the clutch had overheated and had some issues.

I called stihl and they said they don’t cover “user error”, apparently they are under the stance that the chain brake doesn’t need to stop the chain from turning or even give an inkling of It being on...

I called stihl and they said they don’t cover “user error”, apparently they are under the stance that the chain brake doesn’t need to stop the chain from turning or even give an inkling of It being on...

Oh they will hear from me, a lot, and I’m far too stubborn to let this go lol!

He agreed that it shouldn’t run with the brake on but said it could wear out and run... on an essentially new saw, load of crap if you ask me.

Good to hear. 😁. I am relentless with big corporations. Drives my wife crazy but I always get what I want.

Déjà vu:)
It is exactly my story 2 years ago.

So how did yours turn out in the end? and if you got satisfactory resolution how did you do it.

I brought the saw to dealership. They said:
- OK, will take it and check and call you later.
I'm on acreage in remote area and I need saw every day. The STIHL had ms291 on sale for $495, so, I just bought another one at the same dealership.
Nobody calls me during next week. I decided to call the dealership and check the status of my case. The guy on the other side said:
- You saw was bad and we threw it away, we decided you don't need it if you already got new one.
- No, I need my saw and I'm coming to get it good or bad.
...
I came in an hour and found my saw fixed. My guess, somebody in that dealership decided to get a free saw:)

Wow, that’s some pretty shady dealings, if you don’t mind me asking which dealership was that through?
I did go pick up my saw last week, they charged me $115 for diagnosis and gave the saw back to me half disassembled, however the bill said one thing, they told me something different on the cause...

One thing I can say it didn't happen in AB, I promised to their manager not to disclose their dealership.

Fair enough, well I made no such promise and if they don’t stand up behind their product I’ll make sure others know.

Have to tell you, if I dealt with either dealer, I wold be switching brands to a legitimate dealer. I know times are tough right now, but not tough enough to be doing this kind of crap. I would not have paid the "Diagnosis" fee either.


Straight, I would have flat out called the Cops and charged them with theft, That is beyond Skanky. Sorry for both your guys troubles, sure glad I never ran into a saw dealer like that, all of mine, Stihl and Husky, have been great and in a lot of different towns. Best Stihl dealer I ever dealt with is the guy in Cochrane, Slave Lake had the best Husky dealer. All of them have been straight up and honest.

I'd like to hear about that 'Promise' story.. what was in it for you to keep it quiet?..poor future suckers
will be repeating your same expierence that you had at said scam business.

I bought a new MS391 a few years ago.. It never ran right from day one.. multiple issues including what you have experinced.. Stihl was awful to deal with.. The saw is sitting in my garage now unusable until I have time to tear the entire thing apart to repair it.

I'll never buy a stihl again after spending 750$ on a saw that never ran right and was such a pain to get warranty work done.

$115 to diagnose? Sounds pretty steep to me, it’s a chainsaw not a new truck

Let's see pics of the clutch drum. Pull it out and let's see it.

On a side not, I wouldn’t buy a saw with a 1 at the end. I’ve got a 026, 460 and a 250. They’ve all been great other than I put a $20 amazon replacement carb in the 250 after a couple hundred litres of fuel through it. I run brp oil too.

Slough Shark, I’m very sorry to hear about your saw troubles. Unfortunately, I believe you’re probably SOL getting warranty work done on a year and a half old product with a ‘consumable’ part failure.

Given the fact you said the saw was cutting a bit reluctantly, what I think may have happened is that your oiler plugged off. A dry chain gets tight and hot fast. After 10 years of running garbage poulins you likely just continued to push through with the far more powerful machine and cooked it without knowing the better. This would explain why there’s no evidence of heat on the brake spring which is a ridiculous diagnosis.

This is of course pure speculation on my part, but is there a build up of residue on the chain, or is it shiny? Has the paint on the bar near the channel chipped off? Does the sprocket at the tip still turn? (It needs to be greased periodically and there’s ports for that).

Another possibility is that the saw ingested something metallic like hay wire that managed to find its way around the crank sprocket and caused huge resistance between the chain and clutch drum.

The best advice I can give off the top of my head is to pull the cover and bar off and try to start it naked. If there isn’t catastrophic internal failure it should run.

Good luck!

Tree


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Dam eh....just goes to show you how a dealership can literally blow it on a fine product....bury the buggers.....keep at'em.

I just checked the sprocket and it turns freely, As well the paint around the channel is fine, the bar wasn’t pinched. I do recall at least some oil being used, it could possibly have been a less than normal amount to I don’t recall so hard to confirm anything on that, is there a way of knowing if the Oiler is plugged while using it? It all went down on less than a tank of gas and then at oil is always full when I start. Yeah the brake diagnosis is bunk, no sign of heat on the spring, as far as their other possible diagnosis with it being overheated due to using the teeth on front if that does in a saw they need to design a better saw.

Curious, did you use gas pre-mix 50:1, or those cans stores sell for $9.99 that are mixed?

I ask because I bought one of those premix cans from C.tire in July for my Husky 55, filled tank,

started cutting for approx. 30secs & all of a sudden the engine got hot, heavy sounding and signs of

a piston seizing were present. Shut off, pulled plug, sure enough, plug was very white. I sprayed

WD40 into hole & slowly cycled piston, let it sit & cool. Dumped the premix, mixed up a fresh batch of

regular gas oil, fired right up and has been fine ever since. So i don't buy those premix cans from CT,
only from a authorized Husky dealer now!

My Sthil is over 20 yrs old and has seen thousands of kms strapped to a quad and cut hundred's of hours of trees. To this day if the brake is on, it wont power through.

I doubt that's the cause of your issues. Sounds like your dealer and Stihl need to step up.

I never touch premix gas, all my small engines get premium gas mixed with 2 stroke oil, in this case it was the special stihl 2 stroke oil as per my end of the 2 year warranty. This was fresh gas mixed with the stihl oil, I hadn’t added any fuel stabilizer as I had intended to use most of the gas.

I seem to recall that the Stihl 2 stroke oil I bought (same deal as you, buy the oil and get an extra year of warranty) has a fuel stabilizer in it. I will check next time I'm close to the saw.

ARG