Those Goddamn Chainsaws

Jerry.Tan · 2015-06-24T18:25:56+00:00

I've probably bought at least 30 chainsaws over the years. Many were at auctions or garage sales and needed work. Some of those I was able to get running, others became boat anchors or got sold at our own sales. Others I bought new. Those generally worked well, but only once!!!! It seems that chainsaws are made to be used once, and thrown in the trash. It dont matter if they were bought new, or use ones that were just rebuilt, they all have one thing in common, THEY ONLY WORK ONCE! I've added gas stabilizer, used costly premium gas without alcohol, tried draining the gas, even blowing out the carb. None of this matters, if the saw is not used for a few weeks or months, it will never run again, (at least not without rebuilding the carb, and probably more repairs). And none of this takes into account the amount of times a person has to pull the string to get that bastard started. It often rivals the amount of strokes your arm would make to use a hand saw. And by the time you do get them started, you're probably too exhausted to cut the damn tree. After spending over $200 to get my Stihl professionally rebuilt, which occurred after I had already spent 3 full days working on it, and at least $50 for parts, I had a well running saw. It started quickly, and I trimmed several branches and cut down a small dead tree in an hour. But it never fails, a few months later we had a bad storm, and there were 7 large trees knocked down. I grabbed the Stihl, and spent 2 hours pulling the string. Thats when I went to the local tool rental place and asked to rent a chainsaw, only to find out they stopped renting chainsaws, because people always brought them back broken. (I asked if that was because of the people, or just an inheritant tendency of all chainsaws to break down after every use). - TIME TO CHANGE - About 8 years ago, I either sold the last of the gas powered chainsaws for parts on Craigslist, or threw them in the trash. I went and bought an electric chainsaw. I was very...

Jun 24, 2015 23 Replies

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gregz 11 years ago

My husqvarna been going on 10 years occasional use. Never drain gas. Always starts up. Never serviced.

Greg

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Terry Coombs 11 years ago

Well , I can't complain , this saw was given to me . It needed some work , mostly a carb cleaning and new bar and chain , So far the worst saw I own is the only one I actually bought , but I really can't complain much about that one either . I gave 75 bucks for it used probably 15 years ago . It saw light use mostly until we moved up here and I started heating wirh wood ... now I have 3 , with extra power heads for 2 of them . It's nice to have a spare ready to go if you accidently touch a rock or get the bar bound !

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Phil Kangas 11 years ago

Same here. Did replace the piston ring before it wore to the point where it could catch the exhaust port. New ring and gasket, $25. You get what you pay for, eih? Great saw....

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