mid range saw - husky or jonsered?

crackcrack30

Which make or model in light mid range for farm use? thanks

GY A1

husqvarna 365 is a great saw, great power for 18" or 24" bar

lidl have a 40cc saw on thursday for 100 euro wonder would that be any good

Bizzum

GY A1 wrote: »

husqvarna 365 is a great saw, great power for 18" or 24" bar

I would agree. The 365 is a powerful saw but it's a big heavy saw at 65cc. A 45cc or 50 cc Husq with an 18" bar is far easier used, easier on juice and more than enough for 95% of farm jobs.

btb

My local dealer (main dealer for both husky and jonsred) recommends jonsred, small husky's give too much trouble in his opinion, that said went with stihl for a midrange saw, better value pricewise

Eleganza

GY A1 wrote: »

lidl have a 40cc saw on thursday for 100 euro wonder would that be any good

That's a good saw for occassional use made by the same people who make Jonsered and Husqvarna saws.

BEWARE!!!!!!!!!!!!
There are a lot of red and orange saws being sold at markets with Husqvarna and Jonsered badges on them. These saws are Chinese junk and have nothign to do with either Jonsered or Husqvarna and I'd take a 99 euro LIDL saw in preference to them.

Eleganza

pop down to lidl and buy chainsaw early.
I hear it is stormy in ireland tonight and chainsaw mechanics/sales people are overrun with people the following days after big storms.,

LostCovey

GY A1 wrote: »

lidl have a 40cc saw on thursday for 100 euro wonder would that be any good

No it will be rubbish.

Started with LIDL (their brand is Florabest), moved on to Stihl, and not going back!

LC

PS this is my humble opinion having bought an absolute turkey off LIDL, which eventually went in a skip after no more than 2 hours work

LostCovey

Eleganza wrote: »

That's a good saw for occassional use made by the same people who make Jonsered and Husqvarna saws.

BEWARE!!!!!!!!!!!!
There are a lot of red and orange saws being sold at markets with Husqvarna and Jonsered badges on them. These saws are Chinese junk and have nothign to do with either Jonsered or Husqvarna and I'd take a 99 euro LIDL saw in preference to them.

Yeah, spot on there. I also saw STHIL (note spelling) power tools on a market stall, that looked crappy quality, and were as crappy as the spelling of Stihl on the blade!

When you are buying something that can cut your leg off, buy a good one (I am a late convert to this policy - you can save what I squandered on cheap trash).

LC

btb

had one of them Lidl saws for 4 years, felled and delimbed a lot of timber with it before it blew up (just put a decent bar and chain on it), definitely got my money's worth. Also you get a 3 year garuntee with it. Might buy another one just for delimbing as got a stihl ms291 for felling (expect this to last many years).

blue5000

Jonsered voter here. Seriously fast saw.

Would agree with LC, if you're buying something that will/can cut yer leg off, buy a good one!

Whatever you buy don't lend it to ANYONE not even your brother. Use a clean new petrol container, not one that worm dose or roundup came in!

polod

btb wrote: »

had one of them Lidl saws for 4 years, felled and delimbed a lot of timber with it before it blew up (just put a decent bar and chain on it), definitely got my money's worth. Also you get a 3 year garuntee with it. Might buy another one just for delimbing as got a stihl ms291 for felling (expect this to last many years).

I got my first welder in lidl and it blew up after 2 months work
never bought a thing again in lidl after that

LostCovey

blue5000 wrote: »

Whatever you buy don't lend it to ANYONE not even your brother. Use a clean new petrol container, not one that worm dose or roundup came in!

.............especially your brother. To quote whelan1, you can't tell your brother to fook off if he breaks it

Other sacred commandments, learned the hard way.

There is nothing as secure to stand on as the ground.

No oil works as well on the chain as chain oil

Mind that multitool that comes with the saw like a family heirloom

If you need to cut something above your head, cut it lower down first.

Learn to sharpen the saw with a file. there are a million other gadgets that will do it, but this one costs less than a tenner, fits in your pocket and doesn't need batteries.

If you touch it up regularly you never need to SHARPEN it

Please feel free to add more.

LC

Rovi

Another vote for Jonsered here, I've had one for many years now, purchased second-hand, and it's never missed a beat and has cut a LOT of timber for me.

Jonsered, Husqvarna, and Stihl all do ranges of medium-duty/farm saws and professional saws, so I'd suggest going with whichever of those three your closest/best chainsaw dealer carries.

johnstown

Had a good jonsered for years. The mother got in a lad one day to do a bit of sawing for her (despite telling her never to let anyone near a saw) and he put unmixed petrol in! anyhow, asked a forester i know what brand, as was thinking jonsered ire stihl and he said deffo go for the stihl. They are more expensive but should get a lifetime with correct maintenance. Bought new during the ploughing match week and got a great discount.

kay 9

Wouldn't touch anything but a still for reliability and ease of maintenance after having huskies, echo, partner and oleo mac. Have an ms 180 which I get the most use out of and an ms 260 that is for more felling than limbing. Would love a ms 660 for the heavier stuff though.

flatout11

tis not something your gonna buy every year so it may as well be a good one a stihl (genuine one) would be my pick

O.A.P

crackcrack30 wrote: »

Which make or model in light mid range for farm use? thanks

Husqvarna 346xp , not cheap but about the best 50 cc saw out there.

barryoc1

Small bit off the topic but i want to get a new bar (18") for a Husqvarna saw. Any recommendations on websites for parts. Will also try a local dealer but would like to shop around.

countryjimbo

blue5000 wrote: »

Whatever you buy don't lend it to ANYONE not even your brother.

Great advise there!

Jonty

husky 346xp

Mickey H

O.A.P wrote: »

Husqvarna 346xp , not cheap but about the best 50 cc saw out there.

I'd go for the Husqvarna OP, but this is based on the following:

They're a very good saw O.A.P. Got a 262 XP second hand about 8 years ago. It was 2 years old and just out of the forest with alot of work done. It has done as much more since and never gave 1 minute of trouble other than the start cord detaching from the pulley*.

* Lesson learned: The start cord is shorter than my arm!

Eleganza

The majority of saws recommended here are too expensive for the needs of most occassional chainsaw users.
The manufacturers have done the research and the 99 quid saw from LIDL is the result of their research.
Please don't recommend certain brands. My experience of them is that everyone o the good brands has had good and average saws in their range.
262XPs are pulpwood saws and not suited to use on a homestead. Find the right saw for the job because they are not all the same.

BTW Nomadic people absolutely love chainsaws even though they own no trees.

Rovi

For anything more than very occasional 'garden' jobs, I'd be strongly suggesting the purchase of a 'proper' chainsaw from one of the well known and respected manufacturers.
I'll cite my brother's experience as an example: after several tries at the budget end (the €99 LIDL, chain-store, 'no-name', etc saws), he finally called it a day and bought a mid-range Husqvarna. He hasn't looked back; the saw has proved utterly reliable and robust, and has so far done twice as much work as all the cheapies put together without missing a beat.
Of course, this learning experience has cost him the price of two good saws

Juniorhurler

OP, IMO if you spend €99 ona saw you get €99 worth of saw.

I know SFA about saws but here is my tuppence worth anyhow. The old man bought a stihl in 1980. I don't know the number but it got nothing other than 2 stroke mix, chain oil, guide bars and chains in 29 years. In 2009 I needed to clear ditches and gripes that were out about 4-5 metres on 40 acres of land that I bought. I was going to be using a saw all day and getting into awkward spots too so I traded in the old stihl as it weighed a tonne and had no anti kickback bar. I bought a stihl MS290. I old €8000 worth of firewood and have about half that stored, all cut with the new stihl. It has got nothing done other than a new guide bar and chain. It does get quite heavy when you are on it all day but anything smaller I think would have been a waste of money for me.

99nsr125

kay 9 wrote: »

Wouldn't touch anything but a still for reliability and ease of maintenance after having huskies, echo, partner and oleo mac. Have an ms 180 which I get the most use out of and an ms 260 that is for more felling than limbing. Would love a ms 660 for the heavier stuff though.

MS 180 is a cracking little saw, it's so
useful it's ridiculous sometimes

Ideally you want the lightest saw you can get away with
The replacement version of the MS 260 is I think the MS 250
can be got with an 18 inch bar too.

Huskey 346 very good also

Huskey and jonsered are now the same company served by the same dealers

Eleganza

Juniorhurler wrote: »

OP, IMO if you spend €99 ona saw you get €99 worth of saw.

If you spend 250 quid on a brand name saw you get a 99 euro saw with 150 euros of branding. you need to be going to 500 euro to get a quality saw but a quality saw is in no way worth 500 euro. they are just the simplest two stroke internal combustion engine you can buy with bar and chain attached.

reilig

Eleganza wrote: »

If you spend 250 quid on a brand name saw you get a 99 euro saw with 150 euros of branding. you need to be going to 500 euro to get a quality saw but a quality saw is in no way worth 500 euro. they are just the simplest two stroke internal combustion engine you can buy with bar and chain attached.

You can buy a Quality husqvarna 236 from a husqvarna dealer at €200. Its light yet powerful in comparison to the cheap Lidl saws. Cheap saws tend to be very heavy and they fall apart at under 50 hours of sawing - bearings and sprockets wear out. The husqvarna will do thousands of hours of cutting before any parts need replacing and even then you can go to any chainsaw repair centre and have your saw serviced and repaired cheaply. If you buy a saw for €100, no repair centre will want to work on it, parts are hard to get and they are expensive!!!

Tora Bora

Anybody, who has the ways or means or connections in USA, to purchase a chainsaw, should consider it.
You can easily purchase at about 40 / 45% of Irish price. Equivalent of €350 will get you a top range saw.

JohnBoy

have to agree with everyone here, the sole advantage of the lidl saw is that it's cheap, and has a three year no questions asked replacement warranty.

I got one as my first saw, and killed it at just over the three years, it had only done maybe two gallons petrol of work, did the job for pruning or cutting smaller stuff but was very heavy for it's size, a friend has an older husqvarna either 365xp or 395xp, real beast of a yoke and the lidl saw was nearly as heavy.

I replaced it with a Husqvarna 460 rancher last year which in 12 months has done a similar, maybe slightly more work than the last one did in three years.

I paid €550 the week of last years ploughing, bought from my local husqvarna dealer and have been back once for a small service problem (my own fault) with no issues.

There may well be similar offers at this years ploughing. (and last year the offers were in all husqvarna dealers on the week of the ploughing, you didnt have to go to athy)

Eleganza

reilig wrote: »

You can buy a Quality husqvarna 236 from a husqvarna dealer at €200. Its light yet powerful in comparison to the cheap Lidl saws. Cheap saws tend to be very heavy and they fall apart at under 50 hours of sawing - bearings and sprockets wear out. The husqvarna will do thousands of hours of cutting before any parts need replacing and even then you can go to any chainsaw repair centre and have your saw serviced and repaired cheaply. If you buy a saw for €100, no repair centre will want to work on it, parts are hard to get and they are expensive!!!

same parent manufacturer using the majority of the same componets as the LIDL saw at half the price and that is exactly the model of saw that I was thinking of when making the comment along with it's jonsered and mcculloch siblings.
there are only a handful of decent chainsaw repairers in the country and I guarantee you that the distributor has ensured that there is no such thing as a cheap repair on a Husky or Jonsered.
Parts prices are an absolute rip off and the dealer isn't to blame as they only have 25% margin.
disclaimer. I had over 20 years experience in the business and family business was dealer for various quality brands including Husky, Partner(back in the good days), Jonsered, Stihl(amongst the good they made some awful ****e in their day just like VW these days), Shindawia, Homelite(back, back in the good days), Echo(back in the good days), Poulan 3400(rest of the brand were ****e), Tanaka and a few more on top.

When I see a saw for 99 euro that I know to be well engineered and coming with a 3 year warranty I'm happy to recommend it over more expensive saws.

Eleganza

JohnBoy wrote: »

did the job for pruning or cutting smaller stuff but was very heavy for it's size, a friend has an older husqvarna either 365xp or 395xp, real beast of a yoke and the lidl saw was nearly as heavy.

I don't believe that a 99 euro LIDL saw with a plastic body would weigh anywhere close to the weight of a 365 or 395. A 24 inch bar and chain alone would weight the same as a small plastic bodied 40cc saw.

JohnBoy

neither could I, but anyone who used it was amazed at the weight of it.

twas one of the earliest versions from lidl, not florabest, some other brand they had before that I think.


now that you mention it said husqvarna has had a 20 inch bar fitted which would lighten it, but only a little.

but yeah, twas one heavy little yoke.

reilig

Eleganza wrote: »

I don't believe that a 99 euro LIDL saw with a plastic body would weigh anywhere close to the weight of a 365 or 395. A 24 inch bar and chain alone would weight the same as a small plastic bodied 40cc saw.

Have you ever had one?

I have.

It lasted just over a year, and when I went to bring it back to Lidl, after the chain sprocket shattered into bits - luckily I was wearing protective gear, I had to pick little sharp pieces of metal out of my visor, Lidl refused to give me a refund for it, but instead would only replace it. I really didn't want another one, so they exchanged it for groceries.

I swore that i would never buy cheap junk after that. I bought a proper husky from a dealer based on the performance of the bigger husky 365 that i already owned.

The 365 with 21 inch bar is 6kg. The Lidl chainsaw is 5.8kg.

I have no idea of pricing for parts and service for the 236, but I have had my 365 serviced numerous times by an independent chainsaw repair specialist. He has also replaced a number of the wearing parts on it, and I have always found his prices to be very reasonable.

Just because something is made in the same factory as something else, doesn't mean that it has the same quality.

We have had Stihl and Husquvarna saws around the house for the last 40 years along with a few cheapo chainsaws that were bought with the hope that we might have got a bargain.

I can 100% guarantee anyone that if they buy a €100 Lidl chainsaw to saw up a few small branches in their garden a few times per year and burn no more than a gallon of petrol per year, it will give you many years of service.

However, if you are buying a chainsaw to saw wood on your farm or saw wood for to fuel your stove / cooker / gasifying boiler then a Lidl saw will last no more than one season. Choose a mid range saw from a recognised brand and you will enjoy the benefits of a reasonable price combined with many years of reliable sawing and safety!

Tora Bora

reilig wrote: »

Have you ever had one?

I have.

It lasted just over a year, and when I went to bring it back to Lidl, after the chain sprocket shattered into bits - luckily I was wearing protective gear, I had to pick little sharp pieces of metal out of my visor, Lidl refused to give me a refund for it, but instead would only replace it. I really didn't want another one, so they exchanged it for groceries.

I swore that i would never buy cheap junk after that. I bought a proper husky from a dealer based on the performance of the bigger husky 365 that i already owned.

The 365 with 21 inch bar is 6kg. The Lidl chainsaw is 5.8kg.

I have no idea of pricing for parts and service for the 236, but I have had my 365 serviced numerous times by an independent chainsaw repair specialist. He has also replaced a number of the wearing parts on it, and I have always found his prices to be very reasonable.

Just because something is made in the same factory as something else, doesn't mean that it has the same quality.

We have had Stihl and Husquvarna saws around the house for the last 40 years along with a few cheapo chainsaws that were bought with the hope that we might have got a bargain.

I can 100% guarantee anyone that if they buy a €100 Lidl chainsaw to saw up a few small branches in their garden a few times per year and burn no more than a gallon of petrol per year, it will give you many years of service.

However, if you are buying a chainsaw to saw wood on your farm or saw wood for to fuel your stove / cooker / gasifying boiler then a Lidl saw will last no more than one season. Choose a mid range saw from a recognised brand and you will enjoy the benefits of a reasonable price combined with many years of reliable sawing and safety!

I agree 100%. Lidl saw is for the back garden maintenance, no more.

I work in manufacturing management, for a large multinational company.
Like the cases Eleganza refers to, we have a range of products, built on a common chassis, but branded differently, and sold through different sales channels, at significantly varying price points.
You can rest assured, that there is always a good reason and logic behind the different branding and price point.
The lower price product may be made in the same manufacturing line as the higher price model, and it may share many of the same components, BUT, and this is a BIG BUT, key performance components are NOT the same.
How the end product performs at the end of the day, and how long it lasts, depends in most cases on a minority of components, but these components are always the most precisely engineered parts, manufactured to the tightest tolerances, with the highest cost.

These high end components in teh case of Husqvarna, go in Husqvarna branded products. In the Lidl version,...... well the equivalent parts are probably manufactured in China. Enough said.

heffo500

Hi

I too had one of the Lidl chainsaw grand for a while then would barely start and started leaking oil.

So I went for it this year and got myself a Stihl MS311 chainsaw and I've never looked backed. It cost me just over €500.

I would recommend this Stihl it's powerful,fast and vibration free nearly. I've felled about 50 trees this summer and will be starting again now soon.

It has decompression valve which makes it easy to start too. It's a 59cc engine.

A word of advice if you buy the Stihl buy the safety gear,the proper Stihl Sharpening Kit (Only €20) and a spare chain (just in case your sawing on a sunday and damage your chain).

If you are really considering this saw I will put a youtube video of it cut up a few logs just so you can see what you think.

I have a 18" bar on it but it will take a 16" or 20".

http://www.stihlusa.com/chainsaws/MS311.html

vanderbadger

reilig wrote: »

Have you ever had one?

I have.

It lasted just over a year, and when I went to bring it back to Lidl, after the chain sprocket shattered into bits - luckily I was wearing protective gear, I had to pick little sharp pieces of metal out of my visor, Lidl refused to give me a refund for it, but instead would only replace it. I really didn't want another one, so they exchanged it for groceries.

I swore that i would never buy cheap junk after that. I bought a proper husky from a dealer based on the performance of the bigger husky 365 that i already owned.

The 365 with 21 inch bar is 6kg. The Lidl chainsaw is 5.8kg.

I have no idea of pricing for parts and service for the 236, but I have had my 365 serviced numerous times by an independent chainsaw repair specialist. He has also replaced a number of the wearing parts on it, and I have always found his prices to be very reasonable.

Just because something is made in the same factory as something else, doesn't mean that it has the same quality.

We have had Stihl and Husquvarna saws around the house for the last 40 years along with a few cheapo chainsaws that were bought with the hope that we might have got a bargain.

I can 100% guarantee anyone that if they buy a €100 Lidl chainsaw to saw up a few small branches in their garden a few times per year and burn no more than a gallon of petrol per year, it will give you many years of service.

However, if you are buying a chainsaw to saw wood on your farm or saw wood for to fuel your stove / cooker / gasifying boiler then a Lidl saw will last no more than one season. Choose a mid range saw from a recognised brand and you will enjoy the benefits of a reasonable price combined with many years of reliable sawing and safety!

id say the 365 is a serious saw is it? why bother with the smaller saw or is the 365 very big?

Bizzum

vanderbadger wrote: »

id say the 365 is a serious saw is it? why bother with the smaller saw or is the 365 very big?

The 365 is a Beast (Pronounced baste:D), I've done a lot of work with the 365 and the 350.
For felling or heavy cutting, ringing big trees etc the 365 is great, but it really pulls the heart out of you if you're limbing boughs or cutting light timber.
As I said earlier a good 45/50cc saw will cut with ease 95% of what the typical farmer wants cut.

Bizzum

heffo500 wrote: »

A word of advice if you buy the Stihl buy the safety gear,the proper Stihl Sharpening Kit (Only €20) and a spare chain (just in case your sawing on a sunday and damage your chain)

A better reason to always carry a spare chain is that many times you get the saw stuck in a tree, if you take off the engine and leave the bar, it will be stuck by the chain and the bar will come out, leaving only the chain. So stick on the spare chain and away with ya again!

Dupont

heffo500 wrote: »

Hi

I too had one of the Lidl chainsaw grand for a while then would barely start and started leaking oil.

So I went for it this year and got myself a Stihl MS311 chainsaw and I've never looked backed. It cost me just over €500.

I would recommend this Stihl it's powerful,fast and vibration free nearly. I've felled about 50 trees this summer and will be starting again now soon.

It has decompression valve which makes it easy to start too. It's a 59cc engine.

A word of advice if you buy the Stihl buy the safety gear,the proper Stihl Sharpening Kit (Only €20) and a spare chain (just in case your sawing on a sunday and damage your chain).

If you are really considering this saw I will put a youtube video of it cut up a few logs just so you can see what you think.

I have a 18" bar on it but it will take a 16" or 20".

http://www.stihlusa.com/chainsaws/MS311.html

i have a 311 aswell and the power out of it is great, with sharp chain and ringing trees that are the same size as 18 bar if just flys trough them,used it for a solid week thinning an ash plantation that trees were on average 6 inch thick and it was heavy, BUT you didnt have to reach as far to the ground when branching them

Eleganza

Tora Bora wrote: »

I agree 100%. Lidl saw is for the back garden maintenance, no more.

I work in manufacturing management, for a large multinational company.
Like the cases Eleganza refers to, we have a range of products, built on a common chassis, but branded differently, and sold through different sales channels, at significantly varying price points.
You can rest assured, that there is always a good reason and logic behind the different branding and price point.
The lower price product may be made in the same manufacturing line as the higher price model, and it may share many of the same components, BUT, and this is a BIG BUT, key performance components are NOT the same.
How the end product performs at the end of the day, and how long it lasts, depends in most cases on a minority of components, but these components are always the most precisely engineered parts, manufactured to the tightest tolerances, with the highest cost.

These high end components in the case of Husqvarna, go in Husqvarna branded products. In the Lidl version,...... well the equivalent parts are probably manufactured in China. Enough said.

I've used the lidl saw when badged as a Partner McCulloch. I've used the Husky 36 and Johnsered 2036 which were comprable saws using same parts in many places. I've had boxfresh Partners, Huskys and Jonsereds on the bench and taken off the covers and looked at the part numbers on various parts and noted how they matched.
Electrolux Motor have always used the same part numbers on identical parts across their various brands. when you needed to order a part you'd just order it from whichever distributor you were ordering a model specific part from that day.
I've gone through the parts list folders side by side and seen the same part numbers.
Talking about tolerences? the only high tolerence part in a chainsaw is the cranshaft and small end bearing and they are often shared part number for part number. Tolerances don't come in to it on cheap ABS plastic.
Carbs were usually tillotsin or Walbro.
Saws are just a collection of parts.
If you are willing to pay for a warm fuzzy feeling inside go and buy the more expensive brand.

Eleganza

reilig wrote: »

Have you ever had one?

What the **** is this? A pissing contest?
I remember trying to explain to idiot forestry workers that part for part the Johnsered 630 was better than or identical to the 61 and that the cheaper 670 was actually a higher performance saw than the 66 which was semi-pro spec but that the distributor for the Johnsered was not creaming as much off the top as the distributor for Husqvarna. The 61 was the match of the 625, not the 630 but it meant nothing to them. I still couldn't convince them. All the arguements trotted out here about inferior parts thrown at me even when I was showing them identical part numbers for items like crankshafts. Most of the seeds of doubt were planted by single franchise Husky dealers rather than multi-franchise dealers who held all the EM brands.
It was a case of argue with them and not make a sale or let them wallow in their ignorance and sell them the Husky that they wanted.
As far as I know Jonsered and Husky are imported by the same disty all the unpleasantness of one disty trying to undercut another has gone out the window and people are paying crazy prices for very simple internal combustion engines...But what would I know.

Eleganza

reilig wrote: »

Have you ever had one?

I have.

It lasted just over a year, and when I went to bring it back to Lidl, after the chain sprocket shattered into bits - luckily I was wearing protective gear, I had to pick little sharp pieces of metal out of my visor, Lidl refused to give me a refund for it, but instead would only replace it. I really didn't want another one, so they exchanged it for groceries.

I swore that i would never buy cheap junk after that. I bought a proper husky from a dealer based on the performance of the bigger husky 365 that i already owned.

The 365 with 21 inch bar is 6kg. The Lidl chainsaw is 5.8kg.

I have no idea of pricing for parts and service for the 236, but I have had my 365 serviced numerous times by an independent chainsaw repair specialist. He has also replaced a number of the wearing parts on it, and I have always found his prices to be very reasonable.

Just because something is made in the same factory as something else, doesn't mean that it has the same quality.

We have had Stihl and Husquvarna saws around the house for the last 40 years along with a few cheapo chainsaws that were bought with the hope that we might have got a bargain.

I can 100% guarantee anyone that if they buy a €100 Lidl chainsaw to saw up a few small branches in their garden a few times per year and burn no more than a gallon of petrol per year, it will give you many years of service.

However, if you are buying a chainsaw to saw wood on your farm or saw wood for to fuel your stove / cooker / gasifying boiler then a Lidl saw will last no more than one season. Choose a mid range saw from a recognised brand and you will enjoy the benefits of a reasonable price combined with many years of reliable sawing and safety!

Husky sales rep once told me that they had a forester try to take them to court because his Husky 36 which would be the equivalent of this Lidl saw broke after a few months. Husky at the time would have been selling 262XP for well over 500 quid while the Husky 36 was around the 200 pound mark. Of course the Husky 36 would break beyond economic repair as it was a consumer saw and wasn't meant to be run lean on oil with burnt oil for lubrication and rev'd at full revs for 8 hours a day every day.

I believe a lot of people in this thread appear to be prejudiced against this saw becuase LIDL previously sold a Chinese P.O.S. at the 99 euro mark in previous years.

Bitten & Hisses

My no.2 saw is an Active (approx 40cc), which is an Italian brand. In fact, it is a Japanese-built saw, made by a Husqvarna subsidiary, which was formerly owned by Komatsu. I paid approx €350 for it a year ago, after a small Jonsered packed up under warranty. I was sceptical, but it has turned out to be a great little saw and ideal for lighter jobs. The main saw is a Husky 365, bought in 2003 for around €700. This is by far the best saw I have ever used, but is a tad heavy for lighter jobs.

crackcrack30

Guys,
Thanks guys for all replies , some good suggestions and points made, I am ruling out the 99 euro (cheap) saw as the last thing i want is to let the saw decide when I stop working, and I only want to buy once with no regrets.
Having handled a few saws of all makes in the last few days (good sales and deals around) I am leaning towards the Stihl MS 251, 45.6cc, 10.8 pounds, 3.0 hp 18"bar, due solely on......... 1. make.... 2. weight ......3 obvious build quality (in comp to others)......4 price range.........5 local dealer advice. Anyone have one?? not much info to hand on net .......:rolleyes:

[Embedded Image Removed]

Nobbies

i have a oleo mac 956 saw since yr2000.bought new at over 400pound if i,m not mistaking.it did quite abit over the years and never refused to start,never had it serviced (terrible iknow)did sharpen the chain regular though.don,t think i even ever changed the spark plug.anyway took the noshin i,de get it serviced after all these years,left it into place i bought it and they tell me it needs apiston and cyclinder replacing.cost 200euro just for that.also said if udo that much with it u,de need too replace bearings and seals to make it agood job.total cost including service 340 euro.so i,ve went with that as the same saw new they tell me would be 700euro????strange thing is as previous posters said NEVER LEND IT TOO ANYONE,NOT EVEN UR BROTHER,well idid,nt.he just took it and was the last one too use it before i went with,as i thought it was working fine when i last used it.waiting on it back this week???

Nobbies

sum may say ishould have bought anew one sooner than spend 340euro on a old one,but that kinda money would,nt buy 56cc,s of power and think umight miss it when ur use too it and it never refused too start me,so it must have been agood saw.

LostCovey

Eleganza wrote: »

What the **** is this? A pissing contest?

Apparently.

You win.

LC

JohnBoy

Nobbies I'm not entirely sure what you're saying, but my dad had a similar experience with an efco, which is a rebadged oleo-mac. had to get a few new bits put into the engine after lending it to me!!!!!

however in my defence I used less than a gallon of fuel through it, and it was his fuel mix, his funnels, and his oil, not only that but he was there when I was using it and saw I didnt dog it, just my bad luck to be the one using it when it started to die, still it's done ten good years and is better than ever after the rebuild so he's happy.

JohnBoy

Eleganza wrote: »

I believe a lot of people in this thread appear to be prejudiced against this saw becuase LIDL previously sold a Chinese P.O.S. at the 99 euro mark in previous years.

Until this line you were basically making sense.....

What saw are people prejudiced against apart from the lidl chinese saws?


Oh and upon mature reflection, mine was an aldi saw.

Eleganza

To the guy who had his bearings replaced, I think you were done.
If there is no play in the crankshaft there should be no problem.
When the saw is stripped down you should be able to feel the crankshaft turning over and if the bearings were on the way out you'd feel it.
As for the scoring on the cylinder and piston they should have been able to take the exhaust off in 2 minutes and shown you the scoring on the piston. even then the chances are that the cylinder could have been saved and just the piston replaced making it a less than 100 euro job.
There are only a handful of reputable saw repairers in the country and a lot of sharks out there who'll tell you more is wrong with your saw than is actually wrong.
Two strokes don't break their crankshafts as the piston seizes before damage is done to the bottom end but with consaws on the other hand you can be sure of nothing.

colrow

I'm staying on a farm in scotland, and I was talking to the farmer about chainsaws, he reckons the best chainsaw he ever had worked off the tractor hydraulics, he can't remember seeing any lately, I wondered if anyone here has used one or where to get one ?