Thread: Returned the 5100, brought home a 359

I called a third shop that services Dolmars, and they, too, said that it was hard to get parts for them. The comment was unsolicited, too, like the first comment out of the guy's mouth.

I did not want to be waiting around for parts, especially since I have to plan a couple of weeks in advance to get time to cut wood, so I went with Husky and paid a little extra with the return of the other saw.

The 359 probably isn't as well thought-of as the 5100 or the 346xp, but I think it will suit my needs perfectly: dependable, pretty powerful, fairly fast. Maybe not the best in some folks' eyes, but good.

I only had it home for no more than five minutes when my son fell on one of our garden boxes and tore a hole in his lip, so a great day of driving around in the mountains and getting a cool new saw was offset by the emergency room trip, watching my boy get stitched up, and falling in bed just before midnight.

Originally Posted by Darl Bundren

I called a third shop that services Dolmars, and they, too, said that it was hard to get parts for them. The comment was unsolicited, too, like the first comment out of the guy's mouth.

I did not want to be waiting around for parts, especially since I have to plan a couple of weeks in advance to get time to cut wood, so I went with Husky and paid a little extra with the return of the other saw.

The 359 probably isn't as well thought-of as the 5100 or the 346xp, but I think it will suit my needs perfectly: dependable, pretty powerful, fairly fast. Maybe not the best in some folks' eyes, but good.

I only had it home for no more than five minutes when my son fell on one of our garden boxes and tore a hole in his lip, so a great day of driving around in the mountains and getting a cool new saw was offset by the emergency room trip, watching my boy get stitched up, and falling in bed just before midnight.

The 359 is a great saw. You can do so much to it mod wise down the road to make it that much better. Sorry to hear about the kid.

Hey, as long as you're comfortable with the saw, that's what counts- it's still your money to spend. I am absolutely blown away by the whole availability of parts thing. Maybe the different regional distributors do business differently? My dealer keeps a large stock of parts, plus the dist. can get him any part in 2 days or less, very very rare occaisions to order from Germany, maybe a week or two. There is NO shortage of any parts that I know of, asked some very specific questions of the dealer about backordered parts and such. Are these "shed" dealers that just deal out of their garage or something, or maybe they just won't take the dive into being a "real" dealer? The whole thing smells bad..

Hope the boy is OK, probably gonna get some ice cream in his diet now.

Enjoy the Husky, if you know that it's a better saw for you, then it is, no matter what anyone else's opinion is.

Wow, I so sorry to hear about your son. Poor kid must have been dreading the trip to the hospital.

My son is constantly on the verge of getting hurt. He is big into sports, so I know that day is coming.

Enjoy the new saw when you find the time!

Originally Posted by bookerdog

The 359 is a great saw. You can do so much to it mod wise down the road to make it that much better. Sorry to hear about the kid.

+1 Great saw very under rated because the paper numbers don't look so good. But since we are talking about actually using the saw you will like it!

I have to admit I'm a little surprised with your decision. You replaced perhaps the #1 rated saw with another that's not even #2, and paid more money to boot. I think you're overly concerned about a situation that others with experience have said is non-existant. Besides, you shouldn't be needing parts like that anyway on a new saw. Chains, bars, and sprockets are readily available lots of places. I'm sure the 359 will serve you well, but the decision making process leaves me scratching my head. It's not like you're going to use this saw to make your bread and butter. I like to get the most for my money.

Reguardless, enjoy that new saw!!

Originally Posted by blsnelling

I have to admit I'm a little surprised with your decision. You replaced perhaps the #1 rated saw with another that's not even #2, and paid more money to boot. I think you're overly concerned about a situation that others with experience have said is non-existant. Besides, you shouldn't be needing parts like that anyway on a new saw. Chains, bars, and sprockets are readily available lots of places. I'm sure the 359 will serve you well, but the decision making process leaves me scratching my head. It's not like you're going to use this saw to make your bread and butter. I like to get the most for my money.

Reguardless, enjoy that new saw!!

Not to mention Baileys does have a lot of the Dolmar parts like filters etc.

There is nothin' wrong with a 359. Toss an 18" or 20" bar on it and cut to your hearts content.

Good all around saw.

Gary

Darl,

Everybody's situation is different, everybody has different requirements from their dealers, and everybody has different dealers with different attitudes...enjoy the new saw!

Kevin

I use both on a regular basis and while the 359 is a little better suited for 20" wood, the 5100 will cut right with it up to 14" logs. In terms of user satisfaction, the 5100 is just as fun, bad ass little saw. The 359 is like the Stihl MS290/310, it gets the job done.

As others said as long as you sleep well with the decision thats what counts, but I have yet to hear of a single problem getting parts for a Dolmar.

The whole availability of parts for dealers around here strikes me as weird, too, but the three closest dealers all said the same thing; one of them is small-time, but the other two are larger, well-established businesses that carry quite a few different lines of equipment. I asked the guy yesterday, and he opined that it was because Husky and Stihl were so entrenched around here that Dolmar didn't feel inclined to compete.

I was skeptical of this, for it seems to me that if a business wants to compete it should do as well as it can wherever it can instead of letting areas suffer poor service. Anyway, the consensus with these three guys is that parts are scarce.

This wouldn't be a big deal if I had much mechanical inclination, but working on engines is something I've never really done.

I am also confused (and yeah, let down a little bit) by the whole Dolmar thing because one local distributor is in Charlotte (2.5 hours away) and the other is in North Georgia (4ish hours away).

Oh well. I believe I would have enjoyed owning and running the 5100. But I now have some peace of mind and what might be the minivan of saws: comfortable, reliable, not too sexy or headturning, fairly versatile.

Of course, I may do some mods down the road...

Also, Sonny Boy is in there on the couch under an afghan reading because he "made himself too cold" eating his milkshake. Life's good again--thanks for the concern.

Originally Posted by Darl Bundren

Of course, I may do some mods down the road...

It certainly responds well to those!

Originally Posted by blsnelling

I like to get the most for my money.

You mean like that $1600 NOS 084 you have?

FWIW I have the 359, and after a muffler mod I'm very happy with it. Many will not place it high on the "saw to buy list" But if you do a search I think you'll find that you will be very happy with the results. I will say that the Dolmars do seem to be well liked here. And by the way, after break in is when I really appreciated it more. At first I was not overly excited.