schroedogg
ArboristSite Lurker
I purchased one of those "screaming" Dolmar 5100's last summer after reading all the glowing reviews here and was really enjoying cutting with it - came from using an old Stihl 032 that's 30 years old but still running (even though it's starting to fall apart). I've actually only run about 5 - 10 tanks of gas through the Dolmar and last time I took it out, it just stopped running and wouldn't start again for anything. It acted like compression was lost (pulling the cord didn't have nearly as much resistance as it used to).
So I took it back to the dealer (they're great, by the way) and I can't remember the exact words he used but something to the effect of the cylinder had been scratched or etched or something like that (not cracked, though). They are going to have to replace the cylinder! He said this is the 2nd 5100 he's seen with this problem. He first thought it was because I was using lower octane gas and apologized for not educating their customers better but I'd read the manual and was using 91 octane (highest we can get around here) and the synthetic oil that he sold and said was a high quality. So he then concluded that perhaps they didn't get the cylinder cleaned out entirely when assembling but still looked a little troubled.
They're taking care of it for me but my question here is: was this most likely a fuel problem? It may be that the 91 octane I got was from a fuel pump that had 1 hose and so I was getting some 87 or 89 octane before the hose cleared. If that's the case, can that really ruin the cylinder?? I'm starting to wonder if I made a bad decision on the 5100. The stihl I was using had lasted 30 years and it didn't seem to matter what was put in it. But after light use of this Dolmar for 6 months it's already got a bad cylinder !!?? Is there anything else I can do when I get the saw back to avoid this problem happening again? I don't think the quality of our gas is that great around here and ethanol (which I avoid) seems to continue gaining market share. Or is it possible that it was just not assembled very well? If so, that sort of lowers my confidence in Dolmar -- what else wasn't assembled well that I'm going to find after the 1 year warranty runs out?
So I took it back to the dealer (they're great, by the way) and I can't remember the exact words he used but something to the effect of the cylinder had been scratched or etched or something like that (not cracked, though). They are going to have to replace the cylinder! He said this is the 2nd 5100 he's seen with this problem. He first thought it was because I was using lower octane gas and apologized for not educating their customers better but I'd read the manual and was using 91 octane (highest we can get around here) and the synthetic oil that he sold and said was a high quality. So he then concluded that perhaps they didn't get the cylinder cleaned out entirely when assembling but still looked a little troubled.
They're taking care of it for me but my question here is: was this most likely a fuel problem? It may be that the 91 octane I got was from a fuel pump that had 1 hose and so I was getting some 87 or 89 octane before the hose cleared. If that's the case, can that really ruin the cylinder?? I'm starting to wonder if I made a bad decision on the 5100. The stihl I was using had lasted 30 years and it didn't seem to matter what was put in it. But after light use of this Dolmar for 6 months it's already got a bad cylinder !!?? Is there anything else I can do when I get the saw back to avoid this problem happening again? I don't think the quality of our gas is that great around here and ethanol (which I avoid) seems to continue gaining market share. Or is it possible that it was just not assembled very well? If so, that sort of lowers my confidence in Dolmar -- what else wasn't assembled well that I'm going to find after the 1 year warranty runs out?
