Took a 355 apart last Tuesday, nice little platform, it will be interesting to see how the modders deal with the plastic/nylon crank stuffers and the limited coil. Stihl will be sending a bullentin out to turn the low screw out 1 5/8 turns in side by side test they now have the 201T's outperforming the 200T's in the same piece of wood. All they showed during the whole Echo/Shinny update from 8am-4pm was the 355 and a new Shinny hedge trimmer , most of the conversation was how they are shutting down most of the Shinny operation leaving it's foundry up and running but shipping most pieces to ILL for assemby, all their plastic will be made in the future in ILL, they talked how they are leading the fight for more stringent emmissions and noise control. When we asked about all the units on ebay that are being sold under dealer cost new in the box, the answer was that most are stolen out the back doors at Home Depot by employees, every dealer in attendance questioned them how it is happening and they had no answer, one dealer has already had a Orschelon manager ( a small 25-30) store farm chain now carryiny Echo's send a customer in with a saw and told the customer to just to demand a new saw from the dealer. The dealer told the customer to leave the store and take it back to were he bought it as he would not work on any saw not bought at a dealership, not a Orschelon or HD, their was no public response from the corporate reps. In a couple years I'll bet the Shinny brand will be gone. It is nice they edm cut their ports in their cylinders, don't know that I like their new ring pofile. It is very evident they are focused on the big boxes and smaller saws, the tech even mentioned most of the R&D is going into the smaller platforms as they feel that is were they can compete the best. The seminar leader was from California, I couldn't belive all the references to tightening up the emmission regs and noise regs even more and that the rest of the country should follow California's example, even bragged about Echo turning in Husky for some kind of improper use of EPA credits. Of all the brands we represent and seminars updates we have to go to it was the poorest meeting we have went to. Echo is a good brand, they could be so much more if they would just focus on and listen to their dealer base.
