My Neighbor Story (long)...

[PLMCRZY]

I have the same crap with the diesel performance guys. Few guys will talk to me at a gas station or what not and notice i have hotrod diesel. We will get to talking and they will ask what to do first or where to buy it. I tell them where they can get a great deal and service. Next few weeks i see them with the part and ask where they got it. Not anything close to what i told him. I dont give out much advice anymore because all im doing is wasting my breath.

As far as your neighbor goes serves him right for not listening to you.

 

[barton174]

Don't get me wrong friend, and I'm proud of you for what you did for your neighbor but something doesn't sound right here.

The chain adjuster........I can see that. I'm no fan of ANY tool-less adjuster and the one on the Poulans is high up the list.

The handle cracked?
I'd sure like to see that!
The front handle on those saws in dang near indestructible! Made of some rubberoplasticized polymer stuff that bends and twists all sorts of ways and snaps right back.
The rear handle is made into the fuel tank and is also seemingly indestructible unless you drop a tree on it or run over it with a tractor.

The fuel cap SPLIT!
I gotta call BS on that!
I think your neighbor was less than forthright with you ( and the Lowe's where he bought it)
I have twisted on those caps with screnches, pliers, screwdrivers, crescent wrenches and vise grips and never broken or even chipped one.

No my friend, you need to be careful with that neighbor.
He is either a GROSS exaggerator, or just a bald faced LIAR.


Mike

I think that's the stuff the WEN handles are made of, right? A good friend of mine got one of those WEN Lumberjacks to trim trees around his yard. The plastic forward handle broke where it was screwed into the mount, when he was trying to start it for the first time... On this Poulan, I didn't ask, but it could have been as simple as a mounting bolt wasn't tight, and rattled out...

The cap, I have no idea. He said it cracked and was leaking, but for all I know, it could have been a parting line from the mold was a little tall, and wasn't allowing the O-ring to seal... I didn't ask, to tell you the truth...

This guy's not an idiot, works on his own cars and such (fuel pumps, head gaskets, etc., not just oil changes), and is a troubleshooting/service technician at work. He just knew exactly jack about chainsaws... My BS-meter has never gone off while talking to him, and he seemed pretty excited when talking about it after he bought it. Didn't seem like he was waiting for or expecting it to fail. He actually took it back to Lowes to get replacement parts for it, but they opted to take it back, instead, being that they don't deal in parts.

I'm more temped to say "infant failure" to all this stuff, rather than call the above guy a liar, when he really had nothing to gain or lose by telling me this stuff... Had I heard him saying it to the person at Lowes, then sure, but he already had returned it, and we weren't in the store, so he had no reason to lie about it.

ETA: Near as I can tell, it was a PP4620AV

Mike

 

[Guido Salvage]

Tell me that saw is now a happy member in your collection. Please.

Nope, I left it there, didn't need it and probably would have been buying someone else's problems.

 

[lewis16]

Nope, I left it there, didn't need it and probably would have been buying someone else's problems.

On reflection i think i would have done the same thing.

 

[spudulike]

You're a great neighbor. Good on ya

:agree2:

Always worth having your neighbours owing you a favor - makes up for firing up a saw and making a bit of noise when perhaps you shouldnt !!

Spud

 

[barton174]

:agree2:

Always worth having your neighbours owing you a favor - makes up for firing up a saw and making a bit of noise when perhaps you shouldnt !!

Spud

Yeah, that does happen from time to time...

Mike

 

[gallegosmike]

Last year, my dirt poor next door neighbour. Borrowed his girl friends fathers saw. Well the guy never ran a saw in his life ! The chain was pretty dull and he was one hand cutting in some small pieces of wood. I ran over and had him stop before he hurt himself! I walk back home, grabbed my univent, ppe and some files.

I touched up his chain and showed him the basics. I also had him go put on some jeans and steel toed boots. I gave him some heavy leather gloves and ear plugs. I told him about ppe and how it could save his life.

A few days later I went back and cut up most of the wood for him. I took my 385xp and the guy freaked out how fast it could buck up 30" rounds.

Helping out my neighbour that day plus giving him 1/2 cord of firewood during the winter worked out for me! He and his girlfriend watch my house when we go on vacation. I am fixing up a mac silver eagle so he can have his own saw when I take him out firewood cutting.

Mike

 

[2000ssm6]

How did he break the "Poulan in three places in the first 15 minutes of use"?

Was he using it for an axe?


Mike

Sounds like he should have taken Barton's advice and bought a good saw to begin with.

 

[rms61moparman]

Sounds like he should have taken Barton's advice and bought a good saw to begin with.

Yes Sir!!!

Then he could have trashed a $500.00 saw instead of a $125.00 saw!


Mike

 

[2000ssm6]

Yes Sir!!!

Then he could have trashed a $500.00 saw instead of a $125.00 saw!


Mike

Sounds like the guy knows his stuff and he got what he paid for, a cheap saw. Even a good operator isn't any good with junk equipment. After our new wally world pullon quit at work, they asked me what they should get. I said to quit wasting money on junk and buy a decent saw. A 211 or 435 is on their list now along with a FS110 trimmer.

 

[Anthony_Va.]

LOl, good sroties here!

Reminds me of a good one.

Well, thisguy is about 5 yrs older than me. I had never known him to use a saw so he must have borrowed this one from his uncle, dad, or someone

He shows up at the house one day with a Stihl ms290 and says the chain won't turn. He is a friend of mine and knows I have messed with saws for a ong time.

I get to looking at it and it's really dirty and the chain is just blunted to uselessness. Well I pull off the clutch cover and find mud and rock in it. It had gotten a small rock jammed in the sprocket and would'nt let the chain turn. It was so packed with dirt and mud that there was barely enough room for the moving parts to turn!

I had to clean it out and change the sprocket and chain for him. It's a wonder he did'nt burn the clutch up trying to get it to turn. If you knew this guy like i do, you would know he is the livewire type. Never ending energy.

Well I got it running good for him and he's like, "come help me cut this wood up and you can have what you want of it. (It had fallen across his driveway).

So I'm like, okay lets do it. I take my 066 and it's only about a mile up the road. I see where he has been cutting on this red oak. We get out and go at it. I whacked all the big limbs down and went for the trunk.

I look over at him about 20 minuts later and he's fightin this saw like a fire! I noticed he was doing this back and forth sawing action like it was a crosscut saw! Every time he jammed into it he was just burying the bar like I had never seen before. I mean it was going like 6 inches into the ground!

I stop him and tell him what he's doing and why it's messing his chain up. Have to file the crap out of this brand new chain. I tell him to never stick the bar into the ground. He started doing better after that.

I figured out where he was getting the mud and rock from. he had been cutting more ground and driveway than wood!:monkey:

I have never to this day seen a saw full of mud like that.

 

[barton174]

Yes Sir!!!

Then he could have trashed a $500.00 saw instead of a $125.00 saw!


Mike

I think it's really funny that you assume that a guy you've never met, that I've never caught in a lie (or even thought he was telling me an exaggeration), that has absolutely no reason to lie to me about this; is a liar and probably eats babies, because it's impossible that a fuel cap and a handle on a Poulan (of all things) had MFG defects.

Mike

 

[StihlyinEly]

I think it's really funny that you assume that a guy you've never met, that I've never caught in a lie (or even thought he was telling me an exaggeration), that has absolutely no reason to lie to me about this; is a liar and probably eats babies, because it's impossible that a fuel cap and a handle on a Poulan (of all things) had MFG defects.

Mike

That made me laugh, Mike.

 

[T_F_E]

3 Cords from branches??? what kinda tree is this?

 

[barton174]

3 Cords from branches??? what kinda tree is this?

I'm not sure... Penn oak or sugar maple, I think... It's a yard tree, though, so it's very round after about 10' up, and a lot of the branches are 10-15" dia at the tree... It's not 3 cords of rounds, but I bet if it was split, it would be close...

Mike

 

[Guido Salvage]

I'm not sure... Penn oak or sugar maple, I think...

Not familiar with a "penn" oak, perhaps you mean pin oak, a member of the red oak (Quercus) family?

If in leaves, they are easy to distinguish and the bark is dissimilar also.

Pin oak trunk:

Sugar maple trunk:

 

[Modifiedmark]

I think it's really funny that you assume that a guy you've never met, that I've never caught in a lie (or even thought he was telling me an exaggeration), that has absolutely no reason to lie to me about this; is a liar and probably eats babies, because it's impossible that a fuel cap and a handle on a Poulan (of all things) had MFG defects.

Mike

I think I know where Mike is coming from and you as well. I also find it hard to believe the problems you list on the Poulan Pro in that short of time , but then this nit wit neighbor didn't even know you could sharpen the chain on a saw so there you have it, it was probably operator error.

You had the good idea when you thought it was junk to keep you mouth shut and not tell him, but then you come here and tell us?

Just keep an eye on him and keep helping him out or that plastic cased Husky willl soon be junk also and when it is will that be because of MFG defects as well?

 

[barton174]

I think I know where Mike is coming from and you as well. I also find it hard to believe the problems you list on the Poulan Pro in that short of time , but then this nit wit neighbor didn't even know you could sharpen the chain on a saw so there you have it, it was probably operator error.

I don't know how he didn't know you could sharpen them, but his Eager Beaver lasted a bunch of years (granted, probably used 2-3x/year), and he's got 10+ tanks through his new orange saw, so I wouldn't think it would be the kind of user error it would take to break good parts.

You had the good idea when you thought it was junk to keep you mouth shut and not tell him, but then you come here and tell us?

Actually, I figured for as much as he'd use it, it would be fine... People have a bunch of hours on Wild Things, FCS!

Just keep an eye on him and keep helping him out or that plastic cased Husky willl soon be junk also and when it is will that be because of MFG defects as well?

If the orange saw had come apart with 10 minutes on the clock, I would say yes. If it broke after 5 years, I would say no.

Mike

 

[rms61moparman]

It's long, I know...

So my neighbor (who I know, but don't really hang out with or anything) and I were talking outside a month or 2 ago, after he was cutting some bushes out with an old "Eager Beaver" saw… He said he was pissed that he bought 2 chains for it, and they were both junk (dull) in 20 minutes each. He was not aware that they could be sharpened. He thought it was a "buy a chain, use it until it's dull, and throw it away" thing… I, of course, explained sharpening to him.

That set the stage for me thinking he didn't know what the hell he was doing!!!

I specifically told him to stay away from the new Poulan saws.

This was the part that made me think you had a predetermined bias against any of the newer Poulan saws!
I figured when I read that, the thread was going to be another Poulan bashing.

I hear him running a saw a couple weeks later, so went over to see what was up. Turned out that he listened to his coworker and purchased a new Poulan Pro… I didn't have the heart to tell him the saw he just bought was probably junk, so just kept my mouth shut...

See, I wasn't disappointed in my assessment!

At this point, he's got a 2' dia stump that's about 12' tall, and is finishing cutting up the last of the large branches on the ground… It's evening this week, and he lives to my west. I hear the saw running and in wood, but it doesn't sound like it's loaded up at all… I look over there into the sunset, and see him cutting in the middle of a cloud of dust and blue smoke… I sigh and head over… The chain is so dull and is so hot that it's burning the bar oil off of the chain. He's LEANING on the thing to get it to INCH through this 8" dia branch, and standing in a pile of fine dust.

And this guy is the one you say isn't an idiot????
Supposed to be a maint. troubleshooter by profession???
Yeah, it's hard to believe that he could trash a saw.

Turned out that the Poulan had broken in 3 places in the first 15 minutes of use, so he brought it back to Lowe's and picked up a Husky Rancher 460.

Thank goodness for their "No questions asked" return policy

I asked him if he'd like me to show him how to sharpen the chain, and he happily said yes. The chain was TRASHED! Turns out that not only had he run 12-15 tanks of fuel through the thing without sharpening the chain, but he got the chain into the side of the metal railing on the lift, so one side of the cutters was bent over pretty badly… To say something about how bad it was, I basically trashed a file working on it, but finally got it straight… ish… Took the rakers down, as well…

And you think it's funny that I have doubts about his abilities?
How many times does this make that you explained sharpening to a maintenence tech?

Took it back over, and it cut great! We then had the conversation about PPE, as he was out there in a T-shirt, safety glasses, shorts, and tennis shoes… I showed him my chaps and hard-hat system, and told him that he could at least get the Husky chaps from Lowes for $60 (I've got the Labonville Competition Chaps), and the hard hat system maybe from Lowes, but definitely from TSC… I told him when it stopped throwing big chips like it does now, to let me know, and I'd come over and instruct him on how to sharpen the chain, so he'd know how to do it.

Wow…

Mike

After careful review and considerable contemplation I guess I was wrong.
MY FAULT!

Please accept my humble apologies on behalf of your neighbor as well as yourself.


Mike


.

 

[barton174]

He knew it was dull. He said he was trying to finish the job on that chain, before buying another one.

He had originally told me he was looking for a pro-grade saw for all the cutting he was going to be doing on the back woods on his property. He said his co-worker told him to get a "pro" Poulan. As I said in the posts you didn't quote, I figured for his purposes, it would be fine... Is it a real "pro" saw like he told me he wanted? I suspect not.

Could he have put the fuel cap on too tight? Sure
Could he have pushed too hard on the handle? Sure

Did he back over it with a truck and lie about it, as you said? Probably not.

ETA: and it was the first time I had told/showed him HOW to sharpen. I had just told him before that they COULD be sharpened with a file, and to let me know and I'd show him how to sharpen it.

Mike