Exactly what I was saying minus the intensity! Every engine in their line is rated for 300hrs by the epa. I am in no way on the echo bandwagon, but as far as the trimmers go I wouldn't buy anything else. Like I said I bought a fs 55 and it is less than a year old and just sets. It vibrates like a 390. As far as blowers go i've never tried echo but I have a bg55 that was a birthday present 5 yrs ago and is just awesome imo.
The PB echo blowers seem to hold up pretty good, Ive only been able to document 1 unexplained failure.
It was 4 years old, came in and would start up fine, but would lose compression after a couple minutes and die.
I pulled it apart, checked everything out, no obvious damage to the piston or cylinder anywhere, the cylidner measured some very very slight normal wear at the top of the piston travel, right at the top ring inversion zone.
The ring measured nearly new end gap...
I put in a new ring, but it was the same deal, got hot and lost compression.
It was built prior to the 5 year warranty deal, and he CLAIMS it was not used commercially but it had clearly been heavily used based on lower case wear, wear on the tip, crap built up on the motor and carb, things like that.
But we have hundreds in use locally with professional landscapers who punish them daily and are on year 6 and 7 with no signs of stopping.
The Backpack blowers are also very nice, the never ones are a little more refined than the older ones but they all run out nice.
No one wants to show any love to the saws but the 370, 400, 450, 530 are the saws to have for firewood needs. We have a man near where I work that is on Id guess season 5 with his 520, and season 6 with his 440 and both saws run balls out from about August until the middle of November just cutting firewood. He has a crew up in the north end of the county that starts a little later and ends a little later, running the same saws....Both saws go through a bar, a couple rims, and a few chains every season. But they always fire right up and he and his crews offer no complaints at all.