My Stihl MS 290 died after less than 60 days...

[nikdfish]

I was getting the MS 290 ready for a trip to the rental property this morning to drop a couple of small maples. I sharpened the blade, filled gas & oil tanks, cleaned & adjusted the bar and intended to crank it up to check the idle speed since it had stopped while idling during use yesterday. No luck. Could not get it to start and noticed it just felt/sounded different.

Thinking I had flooded it, I went through the flooded Stihl start ritual of removing the plug, giving it a couple of pulls, replacing it & then using the warm start settings. No luck. After going through this sequence a few times & verifying that the plug had spark, I gave up & took it back to the John Deere dealership we bought it from in September. The service desk said their Stihl guy would take a look & give me a call.

I gave them a call about 4 hours later and was told that it looked like the piston was severely scored as if from either ingestion of foreign material or running raw gas. There has only been 2 gallons of gas/oil mix run through the machine since purchase, made using the Stihl 50:1 mix oil purchased at the same time as the saw was purchased. The mix was done using 93 octane gas, one bottle of mix oil per gallon plus a tablespoon of Star Tron to deal with the alcohol in the gas (which the dealership strongly recommended) and done in a new jug purchased at the same time as the saw. I disposed of the old mix I had on hand when we brought the saw home to make sure only the Stihl mix would be used. The air filter had not been removed prior to today, just brushed off, so I can't think of how any foreign material could get into the crankcase.

I'm still waiting on them to do a tear down & evaluation, the tech had seen the piston scoring through the exhaust port after removing the muffler. The service manager said that Stihl wanted a very clear description of cause for any warranty work. I told him that if I was at fault, I would want a very clear description of what I had done to contribute to the problem & that I had followed the manual directions for operation. I didn't do any no-load WOT, even after the first half dozen tanks, only running full throttle when actually cutting.

I'll post more when I know more.

Nick

 

[TomSeller]

I was getting the MS 290 ready for a trip to the rental property this morning to drop a couple of small maples. I sharpened the blade, filled gas & oil tanks, cleaned & adjusted the bar and intended to crank it up to check the idle speed since it had stopped while idling during use yesterday. No luck. Could not get it to start and noticed it just felt/sounded different.

Thinking I had flooded it, I went through the flooded Stihl start ritual of removing the plug, giving it a couple of pulls, replacing it & then using the warm start settings. No luck. After going through this sequence a few times & verifying that the plug had spark, I gave up & took it back to the John Deere dealership we bought it from in September. The service desk said their Stihl guy would take a look & give me a call.

I gave them a call about 4 hours later and was told that it looked like the piston was severely scored as if from either ingestion of foreign material or running raw gas. There has only been 2 gallons of gas/oil mix run through the machine since purchase, made using the Stihl 50:1 mix oil purchased at the same time as the saw was purchased. The mix was done using 93 octane gas, one bottle of mix oil per gallon plus a tablespoon of Star Tron to deal with the alcohol in the gas (which the dealership strongly recommended) and done in a new jug purchased at the same time as the saw. I disposed of the old mix I had on hand when we brought the saw home to make sure only the Stihl mix would be used. The air filter had not been removed prior to today, just brushed off, so I can't think of how any foreign material could get into the crankcase.

I'm still waiting on them to do a tear down & evaluation, the tech had seen the piston scoring through the exhaust port after removing the muffler. The service manager said that Stihl wanted a very clear description of cause for any warranty work. I told him that if I was at fault, I would want a very clear description of what I had done to contribute to the problem & that I had followed the manual directions for operation. I didn't do any no-load WOT, even after the first half dozen tanks, only running full throttle when actually cutting.

I'll post more when I know more.

Nick

I wonder if the saw had been previously sold and returned. Stihl is good about warranty,

 

[grsthegreat]

I wonder if the saw had been previously sold and returned. Stihl is good about warranty,

if you bought their 50:1 mix with the saw, stihl automatically extends warranty 2x listed period. If you used their mix, theres no way they wont fix it.

 

[nikdfish]

I hope so. The wife was pretty bummed out. Mainly because the maples are about the last wood we need to get out of the rental's yard & she was psyched to get it done.

We have cut & moved 14 pickup loads of standing/laying dead wood out of there so far. Professionals are coming in to take down 3 really big pines looming over the house in a week or so. You wouldn't think a 1/3 acre lot could accumulate so much. We just moved back to the area after about 25 years & the management company we used didn't stay on top of yard conditions.

Nick

 

[TomSeller]

They will probably check the fuel in the tank and if it has the mix in it, and I am sure it does, there should be no question that if is covered under warranty.

 

[Member]

[...] The mix was done using 93 octane gas, one bottle of mix oil per gallon plus a tablespoon of Star Tron to deal with the alcohol in the gas (which the dealership strongly recommended) and done in a new jug purchased at the same time as the saw. [...]

If it's those little 5.2 ounce bottles of oil it says on the bottle those make two gallons, at least for the synthetic "HP Ultra". I would think more oil would just make it run bad and foul the plug.

I've never heard of Star Tron but in Wisconsin most all of the premium 91-93 octane gas doesn't have any ethanol in it. Can't have the out of state vacationers boats and snowmobiles not start. I just use that in anything that's not a car or truck.

 

[nikdfish]

They were from the six pack of small bottles you buy along with the Stihl equipment item to double the warranty period. They are HP Ultra 2.6 oz. bottles & each bottle makes 1 gallon. Around here, most all grades are ethanol blends unless otherwise noted.

Nick

 

[TomSeller]

They were from the six pack of small bottles you buy along with the Stihl equipment item to double the warranty period. They are HP Ultra 2.6 oz. bottles & each bottle makes 1 gallon. Around here, most all grades are ethanol blends unless otherwise noted.

Nick

You should be golden. Keep us posted. I am a die hard Stihl fan and I would be surprised if they did not take care of you.

 

[s219]

Did you notice any odd behavior when the saw died yesterday? What had you been doing prior to that?

 

[nikdfish]

The last operations were plunge cutting a couple of smaller, partially rotted, pine stumps to get them out of the way of the moffet Lowes uses to deliver building materials (multiple projects lined up for the rental house). Pretty much the rosin core about 8 inches across or so was the only substantial part. I cross hatched then cut at an angle to free the chunks. Took them from maybe 9 inches above grade to a few below. (Saved the fat wood chunks for fire starters).

The only unusual thing was the saw starting to die if left to idle. Had to restart & blip the throttle ocassionally to keep it running between actual cutting. It didn't want to start after dieing the last time but the job was done & we were ready to head home so I wasn't inclined to pursue it at the time. That was why I had planned to start it this AM to see if I needed to adjust the idle before we headed out.

Other than that, it had been running fine. If I pushed too much while cutting some downed oak it would bog down a bit, but not to an unusual degree. Started & ran fine up until the last few minutes of the job.

Nick

 

[s219]

I have heard of people overheating saws when flush cutting stumps, since it can reduce airflow through the cooling fins substantially, and some stumps take a while to cut. Though, it's normally only an issue on smaller saws (which can easily get blocked up) when tackling big stumps. It doesn't sound like these were big stumps or that you were going at it for a long time.

Another possibility is that the saw was simply running lean and cooked itself (would also jive with your idle problems assuming they weren't due to later piston damage and loss of compression). Not sure how Stihl views that. A brand new saw should have the carb adjusted by the dealer. At some point within a couple months, that probably becomes the owner's responsibility, though I can't say I check carb tune on my saws that often. Mostly, it's a seasonal thing -- I make sure the saw gently 4-strokes at high RPM with no load before I sink it into a log, and adjust as needed.

You will lean out an oil/gas mixture with too much oil or too much additives. It means that for every unit volume of liquid flowing through the carb, less of it is actual fuel. This effect is more along the lines of throwing out your tune a little, and not something that should cause an extreme lean condition. I can't see how a tablespoon of Seafoam would do that. (BTW, Stihl Ultra oil has stabilizer added, so no need for additional stabilizers, and nothing will really offset ethanol problems anyhow).

Finally, there's the fuel/oil mix. 60 days is pushing my comfort zone for ethanol fuel used in chainsaws, but it really depends on the weather and conditions of storage. I try not to use ethanol fuel in chainsaws past about 30-45 days (generally I burn through a gallon tank before then) but 60 wouldn't scare me if I knew the fuel was stored in good conditions.

It's important to shake up any fuel/oil mix that has been sitting around for more than a week or so, to redistribute the oil, and that goes for mix stored in the saw itself or an external tank. There's a possibility that if your oil mix settled out, maybe the saw was sucking up less oil than it should have

Anyway, just brainstorming here. Nothing really jumping out at me yet. Will be very curious to hear the diagnosis.

 

[crankshaft21]

I had a Ms 210 c/b , it did the same . The saw nothing but a piece of crap from day one. It was always something wrong with it. The last time I tried to use it , acted like it had now power. I thought it might be the clutch so I took it to the dealer. They put 70 dollars in parts and 30 dollars labor in the saw. The next time I tried to use it , wouldn`t crank. I took it back to dealer and asked if something they did could keep it from cranking, he no. They looked at it then came back and said the saw has had it. The piston was cracked. He told me that it looked like I had ran saw without oil mixed, I said and you would be wrong. Then he said somebody did, I said and your still wrong, no one but me has run this saw. what kind of oil do you use, I said stihl. He then offered me 25 dollars for it, I told him I did not need 25 dollars that bad, that I would get more pleasure throwing it away. The saw was junk from day one. Then he said he would sale me a ms 290. I said no thanks, I will not buy another stihl . I bought a echo 450 and its a great saw. AS for the warrenty, it depends what the dealer tells them.

 

[Coyote machine]

If you need to complete the tree cutting I'd ask your dealer to give you a loaner or rent a saw from them or a rental store while they fix your saw.
FWIW, you can make a case with your credit card company, IF you bought it that way, if you get nowhere with the selling dealer. For future reference it is good to seek out non E-10 gas; as stated some premium is, depending on location. Gas cans are now going to no vent to help prevent atmospheric moisture from entering the can, all E-10 related. Whether using E-10 or not shaking stored gas and saw's gas is a good idea, as said, but it bears repeating. Saws run so lean due to EPA burning one up is definitely a possibility if the mix oil has a chance to settle out to the container's bottom.

I own and use seven different Stihl saws and have had virtually no issues with them regarding running, carbs needing adjustments, etc. Minor things like 'no tool' chain adjusters coming apart on one saw that I called my dealer for my wife to pickup at the store, not knowing when I bought it the tool-less adjuster was on the saw, or I would have bought one without that feature.

BTW, I would not tell them you used the Startron in the saw- you don't need it- the Stihl Ultra oil already has E-10 protection.

 

[grsthegreat]

i only run non ethanol in every small engine i own....jet skis, snow blower, riding mower, mantis tillers and chain saws. I have had to rebuild too many carbs and replace too many fuel lines with ethanol blends over the years. Since switching to non ethanol 3 years ago, ive had ZERO maintenance issues.Worth the extra $1.00/gal it costs

 

[Bluegill2]

Non ethanol is all I use and it is available everywhere, but it is not always easy to find.

 

[scesnick]

I actually put the gas in the front once when not paying attention and in a hurry. I had no clue why the darn thing would start. It ran fine just before that. I even went as far as taking the saw to the dealer for service . Luckily I thought about this and went back and grabbed the saw before they looked at it. The dealer is a friend of mine and I would have never lived that one down.. lol.

I never claimed to be the brightest...ha ha.

I have used and abused my Stihl MS310 Farm Boss. I have dropped it off my UTV multiple times at speed, dropped a treee on it and accidentally buried it in a snowbank when my son put it in the bucket of the tractor without me knowing. I had to get my BIL's metal detector to find it in the snow bank. ...... It fired up after every "Incident" And still going strong.

 

[nikdfish]

The service manager seems sympathetic & did not feel I had abused the saw when I laid out how I used/maintaned it and described the last day of use. He is concerned about how Stihl might respond ... he described getting a warranty repair denied on a 30 day old carburator because they felt the failure was due to a fuel issue. On the plus side, my purchase of their HP Ultra mix oil is on the same receipt as the saw.

It sounds like I should get a decision by tomorrow sometime.

Nick

 

[TomSeller]

The service manager seems sympathetic & did not feel I had abused the saw when I laid out how I used/maintaned it and described the last day of use. He is concerned about how Stihl might respond ... he described getting a warranty repair denied on a 30 day old carburator because they felt the failure was due to a fuel issue. On the plus side, my purchase of their HP Ultra mix oil is on the same receipt as the saw.

It sounds like I should get a decision by tomorrow sometime.

Nick

Stihl themselves will have no way of knowing if the Ultra is not in the fuel. If they say it was not, it would be the dealer that told them that. The dealer can check the fuel I am sure.

 

[Member]

Non ethanol is all I use and it is available everywhere, but it is not always easy to find.

Fuel that doesn't contain Ethanol all I use as well but why do I have to use it? I think some say it has something to do with the material used for fuel line and gasket material in small engines, that larger auto engines use materials that are impervious to Ethanol? Why don't the small engines just use that then? Or... is it that fuel that contains Ethanol absorbs water? Again, then why don't they just construct small engines in a way that tolerates that? It looks like these additives are here to stay so I don't know why this is still a problem for new small engines.

 

[murphy1244]

Fuel that doesn't contain Ethanol all I use as well but why do I have to use it? I think some say it has something to do with the material used for fuel line and gasket material in small engines, that larger auto engines use materials that are impervious to Ethanol? Why don't the small engines just use that then? Or... is it that fuel that contains Ethanol absorbs water? Again, then why don't they just construct small engines in a way that tolerates that? It looks like these additives are here to stay so I don't know why this is still a problem for new small engines.

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