Originally Posted by
Jim Becker
Both brands are great choices. I'm in the Stihl camp, myself. I have an .029 Farm Boss (MS290 in other nomenclature, I believe) with an 18" bar attached. (standard was 16") it's served me well now since about 2001 and starts up easily, even after long periods of disuse. I've gone through bars, but the machine, itself, has stood up over time for my purposes. Were I buying today, I'd probably go up a size to better deal with the more mature trees that mother nature brings down on the property these days, however.
I have this same saw myself, and it has been problem free since I bought it new in 1996. I got a 20" bar when I bought it to help with cutting limbs and not having to stoop quite as much. It has the original bar still on it, in fact it is still all original other than I got an extra chain some years back when we had a lot of storm damage around the area and spent a couple of days helping clear trees out of the roads and some yards around us. As Jim says it starts even after sitting months idle. I have always used Stihl's gas mixture for the gas additive as I understand it has fuel stabilizer in it to help with fuel issues. I assume it does, as the saw has sat for nearly a year with gas in it and started in short order the next time needed. I have cut hundreds of trees with my saw and cut up most of them. I've had a tractor with frontend loader for several years now, so when clearing around our property I can cut the tree into logs instead of man sized chucks and move them with the tractor.
I also have a Stihl FS90 handlebar style weed eater, and the extendable pole saw Stihl makes having had all of them several years all the only thing required of them all was I replaced the carburetor on the weed eater this year. It cost $30 something dollars. The weed eater was very hard to start, and when I got it running it was obvious it was running lean. Tried to clean it but to no avail. Once the carb was one, it started on the second pull of the rope and ran great. All together about $1300 worth of Stihl equipment and replaced one carburetor on one item for the total repair cost in 19 years for the chain saw and over 6 years on the pole saw and weed eater.
I highly recommend Stihl products personally I have had great service and use with mine.
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