On Mar 19, 6:29 pm, "
wrote:
Hi Robert

Just got home again, been gone for better than a week, so a little late with this reply.

Always good to hear from you, Leo. I was hoping you would chime in as
I know you cut a more than your share of large hardwood bowl blanks
every year.

Got a good dealer around ?? get what he sells, if having a choice I would prefer a Stihl.

I think I would too, for no other reason than all the tree cutters
around here use them. No other reason, actually. Like I said farther
up the thread, the same saw in Stihl brand would be roughly twice as
much, and I would be captured (even for minor parts) by the dealer and
their markup.

The deciding factor may indeed be my local dealers. One is 40 miles
away, and the closest one is someone that is a real jerk. I have a
couple of Husqvarna dealers here, and I can buy minor parts all over
on the net to perform minor repairs or maintenance myself.

I would still take it to a certified dealer for heavy duty repairs,
but to replace a choke knob or a drive cog, that seems a bit much.
Dealers around here have a $65 bench fee, whether they do the work or
not (applied to the work if they do it), so that is certainly a
consideration for me.

Some of the protected dealers scare me. I was contacted by someone
that replaced the top handle on his "dealer saw" after dropping it.
It was something like $140 for the aluminum bar with "installation" of
the four bolts.
He only paid $320 for the saw...

When calling one of the larger Husky dealers, even the guy at the
sales desk warned me off the "homeowner" or "homepro" line of saws
they sell for both the Stihl and Husqvarna lines of saws they have.
He told me, "we just don't want to see a saw back in here in 30 days."

The saw I am looking at is the bottom third of their "pro" line, and
has some really great features. 24" bar, 60cc engine, depressuring
for easier start, side chain tension adjustment, etc. With all the
good feedback here, I am just about ready to go. Seems like pretty
much all agree with you, and that is once you get past the homeowner
line you are probably going to get a pretty good saw in the pro lines.

Thanks for the input.

Are you guys beginning to thaw out up there in the great white north?

Robert