munksapprentice

I was thinking aswell it was not maintaining half throttle right through the tank. When carving in that way I can only last a minute of so holding the saw before you have to take a few seconds break. Anyone who carves with a larger saw knows you hold on tight for dear life as they can easily kick you in the balls. its hard work. The saw should not have died!!

I have heard this about running a saw on half throttle. The thing is a car, bike, hedge trimmer, strimmer any anything else i can think of runs happily on half throttle as do both my 441's. nowhere in the manual does it state it can't be run on half throttle. Does this mean i'm at fault?? Plus it was not doing hours at it. It used less than a tank and siezed.

They have lost a customer if they do. The thing is both 441's run without problems and believe me they have been well used. I run them on an alaskan mill aswell and they are amazing saws. If either of them blew i'd think do you know youve been a dam good saw. But the 261 is nearly new and has done very little work and siezed doing such a light work job. It want even breaking a sweat, just such easy work. I love stihl, I have strimmers and hedge cuttes from them to. My local dealer is just a mile up the road and is so helpful. I was fancying one of there new top handle saws and am mainly waiting for the new 881 to come out as I want one of them too. The thing is if I get screwed over this 261 i think I may just loose faith in stihl. Like a bank, sunshade when its sunny and take the umbrella away when its raining. Anyways I really can't come to any conclusion as yet untill I hear what they have to say. Just in my mind they are a huuuuugggggeeeeeeee company and I just thought they would have sorted something out for me by now. My dealer has been on the phone to the tech department at least 8 times and just gets fobbed off saying that they can't make the call and its in the hands of someone else. Just bollocks really. I hope they come right for me I really do.

Hi, I'm new to this site but wanted to ask a couple of questions if I may. I do quite a lot of tree surgery and carvings. I run 2 441's, a 200 rear handled saw (carving saw) and a 261. All saws are run on stihl oil and nothing else. I always put slightly more oil in than needed when mixing (only 5% extra) just to be sure. I was carving a large chair and was using the 261 at half throttle with the nose of the guide bar to shape the back of the chair (really easy work for it and done it hundreds of times with the 441's without issue). I noticed that I suddenly had to give the saw slightly more throttle to maintain revs so I let the saw return to tickover and thought I must of been imagining it. I returned to carry on carving and within 30 seconds the saw siezed up. I took the saw back to my local dealer. He stripped it and found that it had picked up on its exhaust side which he thought indicated a lean mix. Stihl asked for the full saw to be returned. This was about 3 weeks ago and ive heard nothing since. My 3 other saws used the rest of my fuel mixed without problem which tells me the fuel was no way at fault. I was just wondering if anyone had experienced any similar problems?? I'm looking forward to see what happens and as to what stihls responce will be. Personally i think 3 weeks is to long to wait for a responce but thats just me. I'm lucky I still have my other saws to use. Great little site, Im pleased ive joined. Any help of advice is very much appreciated. Thank you