Stihl Warranty????

[Griiz]

They always find an excuse not to cover engine issues in my experience.

[CarbonHunter]

Sorry I should of clarified it was seized when I took it in but it came out of the shop unseized. Maybe I should of said bound up or something. I could not pull the pull cord and turn the engine over.

[CarbonHunter]

There is an obvious bearing in the spark plug. So my question is: Is it possible for moisture in the fuel to cause a bearing to let go and travel to the spark plug without damage and other wear that is more consistent with cylinder was down?

Oh ya, and within 3 weeks and half a dozen tanks of fuel?

[j_h_nimrod]

Granted I have never worked on one of these engines, but I have tore into a number of other small engines and a lot of Stihls over the years. I am trying to figure out where that little bearing stuck in the plug came from and can't. That bearing is much smaller than any bearing I recall on even a 009 and the 086 blower has a larger engine than that. I know tech has change since most of the engines I am familiar with but I think identifying where that bearing originated is important. 

The older Stihl saws never had problems like this with water in the fuel. I worked on a project where we typically had lots of water in our fuel for numerous reasons and I got very proficient clearing carbs after a slug of H2O filled them up. We never had a failure like this.

Sounds like I wont be trading in my 036 Pro, 015AV, or 009L anytime soon and my next new saw probably won't be a Stihl. 

[netcoyote]

that damage doesn't look like a typical seizure at all.  it's hard to tell exactly what happened with the cylinder still on the case, but it looks to me like something got into the engine that shouldn't have.  it doesn't bear the marks of a seizure due to heat or lean mixture at all, since the piston in the exhaust port is pristine looking, and you've got scoring on the intake side.  a "normal" burnt up piston would be totally fried on the exhaust side.  perhaps a bearing let go or some foreign material got in through the carb?

i would absolutely seek a second opinion, sounds like the shop doesn't know what they're talking about.

I'm agreeing with Big Goon here. Something just doesn't smell right here. Teh key point is the ball in the spark plug. Only two explanations for that, that I can think of.

1. Bearing on crank or con rod had a partial failure and spit out a ball or more and then it got sucked up from the crankcase into the intake port and then may have caused a short in the plug.

2. The ball was a foreign object that got introduced during the manufacturing process. It was bouncing around inside the engine until it caused a failure. Could have been in the cylinder, the port, the crankcase or maybe even in the carb.

Seems like a bearing failure would have been catastrophic but it could have just spit out a bearing and then contained the rest of the bearings. I haven't torn one of these apart but seems to me the ones I have worked on have had roller bearings.

I'm leaning toward the foreign object theory.

[Gobble Doc]

 

[b23]

I take it the cylinder head was never removed or was it?  If it was, how did the top of the piston look and what did the dome of the cylinder head look like.  Did either look beat up at all?  You said it was locked up when you took it in to the shop but you could turn it over when you got it back, does it have compression and or will it start?  When you pull the cord and turn the motor over does it feel any different than before it locked up on you?  Did the shop that took it apart tell you what it would take to fix it?

The little piece of debris that's wedged in between the insulator and the shell is odd to me because the spark plug looks pristine except for that little piece wedged in there.  There doesn't appear to be a single mark on the plug anywhere.  Those little motors aren't very big but I'm sure the crank bearings are bigger than that.  Wrist pin bearing in one of those is probably pretty small but they're needle bearings not ball bearings.  The spark plug pic isn't in the greatest of focus so it's a little difficult to identify what that little piece is.

[CarbonHunter]

There's one other small ding on the lip of the plug. Here's a little better of a picture of the plug.

JD is out of his office until the 23rd so we will have to wait until next week to see what he says.

The cylinder head was never removed. The way you see it in the box is the way I got it back. I don't want to tear it down anymore and have stihl use that as the reason they won't warranty it.

[REHJWA]

tag

[BigGoonTuna]

that looks a lot like a detent ball.  too small to be from one of the bearings in the crankcase.  my theory is that it could have possibly been something that got loose during manufacturing, or come out from under the choke shaft somehow.

[CarbonHunter]

Well thanks to REHJWA I just got done meeting with a couple Stihl reps. They tore it the rest of the way down and sure enough they found a destroyed main bearing. They did not hesitate to warranty the blower and said there's no way I could of caused that to fail in 3 weeks.

I have to say Stihl truly stepped up for me and went out of their way to meet up with me and make it right. Probably because I posted on the internet but either way they made it right without any fight.

Cutter supply in Enumclaw also stepped up and reached out to Stihl on my behalf and they got back to me right after I got my new blower from Stihl. Even though I didn't even purchase the blower from them. It shows real character as to who the better dealers are and proves that all Stihl dealer are not equal. I've boughten from them in the past and from now on they are going to get all my business when it comes to my power equipment. If I lived in Yelm I would visit REHJWA but that is a long way to go for 2 stroke mix. 

The Stihl dealer that will never get any of my business again is Agrishop. They did me wrong on this deal and proved they didn't care by not doing a complete warranty inspection and completely getting the diagnosis wrong. I've spent more than 5k on equipment from Agrishop through the years and I feel they could of at least done a complete warranty inspection.

If anyone on here has had Agrishop tell them their equipment isn't covered by warranty I would get a second opinion. 

I would like to thank everyone else on here for their time and opinions as well. It gave me a lot to work with when it came to handling this situation.

If anyone out there has any issues like I ran into with a Stihl shoot me a message and I'll give you the contact info of the Stihl rep who help me. He said not to hesitate to call him if I have any other issues.

And yes. If this blower lasts more than 3 weeks I would but Stihl again.

[STIKNSTRINGBOW]

Wish I knew then what I know now... Had an ms 209 saw that seized up after a year, was told it was not under warantee, and would cost almost as much as a new saw to fix...
I now own a Husqvarna