Chain saw Stupid Human Trick

Yesterday I walked into local lawn & garden supply store to buy a part for my mower. Guy comes in behind me and puts his old Echo chain saw on the counter. "Where's Tom?", he asks. Counter guy explains Tom just left to run some errands.

"Well, Tom tuned up my chain saw a couple of months ago and, you know, it ran right for a little while, but now it's back to the same old tricks."

Counter guy asks if the guy has a minute to wait while he takes the chain saw back to the bench to look at it. "Sure," customer says. "I can wait."

My counter guy comes back with my part and we settle up. Just as I'm putting the change in my wallet the other counter guy comes back with the chain saw.

"Are you the only one who uses this chain saw, or is there someone else?", counter guy asks. "Nope, just me," says customer.

"Well, here's the problem." Counter guy takes off the caps for both the bar oil and the gas. "You've got oil where the gas should be, and gas where the oil should be."

Yep, there were a few smiles in the place.

Re: Chain saw Stupid Human Trick

Ya gotta love it when that happens!!

Re: Chain saw Stupid Human Trick

Don't ask me why, but I er uh know someone that did pretty much the same thing. Put gas in the oil tank but caught my er I mean his mistake before running the saw.

Re: Chain saw Stupid Human Trick

It don't run but the bar/chain is sure clean and pretty!

Re: Chain saw Stupid Human Trick

With a title like that...................................At least it did not end with a trip to the ER..............

Re: Chain saw Stupid Human Trick

Well I've heard of people complaining of the chain saw not starting and all it turned out to be was that they wasn't cutting the on and off switch on.

Re: Chain saw Stupid Human Trick

Earlier this summer I took the chain from my saw to be sharpened for the first time. Got it back, put it on the bar and tried to cut. "What the...?!?" It would barely make a groove in the wood. What did they do to screw up the chain...

Then a lightbulb went off over my head. Took the chain off, turned it right way around, and it was like cutting through butter. :redface:

Re: Chain saw Stupid Human Trick

mike64 said:

Earlier this summer I took the chain from my saw to be sharpened for the first time. Got it back, put it on the bar and tried to cut. "What the...?!?" It would barely make a groove in the wood. What did they do to screw up the chain...

Then a lightbulb went off over my head. Took the chain off, turned it right way around, and it was like cutting through butter. :redface:

Click to expand...

Yep, truth be known, I've done that one, too. And this is the only time or place I've admitted to it!

Us men are funny creatures, aren't we? We think we know everything, and when we screw up it's such a surprise...

Re: Chain saw Stupid Human Trick

mike64 said:

Earlier this summer I took the chain from my saw to be sharpened for the first time. Got it back, put it on the bar and tried to cut. "What the...?!?" It would barely make a groove in the wood. What did they do to screw up the chain...

Then a lightbulb went off over my head. Took the chain off, turned it right way around, and it was like cutting through butter. :redface:

Click to expand...

And here I thought my shop was the only stupid one around! On top of that, they charge me about a third of the original purchase price to tune it and sharpen two sets of chains. I have since found a small engine shop who did the same work, but got the chain direction right, and only charged me the price of a dinner at Bob Evans for the work. Gotta love the small guy shop.

Re: Chain saw Stupid Human Trick

This one brought back a good memory.

One of my old vendors while promoting "opti 2" 2 cycle mix that comes in little flexible packets, told us a good story. You see OPTI came in little squeeze packets like what you would find salad dressing in.

Well some guy was using OPTI and his chain saw locked up from lack of lubrication. He swore he was using the oil in his gas so the shop gave him the benefit of doubt and repaired the saw and charged OPTI for the repair. All was good. OPTI paid the warranty and all went about their business.

A week later the guy came back in with his now second brand new saw with a seized engine again. Knowing this shouldn't have happened once, let alone twice asked the guy to bring in his gas can. He complied.

Upon inspection of the gas can two packets of OPTI were found in the gas can! Unopened completely sealed packets! Upon asking the guy how that happened he replied "I just follow the instructions"

Well it turns out the package instructions read "mix one packet of OPTI with one gallon of gasoline." As stupid as it sounds, the customer did exactly as the instructions said, he put one packet of oil in with the gas.

Through some contact with attorneys the oil company paid for that repair as well, and also changed the directions to now read "Mix CONTENTS of one packet with one gallon of gasoline."

Never a dull moment at that place. I still miss working there sometimes.

Bill

Re: Chain saw Stupid Human Trick

I work with to many guys that do things like that and i have to sort them out. It gets boaring real fast.

Re: Chain saw Stupid Human Trick

Amen Brother!!!!!

Re: Chain saw Stupid Human Trick

One of the Golden Rules of Customer Service is:

"Never ridicule a customer in public".

I'll bet that guy never came back.

Re: Chain saw Stupid Human Trick

Great story.

Re: Chain saw Stupid Human Trick

Navy Jr. said:

"Well, here's the problem." Counter guy takes off the caps for both the bar oil and the gas. "You've got oil where the gas should be, and gas where the oil should be."

Click to expand...

On a serious note, echo sucks when it comes to identifying the gas and oil compartments. Echo uses color to identify compartments, not pictures or words. A nubee wouldn't be know unless he read the manual and lets face it reading the manual is not a guy thing.