Stihl MS 500i Fuel Injected Chainsaw 1 Year Used Review Australia - How does the MS500i perform?

g'day today we're doing a quick review of the still 500i this is a the injected chainsaw from still i've had this for a bit over 12 months now um it's been quite quite a good saw this has got a 20-inch bar on it uh when i purchased it it did come with the 25 but it's got a 20 on it at the minute just because what i don't what i'm what i've been cutting in firewood at the moment hasn't required a 25-inch bar so we're running the 20 inch on it at the minute so how have i bought this why did i buy it have i found it why did i buy it in the first place i needed the bigger saw i came off a still ms-391 the farm boss yes this is a different class of still to the ms-391 no argument there i came off the ms-391 and the reason i came off it principally was i was pretty much at the limit of what it was doing it was it was okay but then i needed to do a rebuild i was getting to the age where i needed to do a rebuild and it was the previous model ms-391 and ms-391 model that i had is incredibly hard to get the parts for it to get a ball kit a cylinder kit for it was extremely difficult and extraordinarily expensive so what i did was i actually took you know i was very frustrated with that but the lesson i learned in that whole process was if you're going to buy a still chainsaw or any chainsaw for that matter it is worthwhile having a look at what your rebuild costs are going to be if you're like me i didn't really intend to get rid of that saw i didn't really intend to upgrade sure the ms-391 was at the limits of what i was doing but it was at its limits it was at its limits but it was okay i was able to make do with it cutting firewood and such that was fine so um but because i couldn't rebuild it which i am more well capable of doing myself because i couldn't rebuild it i made the call to sell it and i told someone look i said you know i reckon it's coming up to rebuild time um i'm not interested in rebuilding it rebuilding's expensive oh no no no it's fine it'll be just perfect for what i did fine no problem look to get rid of it then i need to step into a new saw and i wanted something one of the big things i wanted one of my chief characteristics was i wanted more power ideally because i knew that my previous saw was on its limit i would have liked to run a 25-inch bar but ideally i didn't want it any heavier than my ms-391 which is a challenge typically because as you go up in in sizes of chainsaw and get more power the chainsaws get heavier thankfully the ms-391 that i had was quite an old model it was probably purchased in the early 2010s i'd say you know 2012 2011 maybe i don't remember exactly but something like that there's been an upgrade on the ms-391 in that time and it's got a little bit lighter but saws have got lighter they've got um they've improved a lot of things about them and they have uh let's say they've got they have improved their um their weight so the ms the ms-500i is an injected saw i was actually looking at something perhaps like um i didn't want to go to a 660. uh they were distinctly heavier and i just really didn't want to have any additional weight when i'm swinging the saw all day long chopping wood so same and i've got a i've got a bung shoulder hence my lift is not great here but i've got a bunk shoulder so i knew i could handle the ms391 but i didn't want it any heavier so i thought maybe a 362 or something um last year in australia in covert there was a distinct shortage of chainsaws across all models so i'd come to a choice of a couple the reason i went with the ms-500i is because i got it sooner it was an option for me to buy that saw sooner than anything else was available to me and how have i found it it's great i really like it the principal thing i like about it and look you've got to take into account here that i was running a lot older saw but i run a heap of chainsaws in the orchard i run the um the little arbor sauce i've got a fleet of them and uh we've we've run the previous model as well as the current generation of the ms uh series arborist saws we've got all the we've got the same type of saw across all of them they're the biggest ones that still make so we use saws a lot but arbor saws are fine for cutting little stuff when you're chopping wood not so good when you're chopping logs but you know we've found you know we've been quite loyal to still i did look at husqvarna uh quite extensively a friend of mine is a very keen husqvarna fan the reason i didn't go with husqvarna is weight for power to the weight that uh to weight so how much weight do i have to live with to get the power i want husqvarna was universally heavier than still so i've had a reasonably good run with still so i did look at husqvarna but it was the weight that turned me away so some people like a heavier saw i didn't want a heavier saw so i um i resolved to buy still and the ms-501i was the quickest one that i could get because i needed to sort of cut my timber for for my fireplace because we run a wood fire so um heaps of power it's not even comparable you wouldn't want to say oh you know i'm looking for an i'm looking for an upgrade for my ms391 get an ms500i it's a big jump uh it's a different class of saw so you want to be aware of that if you want to go a little bigger than an ms-391 then i wouldn't necessarily jump to this i think that probably would be a too big a jump but for me it's been great and i really you know i had a short list i would have taken um you know a lower the next one down below the 500i and i would have been quite happy but the additional power never goes astray particularly when you're doing um you know heavy logs and stuff so uh it's an injected saw i've had no problem with that certainly i find it it's the easiest saw i've ever had to start i'm soaring with it all the time at the moment chopping wood and it's it is over time over the last year i've had it i've never had a saw that will start as quickly and consistently as this one it's absolutely fantastic in that regard push button to stop it very very easy um you know other than that it's conventional still you know your decompression switch chain break um or you know bars and chains i've got carryovers from my last saw in chains they bolt straight onto this no problems at all anti-vibration is very good but that's been quite a quite for anybody who's owned really old stills the anti-vibration of modern sores you know have has been excellent for some time now so you know unless you have a really really really old chainsaw you're probably not going to notice a whole lot of difference here the principal thing that um i found with the ms 501i um you know the magnum series of saws have the rear access for your air filter which my previous still my previous two wood chopping stills didn't have you had to unscrew the bolts to take the back off this is this is way better that should just be standard fare any even in the farm boss range i understand they're a budget saw but really that's such a handy feature it really should be a feature of all stills now but one of the biggest critiques i've i've read and seen people say about the ms 500i is that they don't believe that the the cover here is sufficient to keep crap out of the saw and that they're seeing stuff get in behind the filter now i certainly have watched that and even now you can see there's you know the video shows you i've been i've been chopping last night you've got wood you've got shavings in here however having said that into the cylinder i am yet to see anything get actually inside it or even any residual where the intake is so there is some around it you would expect that with a rubber seal that's a hard plastic seal that's not a rubber seal that's a bit of a deficiency that's a rubber seal which is where you want the rubber seal you don't want it getting into the cylinder but a lot of people have been very concerned about taking the filter off and they see wood shavings in in here however you know under close inspection inside the the intake i've been using it for 12 months and i haven't seen you know any evidence that anything's actually got in there so you know a lot of that's a big critique that i've seen um i think the design could potentially be improved a gasket around the outside of the bottom of the filter would be a good move but you know it's run fine for me so i know that a lot of people are very unhappy about that um multiple steel owners i've seen you know that that's a that's a poor design it needs to be fixed yeah it could be improved it wouldn't really require much more than you know a slightly revised filter like i have seen air filters in the past where the entire bottom surface of it was rubber and this is hard plastic with a rubber gasket in the center i do think that that would be a um a good improvement and one that is worthy of stills consideration or the aftermarket industry you know make one with a full rubber gasket or a full rubber base um to help keep anything that might you know threaten your um threaten getting into your intake uh to prevent that from occurring so i quite like the saw i would i would recommend it it's an expensive saw you know you're going to be spending circa two grand to get one but you know the the fuel injection component of it first fuel injected saw by still question marks over how that's going to go over time i'm only 12 months into it and i've found it fine i love the ease of start i love the power efficiency much of a muchness you know i i wouldn't buy it to with an expectation of greater fuel efficiency i wouldn't let i wouldn't want that to be your principal motivation for buying it most people i've seen that seem to buy one are buying it so they can say they've got a fuel injected saw i don't care about that so much i just want a saw that's going to work that i can maintain the weight um you know my brother-in-law's got an ms660 which is a big saw you know i wouldn't want to swing that all day and you know in terms of power weight certainly has some advantages when you're when you're cutting at times uh however i in use of that saw in use of this saw i would take this saw over it just because um you know it's an older saw admittedly there's a newer model now but uh this this will absolutely run with it with a 25 inch bar and um it's lighter it's lighter so it wins it's less bulky it's a the form factor of it in terms of grabbing it and using it maneuvering it i find that a lot better so yeah good saw if if you need the power i think it's a good choice having said that um you know going one below it in the model range for still would is i would have equally been happy with my brother has one of them the 362 and i quite like that saw i'd be more than happy to own it but i found it good but we'll do another review in another year or another year after that perhaps and see how it goes with tenure because you know my still the oldest still store i have that i personally bought brand new is about you know 14 years old at this point and still going it's an arborist or an ms-201t and it's still going very well and that's what i expect this to do i expect it to last a long time i'll be disappointed if i'm not using this in another decade so um we'll see how it goes we'll update as it goes along and the big question will be whether the move to an injected saw was a good idea or a bad idea but we'll see so but you know not running anything different down the front end of it still chain still bar um found that fine the light that the light es bar that came with it from 25 is fine this is just a standard 20 inch and it's fine so anything that you're carrying over from your previous saw if you're upgrading should be able to run on this without too much difficulty at all and should be you know outside of doing any extreme wood cutting i'd be surprised if it didn't do you know everything that you needed to do but it is a serious sauce so you want to have serious use for it if you're going to plonk that sort of money down on it so i hope this was useful for you thanks for watching you

Channel: Used Tool Review AU

Views: 10,736

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Id: tqfiyfPa8JA

Length: 13min 37sec (817 seconds)

Published: Fri May 07 2021