Me I would stick with the Stihl Motomix until the end of the warranty period.

Yup

I have a 6-8 year old 180. Has the primer bulb. Can be hard to start maybe once every couple years. I run stabil 360 in e10 and never drain it. Try to start it once in the spring and once in the fall if I’m not using it. I’ve found that’s a good system for all my stuff, reminds me i need to start the snow blower soon. I never drain or run out anything. I used to run 87 or 89 in stuff. Lawn shop guy convinced me to use 93 last winter.

If the spark plug is not wet with fuel (good) and the crankcase is not full of fuel the factory starting procedure should work and the saw should start (cold) with primming and lever in the start position (partial choke and high idle speed). I've started hundreds of Stihl chainsaws, blowers, trimmers (hedge and line) and have demonstrated to new owners how to start them. Not trying to be cocky but this procedure works 99.99% of the time if there is nothing wrong (bad ignition, bad stop switch, etc.,) with the unit.

With your MS251 press the primmer bulb 3 -5 times even if there is fuel in the bulb. Squeeze the throttle trigger completely WFO and move the "stop, run, start, choke" (SRSC) lever to the bottom "Full Choke" position. Pull the start cord until you hear or feel a "pop" or combustion. Nine out of ten times the saw will NOT start at this full choke position or point. When you feel that first pop move the SRSC lever up to the START or partial choke/high idle position WITHOUT squeezing or touching the throttle trigger. Pull the starter cord and it should start or come to life within one or two pulls. DO NOT attempt to feather the throttle trigger but let the saw run in the high idle position until you can feel warm exhaust at the muffler outlet with your hand. Once you have warm exhaust you can squeeze the trigger and kick off the lever from the start position and it will go right to the run. You should have an idle speed of around 2800 rpm to at the most 2950 rpm but nothing more. If this doesn't work then I'm tearing up my Stihl Silver Level Tech Certificate, throwing away all of my Stihl saws, blower, trimmers and buying corded and battery Milwaukee stuff .

MikeR

1: Prime 3-5 times.
2: Squeeze throttle trigger, move control lever to full choke, lock lever into full choke position.
3: Pull start cord until you feel or hear one "pop".
4: Move control lever up one position to partial choke/start position.
5: Start/pull start cord.
6: Let run at high idle until you feel the exhaust get warm before squeezing throttle trigger.
7: In the run and warmed up position the idle should be 2800-2950 RPM.

Only problem is it does not have a primer bulb. Wish it did.

Doesn't matter, when your pulling the start cord in the full choke position you're "primming" the carburetor in that mode. Eliminate primer step #1 and start (pun) with #2. New out of the box saws, trimmers, etc., without a primer are "primed" this way. We were instructed not to have the customer present during the first start because it sometimes takes a lot of "priming" and it may look like the unit is hard to start because of the first prime. Full choke "prime" until you hear or feel the first "pop", (only one pop! and) then to the partial choke and it will fire up.....going out on a limb (pun again) from hundreds of times doing this.

Great! That is kinda where I was heading. This last time I did 2 pulls with choke and 4 without. Started on the 6th overall pull.

They guy that does my tree work uses Stihl battery powered chain saws and he says he and his crew love them.

For trimming? I can see that. For cutting down BIG White Oak trees around here? We all use gas powered for that.

There's no electric chainsaw that I know of that will do this. This old tree was on our property and my neighbor and I cut it down, cut it up and then with a couple of front end loaders hauled it off to a corner of the farm property. I had my Stihl Farm Boss 271 and he had a German Solo saw that was pretty impressive. Should have heard and felt the thud when it dropped

They had one gas chain saw they took a tree down with. They trimmed off all the branches and cut the rest up for fire wood with the battery powered saws.

Stihl makes battery powered saws with 16" bars.

The newer 9” and 12”wood pruning sawzall blades with the deep chip removal tooth profiles impress me compared to the blades available ten years ago.

With so many tree branches blocking country roads after these wind storms I have added a battery sawzall to the battery air compressor I drive around with.

Your advice makes sense. I listened for a pop and got it started in 5 pulls. Getting better!

Mine starts easy enough but something is up with the kill,it won't.
I gotta kill it with the choke. 2-3 year old Ms250

Spray some contact cleaner into the kill button/stop button area. If that doesn't work then you may have to take the handle apart to get to the metal tab that the switch lever ramps up on to push the tab to make contact with the ground. I think the small "hook" at the bottom end of #22 in the illustration is the ground or stop contact for the MS250 which is similar to a lot of Stihl products. There's a ground wire at the handle attached near the #22 tab and that wire runs to the engine case to ground. When you try to stop the saw you might try wiggling the stop button to see if it is just slightly out of alignment with the ground contact if so then you will have to go in and reposition the tab or just wiggle the stop button all of the time

Mike

My Stihl chainsaw is over a year old and the only fuel I've ever used is the premix stuff I get from Lowe's. Even after sitting several months in my storage container, with the gas in it, the saw fires right up within three or four pulls.