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Should I buy aftermarket parts from Amazon for my Stihl MS 290, gas line and carb kit. I have done this in the past with other small engines and worked out well.

From my experience I would never buy parts listed on Amazon or Fleabay. You have a 50% chance of receiving parts which have been rejected by someone and the seller is selling them cheap to get a quick buck. I know some on this forum say I’m nuts (they may be right) but because I warranty my work I don’t want to have it come back because I wanted to save a couple of pennys. Just my opinion.

I buy a few parts on Amazon depending on what they are. Sometimes I work on things that don't have readily available parts. Mostly used on Chinese items sold at Rural King, etc. Not much that can go wrong ordering Chinese parts to repair a Chinese item.

I never ever buy any parts for a customers equipment from either Scammazon or Evilpay for the very reason Rivets mentioned .
No use trying to save the customer a few $$$ at a big cost to me from doing it a second time under warranty.
I buy a lot of parts directly from Chian either via MADE IN CHINA ( for stock replacements ) or with ALIBABA ( note not Ali Express )
In both of those cases the vendor is usually the manufacturer and they do not get paid till either I reply that the good arrived as described in the time described and in good condition , or after the 90 day escrow period if I don't send an OK message.
Thus everything I get is good to go .

I do at least 5 repairs a mnth where the customer has bought junk from ebay or amazon that just did not work or was defective .
But fools never learn and many of them are serial offenders convinced that the rare time the parts are good is a bargian & outweighs all the times the parts were bad .

Four weeks ago my neighbor asked me to get his 2006 Snow Pup with an R-Tech running. After cleaning and rebuilding the carb multiple times I told him the carb was so bad I couldn’t get it to run properly. Replacement carb was not available and he could run it, but it will run rough. He asked about going on the internet to find a carb. I gave him the carb number, but said there was a less than 50% chance he would find a good one and I wouldn’t recommend it. 10 days later he says he got a new one for $20 and asked if I would install it. Put it on, but it still ran rough. Found that the jet was partially plugged and three nozzle jets fully closed. Decided that since I had two bad carbs I would try punching the jets on the new one and see what happens. Results were that I get it running OK, but not great. Had too much time in it by then and informed him it was the best I could do and it he wasn’t someone who helps me out I would be charging him more than the unit was worth. Exact reason I never go that route.

From personal experience you are asking for problems by using unvetted parts. I got a MS310 in shop that I am having to replace the carburetor because someone put on an after market. I should had been able to rebuild the OEM carburetor with a $10 kit on hand but not the clone. Now I waiting the Stihl to get the proper carburetor for it.

If you spend the money that the MS310 costs you should will spend the money the carburetor cost if rebuild-able. It not the shop fault if you install a clone that burns up your saw.

Your saw has a Walbro HB-18 carburetor which uses the K10-HD repair kit.

Thank you

Rivets said:

From my experience I would never buy parts listed on Amazon or Fleabay. You have a 50% chance of receiving parts which have been rejected by someone and the seller is selling them cheap to get a quick buck. I know some on this forum say I’m nuts (they may be right) but because I warranty my work I don’t want to have it come back because I wanted to save a couple of pennys. Just my opinion.

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Understandable. When running a company when you reach for that part, it better fit and work or you are out another hour+ to get a part that works. Buying from the the maker or an OEM supplier can 99% guarantee to fit and work.

Personally, myself putzing around fixing my own odds and ends, I have time to spare if it doesn't fit. Yeah, 80% chance the part fits buying parts from ebay\amazon, but for the remaining 20% it is not for a customer so time is not critical for me.

upupandaway said:

Understandable. When running a company when you reach for that part, it better fit and work or you are out another hour+ to get a part that works. Buying from the the maker or an OEM supplier can 99% guarantee to fit and work.

Personally, myself putzing around fixing my own odds and ends, I have time to spare if it doesn't fit. Yeah, 80% chance the part fits buying parts from ebay\amazon, but for the remaining 20% it is not for a customer so time is not critical for me.

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Personally I don't have the money to waste either. I have ordered aftermarket and so called OEM parts through Amazon to only received defective ones and either I couldn't return them or the vendor charges a large restocking fee even on defective parts. I now only use Amazon vendors that I know are honest about the parts. THey are few and far between but they are there.

I just had one trying to pay me to remove a half bad review of their product. No I am not removing or modifying it as other needs to know the defect.

Since when did the word AFTERMARKET become a bad word. I sold Aftermarket Automobile parts for over 50 years. There are good Aftermarket Parts and there are bad Aftermarket Parts! Some Aftermarket Parts are manufactured by the same people that got the low bid for the OE. Why in my first 30 years when I told people that I was a rep in the Automotive Aftermarket, they didn't know what Aftermarket meant. Now it means bad? Cheapest is not always best, and neither is OE. Look for parts manufactured by a reputable manufacturer and remember you usually get what you pay for!

RJFCO said:

Since when did the word AFTERMARKET become a bad word. I sold Aftermarket Automobile parts for over 50 years. There are good Aftermarket Parts and there are bad Aftermarket Parts! Some Aftermarket Parts are manufactured by the same people that got the low bid for the OE. Why in my first 30 years when I told people that I was a rep in the Automotive Aftermarket, they didn't know what Aftermarket meant. Now it means bad? Cheapest is not always best, and neither is OE. Look for parts manufactured by a reputable manufacturer and remember you usually get what you pay for!

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When the Chinese companies started selling and not supporting crappy parts. Both eBay and Amazon have a lot of bad actors making it nearly impossible to trust any after market company.

Even the JD A&I division has gotten burned by having bad products. I know as I was a dealer for them and the aftermarket parts got so bad that I had quit buying them from them. Belts were constantly arriving 1 to 2 inches short. Spindles assembled wrong. They even tried conning me on the OEM Zama carburetors by sending me aftermarket ones that didn't work.

I am currently a dealer for both Rotary and Stens. Recently I had ordered 5 JD spindles from Stens. So far two were already returned due to failure due to assembly errors. First one had an incorrect spacer and the second one had the wrong pulley adapter nut. Customer is the same one and is on his third one now. Two of the Five spindle is still on the shelf but I probably will have problems with them too. So Stens has honor their warranties and I haven't been with Rotary long enough to run into problems though I have used their products for years without problems.

Like I said..."Cheapest is not always best, and neither is OE. Look for parts manufactured by a reputable manufacturer and remember you usually get what you pay for!" I sold Aftermarket Parts manufactured by reputable manufacturers (as well as a few "not so reputable") and most warranty issues were from "faulty installation" when not installed by professionals such as your self. Example... Delphi manufacturers fuel pumps for GM with a warranty rate of somewhere around .001%. Same pump in aftermarket has warranty rate of 10%. I know there are a lot of Chinese Crap out there, but there is good stuff too! Just sayin'.

Agree that there are good companies out there but finding them can be problematic. And personally as a business I can't experiment with items as my company rep is on the line.

And sometimes even a good supplier can go downhill fast. Case in point was my Sunbelt Outdoors distributor which was brought out by A&I Products. When I started with Sunbelt back in 2009 I never had a problem with parts then when A&I took them over is when I started having nothing but problems. I fought A&I for nearly five years until I dumped them last Summer during their problems. Mostly it was the lying about things that got them into trouble with me. I actually suspended purchases from them for six months because of the lying. Then right after I got started back to buying from them as I had already replaced a lot the stock items with Stens products they started threatening me with account closure if I didn't buy a certain amount annually. As I had to sell off what I had first before I replace the stock it was going to take up to a year to get things back to their products. So when the third threatening letter (email) showed up I called and closed the account. That $5K a year in sales is now going to Rotary and Stens. Maybe JD can keep them going but I am no longer helping.

Seems like most of your problems were with the distributor sourcing poor quality (cheap) parts, and not so much with the "Aftermarket". Rotary, in SC was a Customer of mine for Prime Line, Sea Foam, Etc. Good Aftermarket Small Engine Parts. No problems with either.

Most branded aftermarket parts are OK .
I do not have access to much in the way of original parts so fit about 90% aftermarket parts and have had very few problems with any of them.
However there is a massive amount of unbranded junk out there usually sold on Amazon & Ebay.
Now most decient techs can see that the parts are substandard or manufacturers defects most of the time but Joe Public believes what he reads in the add.
50 years ago the USA had consumer laws that were enforced , now they are not and in ebays case it is still considered to be an auction house so what you buy there has no enforcable warranty unlike what is bought from a bricks & mortar retailer .
And then there are the deliberate junk parts made to order for US ( or Aust ) retailers
"Make me 100,000 that LOOK exactly like these Very cheap"

Agreed!

Nickster2213 said:

Should I buy aftermarket parts from Amazon for my Stihl MS 290, gas line and carb kit. I have done this in the past with other small engines and worked out well.

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Have not read all reply's, my experience with Stihl was the gas line is made special at least for an old chain saw.

Johner said:

Have not read all reply's, my experience with Stihl was the gas line is made special at least for an old chain saw.

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I have had good results with aftermarket parts mainly from Amazon, some EBay. When you read the find print and details on many of the OEM parts, you will find they are made in China too. Then it comes down to stock availability, shipping time, variety of parts, price, and convenience. Quality is only one piece of the puzzle, albeit and important one.

All part are made all over the world. Some Mexico, Japan, Twain, China among others. Most OEMs don't even make their own parts but sub contract them out to other. factories. Sometimes you can find their source is also selling to a different OEM that sells the same parts for less.

It like Stihl is currently having parts problems as many of their parts were made in the Ukraine especially the their maintenance kits. It is now taking up to nearly six months to get parts at times and other times the parts just get listed as NLA.

Yes their are good aftermarket companies that stand behind their products like the recent case here with Stens JD spindles where they are breaking within 3 months of installation. I have found two problems with them so I have to rework them to prevent the failures one is spacer too thin and the other is the retaining nut not being countersunk. I have exchange them for my customer at no cost to the customer and kept the cores for rework.