Gregory Davis

I bought a new 455 Rancher chainsaw in Sep 2011. I was tired of problems with my Poulan Pro not starting. The saw was used for a max of 5 total hours. Took the saw out this past summer 2012 to use it again and it wouldn't start. Dealer cleaned out carburetor, black debris in carb screen was cleaned out. This fixed issue and it ran. Purchased non-ethanol fuel and dumped other ethanol mix fuel deciding to only use non-ethanol mix for saw. Ran saw with non-ethanol mix for about one hour total, dumped fuel out of tank and stored.

Got saw back out late Dec 2012, used it for 10 minutes and then let it sit overnight, next day it won't start. Removed spark plug, totally wet, dried plug, pulled starter several times to dry out cylinder a little. Installed plug, saw started. Let set overnight, gas in compartment below carb, poured gas out and gas also came out of the carb throat.

This saw is flooding when sitting still, totally unacceptable !

Dried out again, started then stopped. Waited 2 minutes then stood saw up with carb down and saw tip in air, squeezed throttle to see gas running out of throat.

Needless to say, I'm not  a happy consumer right now. I sprang for a higher cost and hopefully higher quality saw and honestly, I got years of trouble free operation from my much cheaper Poulan chain saw then the 455 rancher I have.

I know what the dealer is going to say, warranty doesn't cover this.

Any suggestions on what is causing this problem and how to fix it? I am a mechanic so I can change the carb gaskets but I'm not convinced that is going to help. I estimate there was at least 4-6 tablespoons of fuel in the carb compartment area and in the carb throat. This almost seems like some siphon effect going on.

Any feedback appreciated.