JimH2 said:
No question Stihl makes top quality products, but they are absurdly overpriced for casual usage given none of them are precision tools by any measure.
Value for money is a rather vague, esoteric concept: beauty (or value) is in the eye (hands) of the beholder (in this case, "user"). Sorry for the convoluted metaphor, but I guess you get where I'm going here.
Stihl makes a variety of tools, in a variety of ranges & price-points. Namely Homeowner (hobby?), Landowner (homesteader) & Professional levels. In a similar manner to many other power tool manufacturers. Such as TTI, who make Ryobi, AEG, Rigid & Milwaukee at a similar staggered price/performance/quality points.
Where matters get a little fuzzy is where manufacturers make one brand only without adequate differentiation. Such as Makita or, dare I say it, Festool. There was once the Protool range of heavy duty trade tools, now discontinued, & (in some markets anyway) the Narex range of hobby tools & Kraenzle vacs.
But in purchasing any random Festool branded product, the user is unsure at what precise level the tool is actually being pitched. Certainly, the current range could hardly be described as "heavy duty professional only" in a similar manner to the likes of Mafell, Eibenstock et. al. In fact, much of the current range screams to me anyway of rather alarming cost-cutting, cheap manufacture & on occasion flawed & inadequate performance.
I believe the watershed in Festool's quality seems to have occured around the millennium. That's when tools started appearing with outmoded & outdated battery platforms, compromised performance & inherent quality & reliability issues. Not all, of course, but on a personal level none of the few (8 approx.) Festool purchases that I've made since about the year 2000 have been anything like the level of performance, reliability & quality of those that I'd bought prior (10 or so) .
In fact, not one of my post-millennial purchases have been sufficiently suitable to be regarded as "keepers" - I consider some (Duplex & mini-Rotex Duo sanders, Kapex & Trion saws & a couple of cordless drills) to be little better than rubbish - whereas many (most?) of the older ones are still going strong, even if no longer in my actual hands any more.
When I find unused Duplex contoured platens literally crumbling into dust after a year of 2s storage, or clog abrasives prematurely & are actually slower to abrade than a home-made hand block, guiderails frustratingly unwilling to accurately align, that lose their adhesive edging & non-slip stripping, a Kapex guard that doesn't retract/descend reliably or safely, a mini-Rotex that won't sand small & delicate surfaces safely & securely, cordless drills that are woefully slow, gutless & with premature battery death, then I'm unhappy. Irrespective in some ways, but ironically simultaneously infuriatingly frustrating in consideration of the price/performance equation.
I still (Stihl?) have a 50 odd year old (090 AV) saw that was once used intensively, now intermittently as an extreme-duty timber milling & slabbing saw, possibly as intensive a task for a chainsaw as it gets. My primary falling saw (064) is now around 40, my primary firewood harvester (026) is 30. Given their age, utility & useage, I'd have to say that at least these particular purchases, amortised across their age & work performed, are actually dirt cheap & exceptional "value for money"!
Given their contemporary, more "modern" offerings, I consider Stihl power tools to be much better "value for money" than any Festool purchase that I've wasted money on for at least the last 20 years!
