MS250C Parts

I need a new piston and can for my MS250C. Piston is scored and low compression from over use and will not start. Always had proper fuel mix. Cost of parts from dealer are prohibitive so wondering if anyone has had any luck with the Chinese parts that are on eBay.

Are you aware of the truism.
" HE who buys cheap pays twice "

Mower shops who are not authorised Stihl dealers will usually keep pattern Stihl parts or at least be able to order them in for you.
They will be a little more expensive than buying them on line because of extra logistical costs but the parts will carry a suppliers warranty.

I can buy pattern parts direct from the factories who supply my suppliers, but I buy them from Stens, Oregon, Rotary, Prime Line or RGS because the ones I get from them have seen some sort of quality control and carry a warranty so if they do not fit or fail in service destroying the machine I am covered.
Parts bought from ebay have no warranty and I doubt Amazon has a warranty on parts sold through their web pages, same for Ali Baba, Made in India, Made in China.

Most Chinese factories do not do quality control on the final products, so most vendors do their own, either at the despatch or at receiving.
The parts rejected by Sten's , Stihl's , Brigg's etc quality assurer do not go to the tip or metal recyclers, they get on sold and eventually end up being sold by on line vendors .

Factories that employ good quality control, brand their parts because they are making good stuff & they want repeat customers.
Factories that just do piece work for other factories / suppliers do not brand their parts so the end vendor can do that if desired.
Factories that make trash parts that look like good ones never brand anything because they know they are making trash so do not want to be identified.

So the rule of thumb is a part with a name on it has a better than average chance of being of reasonable quality while unbranded parts should always be treated as suspect.

And finally, the assumption that "all Chinese parts are the same" is quite racist.
You would not ask is parts made in America, Canada, even Australia are good, you would specify them by makers or retialers .
China has more satelites orbiting the planet than any other country, they have done more successful rocket launches than the rest of the world added together despite starting 30 years behind every one else.
Most of the telecommuniations equipment used to power the WWW that you are currently using to visit this web forum were made in Chinese factories .
Your view of things that are "Made in China" is biased because of all the poor quality special cheap cheap cheap parts Canadians, Americans & Australians commission factories to make exclusively to sell into their respective home markets.
The stuff that is junk is junk because we ask them to make junk so we can sell it cheap.

Thanks for the response. The dealer quoted well over $300 just for the piston and can. Not sure if other parts would also be required. At that price plus labor if having them do the repair I am almost at the cost of a new saw. Just wanted to know if anyone else has used the parts I see on eBay. They are considerably cheaper and would make it worthwhile for me to try to repair the saw myself instead of scrapping it. I have in the past purchased parts on eBay for other equipment at a fraction of the dealer cost for oem and found the quality to be equal or even better than oem.

Donystoy said:

Thanks for the response. The dealer quoted well over $300 just for the piston and can. Not sure if other parts would also be required. At that price plus labor if having them do the repair I am almost at the cost of a new saw. Just wanted to know if anyone else has used the parts I see on eBay. They are considerably cheaper and would make it worthwhile for me to try to repair the saw myself instead of scrapping it. I have in the past purchased parts on eBay for other equipment at a fraction of the dealer cost for oem and found the quality to be equal or even better than oem.

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As I previously metioned , it can be a crap shoot if you are not buying from a real shop that has to provide real warranty.
There are hundreds of vendors on ebay some sell good stuff some sell rubbish and some are variable.
If the ebay site sells nothing other than mower / chainsaw & related items then good chance they are reasonable.
If they sell everything from condoms to battle ship anchor chain then good chance they are a clearing house .
All of the certified quality aftermarket suppliers have web sites where you can look up the parts you require.

The last salaried job I had was running a warehouse.
Any vacant pallet spaces were rented through a consolodation company on a monthly basis.
We would get container loads of stuff pack them onto pallets. the owners sent us picking slips and packing slips along with some very fancy looking invoices which we printed out & got included in the packages.
Most of these companies had letterheads showing factories , laboratories & the like which gave the impression that they were a big multinational company where as in reality they were nothing more than a room in some ones garage / basement.
many of these temporary clients were on a cash only basis so nothing got despatched till the money was in our account as we had been stiffed a few times before.
It was quite usual for the same email address to be sending us picking & despatch orders for the same products under a variety of different company names.
Just for the fun of it we occasionally would try a search and of course found none of the company names were registered anywhere in the world ( English using world ).

All of these people had ebay shops, full of stock photos of goods, factories etc pretending to be big secure businesses.
I can create a virtual shop in about an hour that would make the viewer think I was bigger than Walmart, all of which is fake.

So you are faced with taking your chances on the really cheap, buying from a known afermarket supplier for a bit more or going to Stihl.

I work for my money and have problems with gambeling so it is real aftermarket parts from real aftermarket part suppliers that go into my customers machines.

And again you are not giving us any information.
There are thousands of ebay shops, some sell good stuff, some sell trash & some are outright frauds.
Unless you specify which particular ebay vendor you are looking at then your question ranks with "are all USA made cars rubbish?"

Here is a link to the listing for the piston and can on Amazon.ca. Just one example from my search. Checked the vendors site and there seems to be only chainsaw parts listed. At this price it is almost worth the risk. https://www.amazon.ca/HIPA-42-5mm-C...erchant-items&ie=UTF8&qid=1540347727&sr=1-362

I still have to finish with dis-assembly to see if I need any other parts.

Warranty means nothing if he is installing it himself. Warranty would only count if it was installed by an authorized service center. Just something to think about.

I know where those parts have come from , or at least where the photo has come from.
The photo is on the catalogue from an OEM supplier to Stihl so they should be OK.
Get a set of pin circlips from a mower shop, theirs are a bit suspect ( feel weak )
Check the impulse line carefully, pull it hard to make sure it won't split.

The vendor has put a BS brand name on the kit and there is no guarantee that he has not assembled it himself
If it comes in a blue & white printed box with the piston in a box and the barrel shrink wrapped then it should be a good kit.