i bought an echo chainsaw from hopf equipment that is still under warranty and does not work. They will not fix it unless i pay for it. In 2009 I bought a new echo brand chainsaw from hopf equipment in huntingburg indiana. I only bought an echo because it has a 5 year warranty which is longer than any other brand I looked at. I used the saw for light yard work for a few years. I noticed it wasn't working and cutting as well anymore. The chain would stop and go. The last time I used it, I was cutting down a tree with it and the chain would not turn very well. I had to keep moving the saw around in the cut and stop and go. I always kept it oiled well and sharp. The saw was acting like a bearing was burned up in the sprocket area. This left me with a very dangerous situation where the tree i was cutting was nearly ready to fall, but the saw would not work well enough to make the last cut fast and safe. With much hassle and risk to myself I was able to get the tree down without getting hurt. But I knew the saw was broken and needed fixed before I could ever use it safely again. I took the saw to hopf equipment for warranty repair. The guy there named greg called me 4 days later and told me that there was nothing at all wrong with the saw. I knew this was not true. I have been using chainsaws for 25 years and have taken saws to various places for repair. Never has anyone told me that there wasn't anything wrong with the saw. I told greg that he needed to use the saw more to see how it acted up. He then launched into this pathetic explination that i was cutting wood that was too big for the saw. Even though the saw has a bar that is 14 inches long, greg said I should not cut anything bigger than 4 inches around. That would be about 1 inch in diameter. I knew this was completely wrong. Greg told me that it was just a trimming saw. In other words, I guess he meant its only for sticks and twigs. Well, if that is true, then echo and hopf equipment should put that on the advertisement when they sell it. It should say....do not buy this saw if you plan to actually cut wood with it, it is only good for cutting twigs. The saw worked fine for 2 years, and then started to mess up and get worse. So it worked fine for that time and then took a very noticeable downturn in performance. In the echo safety book that came with the saw, it says on page 10 that if the wood you want to cut is bigger than the space between the saw and the kick guard on the bar, you can take the kick guard off the bar. So, this clearly shows that greg was making up nonsense just to try to wiggle out of fixing the saw as he should under warranty. It even says in the echo book on page 10 that you can take the kick guard off if you are felling a tree that is bigger in diameter than the bar....which in this case the bar is 14 inches. It even shows a picture of this. So again, greg at hopf equipment is just trying to make up nonsense excuses to get out of fixing the saw as he should under the 5 year warranty. Then the next day (sept 5 2012) greg called me and said he looked at the saw again and that he didn't see anything wrong with it but the clutch did look like it had slipped some. But he also said that he would not put in a new clutch under warranty, meaning that I would have to pay for it. I refuse to do this. This saw has not been used much and has not been used hard and it is still under warranty. I want it fixed, replaced or my money back. Echo can pay for the repairs. Its their warranty. As it is, this saw is a serious safety risk since it will not cut as it should and when cutting a tree down, timing of the cut is very critical. When a tree is hanging and ready to fall, you do not want a saw that stops cutting because of a defective part. This is dangerous and could get someone hurt or killed. And if that happens, I will assume hopf equipment and echo to both be liable for this since they refuse to repair the saw to safe working order under warranty of which there is still about 2 years left. I cannot believe that these people would balk at spending a few bucks to make a saw safe to use.