Remember back in 2018 when Makita/Dolmar had issued a product recall for the entire PS-6400 - PS-7910 range of chainsaws?
Some boffin had figured the chain brake might possibly engange too slowly in case of kickback under certain non-disclosed circumstances.
Makita issued a product-recall on their websites asking every owner to send back their saws for a free hardware-fix.
Good and reasonable manufacturer's move so far.
I had talked to my contact at Makita/Dolmar tech-support and asked him whether to send back my 7900 to have the fix applied or not.
He recommended to not apply the fix but rather make sure to look after the break and the lever-cascade (the one behind the black plastic cover) in particular and make sure they're kept clean and well lubricated.
The reason for his of course entirely unofficial recommendation was: The DOLMAR engineers in Hamburg had suggested to replace the lever-cascade with an improved version but the parent-companie's bean-counters (Makita Germany, that is) refused it but rather insisted on the solution finally rolled out: Simply bolt an additional metal bar onto the brake flag to add inertia and thus force the brake to engage faster.
This doesn't sound bad at all but my pal also told me, the engineers expected to see broken saw bodies with the fix applied since the additional mass would increase stress on the break flag's hinge which had been a comparably weak part to start with.
Here is the predicted result, found in an ad in german classifieds, the bolted on weight bar visible at the pic's right edge:
For me it looks like exactly like what the DOLMAR-engineers had anticipated.
