Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

First of all, let me say that this product has some excellent features of which reliability is not one. Some things could have improved my initial experience. The saw blade it shipped with I replaced immediately, which improved the saws performance substantially. The riving knife was not in alignment with the blade, which caused the blade to bind when ripping until I adjusted it. The rip fence was not parallel to the blade until I adjusted it as well. At that point the saw performed very well, producing smooth consistent cuts when ripping. 'Where things really started to go off of the rails is when I was ripping a sheet of quarter in oak plywood and the motor quit. After the basic troubleshooting failed to uncover the problem, I called Hitachi, who told me I would have to take the saw to an authorized Hitachi service center, the closest being about 90 miles away. They took their time getting back to me with an explanation of the problem, which was the failure of the soft start module. The service tech explained that there was a large backlog of saw owners waiting for this particular part, and that the first shipment of this part would not arrive from Hitachi until the end of March. He suggested I call Hitachi, which is when I learned that that the backlog was so large that I would not see a replacement soft start module until the next shipment arrived sometime in April. A two or three month delay in repairing what is advertised as a jobsite table saw is unacceptable bordering on incompetence. Thank God I don't use this saw as a professional contractor. As it is, I'm delaying the completion of several projects while waiting on the repair of this saw. And when it is repaired, I will have to drive an hour and a half to go get it, my gas, my time, and my frustration. So much for good value at a good price. Has Hitachi never heard of expedited shipping? I hope they re-engineered the part for better reliability, and I sincerely hope that they are not still selling the saw with the same problem.