A justifide rant about new junk equipment sold in USA. [Long, Sorry]

[R.E. Miller]

First off, I will admit that I bought this thing, so it is now my personal POS, and I can live with that... my fault for trying to trust two of our country's manufacturers.



I just got done a short while ago with cleaning out a carburetor off a Briggs and Stratton engine on a LESCO brand commercial blower. Hopefully I am the only person who ever has to do this. This was an involved process that took 4 hours, and not because I don't know what a wrench is... . because the Briggs engine and the LESCO blower combined are a mechanics nightmare.



Carburetor removal should not be this difficult, but because of common people who work behind the design room doors who never do anything in their life and because of penny pinching, life sucks and common sense is dead. First you have to remove the gas tank... OK. Next you have to remove the gas tank mount and muffler... okie. But then you must remove the entire front shroud of the engine which also requires removing a pulley (that cannot be removed due to a poor braket location tx LESCO) to access the intake manifold bolts. WAIT, why do you need to get to those Because loser companies like Briggs does not want their customers to service their equipment so they make it a near death mission to do so by locating the carburetor bolt heads underneath the carb (V-twin engine: totally impossiable to reach there. ) There by requiring the removal of the intake manifold.



Yeehaw, all to fix the favorite condition of mine, "Why aren't we getting fuel" OH YEAH, the best is how did this happen? Well, there is a float bowl vent on this carburetor like every other one in the world. Guess what, that vent does not run back to the air filter housing to eliminate the passage of I TRIED TO BY-PASS THE CUSSING FILTER So now I'll simmer down and prepare to re-engineer my brand new POS LESCO blower to avoid this hassle again.



Moral: Don't waste your hard earned money on LESCO junk. Not only did I do that, I wasted time doing what they should have when the built it, all the while not out making money with it.

 

[R.E. Miller]

And another thing..... the freaking hardware on both LESCO's and Briggs and Stratton's product went back and forth between metric and SAE requiring the cross training marathon to the toolbox routine WTF over.



I am done now,

Thanks Guys

 

[illflem]

I experienced much the same thing repairing the pull starter rope on a friend's POS B&S lawn mower. The bolts that held the mechanism on came from the inside, I had to take the whole damn thing apart for the stupid rope. Think you're right, they just want people to throw them away if they won't start. I'm not sure if a Honda engine might be the same way to take apart, never had one not work and need repair.

 

[TxDieselKid]

I know what you mean...

I work in the hardware department at Sears and hear all kinds of tools that are needed for servicing of do-it-yourselfers. I had a customer come in the other week, and we got to talking about it because he works at the Cummins service center in town. He said that Cummins had to have been paid by SnapOn to CREATE a 20mm(I think) bolt so that they could make, and be the ONLY ones to have the socket for it. Then ALL the Cummins shops would have to buy from the SnapOn truck.



Hear all types of stories along these lines.



AJB

 

[MOWPAR]

Your Briggs V-twin was not made in this country. The Vanguards are made in Japan by Mitsubishi.

Jim

 

[R.E. Miller]

Only thought it was US stuff.

Shoot, if I would have known that the thing was assembled over there, I would have bought the Kawasaki or a Honda. I have mowers and a leaf vac that have these engines and I swear by them. Sometimes I think you could almost make them run on old #2 But the best part is, these engines don't have 100hrs on them, they have well over 1000hrs and still fire up without the belly ache contest that some of this new puts up just whenever it wants to.



The SNAP-ON thing does not even seem out of place. My biggest problem with all of this is that we are suppose to be moving ahead, recycling, keeping a cleaner environment, enjoying the fruits of high technology, but what we do is work backwards. Why does recycling now involve throwing things away? Because you cannot possiably service some of this stuff any more. Instead of being able to service your engine, machine, or even truck now, you have to just throw it away and purchase a new one when it starts reaching the end of it's service life, and I almost have to even before breaking it in!



Sorry for ranting, I hate doing this. I just hope that I can sway some one away from making the same mistake I did. And this is all my fault anyway, I grew-up watching my Dad fix nearly everything (And if he could not fix it, he would destroy it . ) And what I see now does not really seem to be ahead (exception: electronic soild state ignition ) of what people were using years ago. Actually it was going to all of those old Farm and Gas Engine shows that made me think that stuff really could last.



Alright I feel better now

 

[CGoyette]

so what your saying is you don't like there product

Try a excedrin and 3 beers... . you feel better.

 

[R.E. Miller]

I tried the beer thing, it made the evening much more calm.

 

[rob10858]

to anyone that really thinks that turf equip is any different than anything else thats out there, beware. nowadays made in the usa means assembled in the usa. the components are made overseas. from the hydraulic pumps to the drive-unit, these things are made somewhere else and only assembled in the us. make sure you have a full variety of metric, and standard tools, when you tear into one of these beasts.

 

[Steve M]

I can't help but laugh at the irony of it all. I'm sure since it was made in Japan and not the good ol' inferior USA by overpaid union craftsmen that it must be better and cheaper with the savings passed on to the consumer. Shame on Briggs and Stratton for selling out an American name to the Japanese for the sake of higher profit at the cost of the consumer.

I hate blowers anyhow. They sound like Mitsubishis.

 

[R.E. Miller]

Well it runs right now anyway....shhhh don't tell.

I had to buy parts from the local hobby shop to connect the float bowl vent to the air cleaner housing... . scary. I was actually thinking about this, and wondered (now that this could be funny) if a piece of garbage from the manufacturing process was what got into it ?



Oh yippy skippy, I took a gander the 61 Bunton walk-behind with a 20hp Briggs has the same open vent on it. Wow, more fun for me.

 

[Scot]

I must confess, I have been meaning to write Briggs a note regarding the Quantum(?) overhead valve engine I bought to replace the tired 4hp on the mower.



Wow who would have thought B&S would jump on to a fad like overhead valves. I figured that they would wait a full hundred years after Buick introduced it (1903) to make sure it really works!

 

[fest3er]

Re: Only thought it was US stuff.

Originally posted by R. E. Miller

... Why does recycling now involve throwing things away? Because you cannot possiably service some of this stuff any more. Instead of being able to service your engine, machine, or even truck now, you have to just throw it away and purchase a new one when it starts reaching the end of it's service life ...

Probably because high-volume, low-cost manufacturability is diametrically opposed to serviceability and repairability.



Are the Stihl blowers as good as their chain saws and weed trimmers? As they say, if you bought something other than a Stihl, you should go home, open your dust bin, toss the piece of equipment in it, cover the bin, then go out and buy a Stihl.



Not to make light of your situation, though. I've been there many times. And will probably be there many times again! A tall dry gin martini nearly always soothes the ravaged beast!



Fest3er

 

[R.E. Miller]

Fest3er,

Sthil is a great source for all around good equipment. All of my trimmers, chain saws, hedge trimmers are Sthil. If Sthil made a windrow blower of the caliber of the LESCO, I would of hopped on that at 100MPH. Also, if you are in the market for a backpack job, the Shindaiwa eb630 is insane, it will move a brick like it is a pebble. Oh, Echo came out with a new model this year and I have not checked it out yet, but they say it makes the eb630 look like a hairdryer