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So that’s the end of Snapper lawn tractors & zero turns. Briggs & Stratton shut them down yesterday on negative sales growth. It’s likely they will license the name, so look forward to seeing $299 electric mowers made in China & sold in big box stores, etc. It’s disappointing, I used to use Snapper Pro mowers while doing yards during college and they were amazing. I bought my 2020 RPX largely on the reputation of the pre-acquisition company’s reputation & the fact that they were owned by Briggs.

https://www.rurallifestyledealer.co...-snapper-tractors-zero-turns-in-north-america

YEp,
Like Murray they will end up becoming a badge brand from a third world country sold at Wallys
Remember that B & S is owned by a finance company
Finance companies make money not products so the idea of building new production lines that make better mowers for less money is abhorent to them as buying the company from the liquidators is the only capital they are willing to invest and from then on it is sucking then brand dry for returns

I am surprised Briggs has made it this long after the bankruptcy. I done came one engine that they don't support and it has Briggs logos all over it. They had sub contracted it out and that company went belly up so Briggs will not support it.

BTW Snapper was already being farmed out to Husqvarna.

I kinda glad I pull my distributor access late last year after they got to where nearly everything I needed keep getting b/o or nla.

Just working on selling out all the stock parts and only ordering what is needed now when it comes to Briggs. Jut can't support a company that don't care about their customers.

bertsmobile1 said:

YEp,
Like Murray they will end up becoming a badge brand from a third world country sold at Wallys
Remember that B & S is owned by a finance company
Finance companies make money not products so the idea of building new production lines that make better mowers for less money is abhorent to them as buying the company from the liquidators is the only capital they are willing to invest and from then on it is sucking then brand dry for returns

Click to expand...

The Wally snappers were farmed out to MTD and Husqvarna around 2010 when Briggs started a special dealer program called mass merchant support to support the Snapper products sold a Walmart. Standard Snapper dealers couldn't warranty them without being part of the Mass merchant program. There was even a few Snapper push mowers sold at Walmart that were manufactured by a Chinese company with no support structure to even supply parts.

It’s been coming. Snapper was once a good company that produced quality products. The last walk behind mower that I bought was a Snapper Ninja Commercial mower. A fantastic mower. Better than any Honda or Toro.
So, B&S expects Ferris and the Ferris made Stihl zero turns are going to save them. I don’t think so. I don’t think Stihl will be in the zero turn market very long.

Sad. My relative had a Snapper RER from the 90s. That thing was so easy to work on and you could use many generic parts to keep it going. I was mad when he gave it to someone else.

B & S are doing the same to Victa down here
Victa had over 70% of the walk behind market before the take over , they now have 20 % & falling
But by now they have probably recouped the money Victa owed them so they will be happy to shut that brand down as well .

This is very disappointing ( but somewhat expected) news for all of us Simplicity owners. One by one each of us will need to consider making a new investment as parts become unavailable. The stability of Ferris is now suspect also as a Go-To and the new relationship with Stihl is probably suspect as well. Hopefully Ferris will provide cross-over references for the models that share common parts. But that's going to be iffy.

bkeller500 said:

This is very disappointing ( but somewhat expected) news for all of us Simplicity owners. One by one each of us will need to consider making a new investment as parts become unavailable. The stability of Ferris is now suspect also as a Go-To and the new relationship with Stihl is probably suspect as well. Hopefully Ferris will provide cross-over references for the models that share common parts. But that's going to be iffy.

Click to expand...

I believe that the Ferris and Stihl collaboration won’t last very long.There is one Stihl dealer within a 50 mile radius of me. That dealer also sells Scag and Hustler. I have only seen one Stilhl zero turn in operation near me. Replacement parts will be a big problem.

These are sad times for us. First it was Honda discontinuing their whole outdoor power product line. Now this news of Snapper no longer being a great brand anymore. I just wish B&S would just make them a spin off and set the brand free, like IBM did with their printer line up which became lexmark.

However, Competition in the Zero Turn segment is very tight and It is understandable as to why this might be.

I had a Simplicity Prestige bought just a few days ago but after reading this news (that all dealers knew) I went back and retrieved my check. Simplicity sales rep was one of the best I've ever delt with for any product. I'm expecting a Gravely ZT HD to be delivered this week.

Unfortunately we live in a throw away society these days from a consumer standpoint. People no long have the attention span and the desire to purchase tools to keep for a lifetime or at least a long period of time. Many consumers have not yet realized when they go electric that battery is going to need to be replaced in 3-5 years and in most cases the cost will be up to 1/2 the price of the electric tool.

When you walk through Home Depot or other home improvement locations it’s pretty hard to even find a selection of gas powered equipment as they have been replaced by electric.

Had a Kawaski on my Hustler Raptor, was a good engine. Went with Briggs when I bought a Ferris IS 2100 and ISX2200. The ISX Vanguard (Briggs) has the external oil tank which I like. I wonder if Kawasaki will eventually be the choice?? Went with the Ferris for the ride as I have very uneven terrain.

chinookmtp said:

Had a Kawaski on my Hustler Raptor, was a good engine. Went with Briggs when I bought a Ferris IS 2100 and ISX2200. The ISX Vanguard (Briggs) has the external oil tank which I like. I wonder if Kawasaki will eventually be the choice?? Went with the Ferris for the ride as I have very uneven terrain.

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I hear ya on trying to get the best ride. My 'yard' is as rough as any farm field I've been in. I bought my Gravely with their full suspension seat and the upgraded casters with rubber buffers in them. I'll also adjust the tire pressure accordingly.

Working for Home depot has been an education in mowers for me. It seems the only brand that stands out is Toro. I wished we had the walk behind line of Toros. I have a Poulan walk behind and a Poulan tiller I purchased 2017 with
B & S engines. No problems and still running great. I have a Troy Built TBR that has overheating problems. I am going to work on it this fall and make sure the engine is very clean. It is the TH 382 cc model which I have little confidence in. Home Depot is on track for 50 % of mowers sold being battery operated. I have a small Ryobi Battery OP that works great for trimming. We sell very few Battery Operated mowers at our store. Being in a rural area Not much demand for these guys.

Somebody is forcing an earthquake in the use if IC engines. Rules and regulations are enacted or dictated(regulations are not law) at the whim of unqualified people.
I do not believe any sort of cost:benefit analysis has been done on electrification of OPE.
Th PTB do not seem aware that the world runs on diesel. Farm equipment to plow, plant, weed, till, and harvest crops, equipment to haul the crops to mills, to run the mills, to transport the milled product to bakeries, etc, and final delivery to warehouses and retail stores is ALL done with diesel powered equipment.
The meatheads by the PoToMac think dictation works. It does when composing a letter, if you have a good assistant, but dictating rules and regulations without proper preparation and knowledge of the effects can be disastrous.
We do live in interesting times.

B&S declared bankruptcy, and should have sold off the brand names that were valuable. Apparently the people doing the re-organization do not understand the OPE, pro and consumer markets. Briggs had an excellent reputation built over 80-90 years or more. Someone decided to eat the brand name and destroy it with inferior products. Once the brand name has been associated with junk, it takes decades to bring it back. It is a real waste. It also effectively destroys any chance for B&S to be a strong competitor, and damaged the job opportunities for those who will be put out of work.
Short term gains traded for destruction of a name brand is the last resort of ignorant people making decisions they should not even be allowed to consider. Apparently the 'stock market' evaluation drives a lot of companies. Long term, the stock market will do what it will do, so focusing on the job right now, right in front of you should be what employees do daily. They no longer have the chance, or soon will not.

They have the same plan to get rid of gas powered cars. But it is a lot easier to get rid of all gas power lawn equipment first than cars. They are putting all US small engine and lawn equipment manufactures out of business so your only choice will be battery power lawn equipment all from China. Once they force everyone to get use to using battery lawn equipment vehicles will be next...

exiled_to_ohio said:

So that’s the end of Snapper lawn tractors & zero turns. Briggs & Stratton shut them down yesterday on negative sales growth. It’s likely they will license the name, so look forward to seeing $299 electric mowers made in China & sold in big box stores, etc. It’s disappointing, I used to use Snapper Pro mowers while doing yards during college and they were amazing. I bought my 2020 RPX largely on the reputation of the pre-acquisition company’s reputation & the fact that they were owned by Briggs.

https://www.rurallifestyledealer.co...-snapper-tractors-zero-turns-in-north-america

Click to expand...

Sad. The original Snapper RER was perhaps the best rider mower ever. No frills, no cup holders, no fancy engine covers to make it look like a mini- farm tractor, just everything required to cut the lawn and do a great job of it. My 33" Extra Tough Hi Vac rider from 1984 will live on due to the many aftermarket parts available for the millions(?) of Snapper RERs still out there, doing their job.

I agree it is terrible what has been done the Briggs and Stratton company. For me it is nearly impossible to get parts now. I just recent worked a Briggs Pressure washer that very in engine were available. It was less than two years old and I had to give the customer the bad news that it was unrepairable due to lack of parts.

grumpyunk said:

B&S declared bankruptcy, and should have sold off the brand names that were valuable. Apparently the people doing the re-organization do not understand the OPE, pro and consumer markets. Briggs had an excellent reputation built over 80-90 years or more. Someone decided to eat the brand name and destroy it with inferior products. Once the brand name has been associated with junk, it takes decades to bring it back. It is a real waste. It also effectively destroys any chance for B&S to be a strong competitor, and damaged the job opportunities for those who will be put out of work.
Short term gains traded for destruction of a name brand is the last resort of ignorant people making decisions they should not even be allowed to consider. Apparently the 'stock market' evaluation drives a lot of companies. Long term, the stock market will do what it will do, so focusing on the job right now, right in front of you should be what employees do daily. They no longer have the chance, or soon will not.

Click to expand...

I couldn't agree more. I work at a very large construction equipment manufacturer and have seen it time and time again where non-customers and people who have not bought anything more than a wheelbarrow make inane decisions that impact end customers that have bought equipment to support their businesses. With regards to Simplicity I am sad but not surprised as the dealer network here has all but dried up (there used to be one in every town, sometimes multiple), the product really hasn't been marketed or updated in years, so naturally market share will decrease. There are people out there that want to own quality and will pay for it but you can't neglect your brand and expect them to just show up.

I make buying decisions for my equipment based on how I think the manufacturer will support it currently and down the road. Thus I own Grasshopper and Kubota products and older equipment where there is a cottage industry that supports it.

Texas Chainsaw, Have you looked for a Lexmark printer for home use since Windows 10 came out? They don't exist and there is no Windows 10 driver for them. Just saying. It is too bad because I liked my Lexmark printer until I upgraded to Windows 10 and had to buy a new printer.

Your comments here about how problematic battery powered electric outdoor power equipment can be are dead right. It will be a sad day when the ICE is gone, but like it or not folks the ICE's days are numbered. For so many reasons, but mainly b/c emissions controls and safety regs have made ICE machines consumers hate. I say its mostly b/c of fuel and quality of build issues that make starting difficult to impossible (For example my camping generator) when left for a few weeks.

As a consumer whose been using ICE equipment for 50 years, I'd say that anything with an ICE made in the last 10 years will break down, and be way more expensive to repair, if it can be repaired at all, than it would have been 20 years ago. Everyone I know shops at Lowz, Home Despot, Walferts, et all. They buy cheap junk because they think they can't afford better, or "why spend more when it's just going to break anyway". Even "expensive" zero turns fall into this. They then tire of repairs, especially rebuilding an ICE carb or fuel system after it's been sitting for 3 months. They hate dealing with fuel preservatives like Stabil and especially forgetting to use it when it won't start.

Even I love how quiet and easy to use my electric corded chain saw is, and its 15 years old. And sure in a few years (if we are lucky) these newfangled batteries will have to be replaced.... but more likely in 5 years there will be a new, smaller, lighter and faster, cooler (sales pitch) replacement. So yeah, we are a disposable society, but people throw throw their $800 phones away every 3-5 years, so why not their electric lawn mower?

As for me, I will be using my newish Craftsman walk behind and 20 year old all steel MTD Yardman Yardbug Rider for as long as I can get parts. Maybe my relatives will have to pull me and my dying hands off of the Yardbug, but more likely they will pull my dead body out of my SeaHunt boat with its 2006 2 Stroke Yamaha engine that sends up a cloud of smoke every morning I go out fishing.

If you are in the business, you all better find a way to sell or be using all this electrical stuff, or get out of the business.. because that's all there's going to be in 10 years. Nobody's going to be fixing anything but the most expensive equipment anymore. Think IPhone. Ugh.

Why do big companies keep buying other brands only to destroy them?? LawnBoy comes to mind. Now Snapper- or at least part at the moment. What a shame....

Just a few mos ago you could still buy a new Honda lawnmower now there are none to be found on line.

So sad to see the decline of Western society and Innovation

I became aware of Briggs doing this a few months ago but at first it was just their traditional walk behind mowers similar to the ninjas and their rear engine riders.
They're wanting to focus on simplicity is what they said.
It does become a problem for these large companies that absorb and suck up different names that used to be independent over the years because now you're using that name recognition and possible popularity competing against your own other products.

It really shouldn't matter to Briggs if you sell a simplicity, A fairest, or a snapper as long as you get the sale but I think it's called spreading yourself too thinly.

As someone else pointed out, snappers have already been subbed out years ago and I believe it was MTD was making a snapper but regardless it wasn't what I call a real snapper. Lol
The problem is, not nearly enough people know how good those old snappers were and the new ones are basically the same machine with exception of that lousy new Briggs & Stratton engine which I'm not really a fan of and certainly isn't going to be as durable and long lived as the previous Briggs it replaced.
But the machine, and the drive system is still some of the best quality available.
I will say I've had to repair a couple of welds because the old ones had a carriage bolt through it and might have been welded also but the new ones they just hit it with a little bit of weld and the penetration isn't so good so I've seen them pop up where they handle brackets mount to the deck but luckily that's a 3 minute fix because all you have to do is drill the hole through the deck since it's already in the bracket and put a carriage bolt nut and lock washer on it and it will be better than new.

Many times these companies retain the rights to the names and years later will bring them back kind of like a big rotation.

That's probably because they make such a bad image for themselves and their products the same way John Deere has had to change the name of their department store riders three or four times now.
When all the reviews catch up to you online then you have to start pushing another one of your products that doesn't have any bad publicity yet.

I fear that Briggs will never be anything close to what they used to be since this holdings company owns them.
As mentioned by others, holdings companies just look at the bottom dollar and the only good thing is sometimes they do leave the companies alone to design and manage their products as they see fit but in this case Briggs was already doing a fairly poor job of that.
At the first sign of trouble or the first or second quarter of lower than expected sales, they will dump these companies etc.
They are not in it for the long haul. The same way I can't stand when restaurants are owned by holding companies or management groups etc.
These people didn't start it from the ground up and build a small empire with multiple locations in the state or around the country and they have no real vested interest in keeping the name and the tradition alive being the only way they have to make money.
When they going gets tough.. they walk!

Several yrs ago I needed a new Briggs engine for one of my Snapper SP's (rear disc drive not MTD specials). I owned 4 then, two 3&1 and two Ninjas. I noticed on Briggs site they had no push mower steel sleeve engines listed so I called them. They stated they just stopped making them the prior year. So I checked Ebay, Amazon none anywhere!

Well I called SmallEngineWarehouse where I bought parts before that actually had one left, a JD style with pressure lube oil system. I bought it at clearance price & ordered 2 cases of oil filters because I figured its mini filters may be hard to locate later or JD priced? It actually has an oil slinger in it too according to its parts breakdown so one can just block it off & change oil more if needed.
I used it on my front yard (20 min weekly) & mowed my back yard with my rider.
3yrs later we moved to the country where we live now (3 acres), partly wooded & I mow 2.5 acres all with my garden tractor(s).
So that ol Snapper is stored in my barn with my other 3 n 1 Snapper. Sold both Ninja models when we moved. I kept a few rear-ends & controls from rusted out curb finds if needed. The disc drive Snapper was the best self propelled mowers ever made, owned Toro, Honda, Deere nothing even comes close to their reliability.
I kept checking back for another new sleeved engine but never located another, those baby's sure dried up fast. Briggs engines was decimated long ago, but omg what a wonderful engine they once built. I thank every engineer that ever helped make them what they were. Seen so many that never had one oil change last over 20yrs back in the day. Crazy!
I'd liked to of handed these down to my boy but he dont appreciate anything old. Todays younger gens could care less about everlasting equipment.
Briggs Pres was asked during an interview almost 10yrs ago "Why did Briggs stop putting oil drains in their smaller engines" he answered "Our studies show todays generation does not want to do any maintenance, they just prefer to buy new again."
So Briggs put on plastic carbs, no oil drains, no sleeves etc.. Other words, Briggs built the p.o.s. they asked for so they buy new mowers every 2yrs vs a quart of oil & a hand wash.
Appears China rubbed off here sadly, all these big corps love people who buy n toss, buy n toss instead of fixing it? Saw one mower shops flyer for 30% interest over summer!...nutz!
Being one who learned math I'm just not that guy who buys stuff to throwaway days later. Sickening thought to me honestly. If Briggs sells a product no better built than China then why pay more for the Briggs? Buy a Harbor Lifan engine & toss it on an old Deck...Briggs shot themselves in the foot.

Fwiw- I still have my old Wheel Horses with engines/trans/frames made from old iron & maintain them so I dont spend thousands every 5yrs on todays throwaways. Oldest is 1976, newest a 1988, none have seen their first engine refresh yet, all Kohler K & Magnums but some Garden Tractors had iron Briggs back then. Hard to find old iron GT's for sale but as owners die they do get sold off!
Beware of Onan powered GTs people are dumping due to parts costs.

Today, there is no competition with China. China has already WON! They have access to CNC machining that allows duplication of anything, but what they have improved upon is their creativity and imagination. On top of that, individual competition within their workforce doesn't exist! Americans are in a video coma, and they need to start thinking outside their boxes!

upupandaway said:

Why do big companies keep buying other brands only to destroy them?? LawnBoy comes to mind. Now Snapper- or at least part at the moment. What a shame....

Click to expand...

Because they can make lots of money doing it. Look what has happened to Sears since Lambert took them over years ago.

grumpyunk said:

..... B&S declared bankruptcy, and should have sold off the brand names that were valuable.....

Click to expand...

They tried to sell off their Lawn & Garden brands prior to bankruptcy, saying they were going to slim down to just engines & power generation. But no one would buy any of the lawn and garden brands because they were losing money. Then came bankruptcy, and now this.

The reason they bought the L&G brands to begin with was to protect their engine business from competition. But the demand for competing engines was so great that they had to start buying engines from their competitors to be able to sell their own mowers. Briggs engines are not the first choice for most consumers these days, and many flat-out refuse to own the brand.

In hindsight, they should have focused their investment on making better engines rather than chasing vertical integration trying to compete with mower manufacturers and OPE dealers.

upupandaway said:

Why do big companies keep buying other brands only to destroy them?? LawnBoy comes to mind. Now Snapper- or at least part at the moment. What a shame....

Click to expand...

dad7432 said:

Because they can make lots of money doing it. Look what has happened to Sears since Lambert took them over years ago.

Click to expand...

In some cases they buy a brand with the intention of killing it while cashing out the value and trust in the name. Husqvarna has done this over and over.

In other cases the intention is noble to grow the brand. I think B&S had good intentions but they just couldn't get out of their own way. They were arrogant, stubborn, complacent, and very disorganized. And so busy drinking their own kool-aid that they didn't see their own demise approaching.

MowManMow said:

Several yrs ago I needed a new Briggs engine for one of my Snapper SP's (rear disc drive not MTD specials). I owned 4 then, two 3&1 and two Ninjas. I noticed on Briggs site they had no push mower steel sleeve engines listed so I called them. They stated they just stopped making them the prior year. So I checked Ebay, Amazon none anywhere!

Well I called SmallEngineWarehouse where I bought parts before that actually had one left, a JD style with pressure lube oil system. I bought it at clearance price & ordered 2 cases of oil filters because I figured its mini filters may be hard to locate later or JD priced? It actually has an oil slinger in it too according to its parts breakdown so one can just block it off & change oil more if needed.
I used it on my front yard (20 min weekly) & mowed my back yard with my rider.
3yrs later we moved to the country where we live now (3 acres), partly wooded & I mow 2.5 acres all with my garden tractor(s).
So that ol Snapper is stored in my barn with my other 3 n 1 Snapper. Sold both Ninja models when we moved. I kept a few rear-ends & controls from rusted out curb finds if needed. The disc drive Snapper was the best self propelled mowers ever made, owned Toro, Honda, Deere nothing even comes close to their reliability.
I kept checking back for another new sleeved engine but never located another, those baby's sure dried up fast. Briggs engines was decimated long ago, but omg what a wonderful engine they once built. I thank every engineer that ever helped make them what they were. Seen so many that never had one oil change last over 20yrs back in the day. Crazy!
I'd liked to of handed these down to my boy but he dont appreciate anything old. Todays younger gens could care less about everlasting equipment.
Briggs Pres was asked during an interview almost 10yrs ago "Why did Briggs stop putting oil drains in their smaller engines" he answered "Our studies show todays generation does not want to do any maintenance, they just prefer to buy new again."
So Briggs put on plastic carbs, no oil drains, no sleeves etc.. Other words, Briggs built the p.o.s. they asked for so they buy new mowers every 2yrs vs a quart of oil & a hand wash.
Appears China rubbed off here sadly, all these big corps love people who buy n toss, buy n toss instead of fixing it? Saw one mower shops flyer for 30% interest over summer!...nutz!
Being one who learned math I'm just not that guy who buys stuff to throwaway days later. Sickening thought to me honestly. If Briggs sells a product no better built than China then why pay more for the Briggs? Buy a Harbor Lifan engine & toss it on an old Deck...Briggs shot themselves in the foot.

Fwiw- I still have my old Wheel Horses with engines/trans/frames made from old iron & maintain them so I dont spend thousands every 5yrs on todays throwaways. Oldest is 1976, newest a 1988, none have seen their first engine refresh yet, all Kohler K & Magnums but some Garden Tractors had iron Briggs back then. Hard to find old iron GT's for sale but as owners die they do get sold off!
Beware of Onan powered GTs people are dumping due to parts costs.

Click to expand...

I have more than enough of these Briggs engines to last me 2 lifetimes but I won't own one of the newer ones.

ILENGINE said:

The Wally snappers were farmed out to MTD and Husqvarna around 2010 when Briggs started a special dealer program called mass merchant support to support the Snapper products sold a Walmart. Standard Snapper dealers couldn't warranty them without being part of the Mass merchant program. There was even a few Snapper push mowers sold at Walmart that were manufactured by a Chinese company with no support structure to even supply parts.

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I thought most mowers were made overseas anyway, I saw a zero turn in Wal Mart a few years back and it had a 10 year warranty on it, don't remember the brand I thought it was snapper, but not sure. I am sure it was limited, I have a husqvayna mower and it is way better than my old sears mower, i bought it last year, not praising overseas manufactures but almost everything is made overseas, I had a sears technician work on my old sears mower, it had a bad cable system on the trans, he tried to fix it but couldn't so I got my Husqvayna at a reduced rate, which I bought from sears under my maintenance contract, the thing about it is the tech told me that the transmissions are all made different, different designs same brand, so I guess the chinese have something to do with that so I can understand why the older mowers are appealing, they were all made basically the same and parts were easy to replace, most home owners could fix them without a mower repair bill, like my old chevy before electronics were introduced into them to control emissions. Now i am a diy person if i can fix it I will, if this husqvarna is like my old sears mower forget about fixing it myself, I'll
probably use it till it starts having problems then buy a new one, most likely made in China.

dad7432 said:

Because they can make lots of money doing it. Look what has happened to Sears since Lambert took them over years ago.

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While true, don't they ever look back and go "Wow, we destroyed the billion $ company we bought... That was a waste of money!" ?
Probably not, because other companies don't learn from it.

Unless you were a stock holder I don't think most of us grasp the magnitude of the fall of Briggs & Stratton. Their market value peaked in 2004 at over $2B. Sixteen years later that value bottomed at $3.1M to then be bought for $550M by KPS and is today worth about $50M.

That means from 2004 to today, they've lost in value roughly $39,999 out of every $40,000 of value.

If I've got it wrong, please correct me. I'm not a market analyst, I'm just doing the math to put into perspective the numbers I'm seeing.

Scott_HRR said:

Unfortunately we live in a throw away society these days from a consumer standpoint. People no long have the attention span and the desire to purchase tools to keep for a lifetime or at least a long period of time. Many consumers have not yet realized when they go electric that battery is going to need to be replaced in 3-5 years and in most cases the cost will be up to 1/2 the price of the electric tool.

When you walk through Home Depot or other home improvement locations it’s pretty hard to even find a selection of gas powered equipment as they have been replaced by electric.

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Yeah, they have been pushing this crap on up for a long time. Every time I hear some boob talk about man-made global warming I want to puke. I have a neighbor that cuts his grass with an electric mower, and he can't get halfway through his yard before he has to stop and get recharged. He's had that stewpid thing almost 2 years and he's had to replaced that battery once already.
I had a Wheel Horse 520 H for 25 years and it would still be with me if it hadn't got burned up when my shop burned down last Dec. It pains me when I see one great company after another have to go the box store route just to be able to survive a couple more years. Sadly, it's mostly our own dang fault. Most people go shopping and if they can't get what they want a penny or two cheaper than the place down the road they jump on it. You can hardly buy anything anymore that isn't stamped made in china. Even buying stuff that is made in the USA, over half the parts it's made out of are made somewhere else.

MrCutNgrass said:

I thought most mowers were made overseas anyway, I saw a zero turn in Wal Mart a few years back and it had a 10 year warranty on it, don't remember the brand I thought it was snapper, but not sure. I am sure it was limited, I have a husqvayna mower and it is way better than my old sears mower, i bought it last year, not praising overseas manufactures but almost everything is made overseas, I had a sears technician work on my old sears mower, it had a bad cable system on the trans, he tried to fix it but couldn't so I got my Husqvayna at a reduced rate, which I bought from sears under my maintenance contract, the thing about it is the tech told me that the transmissions are all made different, different designs same brand, so I guess the chinese have something to do with that so I can understand why the older mowers are appealing, they were all made basically the same and parts were easy to replace, most home owners could fix them without a mower repair bill, like my old chevy before electronics were introduced into them to control emissions. Now i am a diy person if i can fix it I will, if this husqvarna is like my old sears mower forget about fixing it myself, I'll
probably use it till it starts having problems then buy a new one, most likely made in China.

Click to expand...

If you're talking about a few years ago like six or eight, there have been little to no Chinese built machines or even engines in walmart..
All that has occurred in the past two seasons or so and mostly there are things like pulsar and power more.

I don't believe there's ever been a lawn mower sold in any store that had a 10-year warranty written on it.
There were some riding lawn mowers that had a 10-year warranty or maybe even a better warranty on the deck alone but that was it and it didn't cover the entire deck like the spindles and pulleys and bearings etc but just the structure of the deck not rusting out.

Most of the equipment you've seen over the past decade or so especially in Walmart has been made by MTD with a small portion of it being made by Briggs & Stratton or one of the companies owned by them black simplicity, Murray, snapper.
Another confusing thing is that Briggs & Stratton has actually had mowers made for them with one of their license names put on them but the motors were made by mtd. Very odd situation...

I believe Walmart also carried some Poulan brand mowers from time to time that what many people refer to as a y p but that company was owned by HOP Husqvarna outdoor power which was then owned by HOA which was then on by the parent company husqvarna, that's a confusing mess too and goes all the way back to around 1978.
HOP/AYP had the contract for Craftsman for many years and made most all of their mowers but then somewhere around 2010, MTD got the contract and that's why you'll see the riding lawn mowers that are basically the same thing as a Troy-Bilt just with different stickers. Prior to that they were the same as a Husqvarna they just weren't painted orange.
But 10-year warranty, I really don't think that occurred. There were some hours that had 10 gauge or 10ga stamped on their decks marketing the thickness of the more durable deck instead of like a 12 gauge but Walmart has never carried that many riders anyways..
Some of the more rural stores do have some zero turns in stock from time to time.

prior to 2005 the Walmart territories were split with MTD having east of the Mississippi and north of I-70 Murray having east of the Mississippi and south of I-70 and AYP having everthing west of the Mississippi. With the bankruptcy of Murray and the purchase by Briggs in 2005, MTD stopped using Briggs engines which was the start of the Powermore line of engines. So there were Tecumseh, Honda, Kohler and Powermore engines depending on mower at Walmart. In 2010 with the return of the Murray name the low end push mowers were built by Husqvarna and the high end and riders were bullt by MTD, all had to use Briggs engines. Also the Snapper mowers sold at Walmart were MTD at least in my area.

Prior to the 2005 company split Husqvarna (which became Husqvarna Outdoor Products), AYP(Poulan, Poulan Pro, Weedeater)(which became Husqvarna Consumer Products) both fell under FHP(Frigidaire Home products) and EHP(Electrolux Home Products). Husqvarna/HOP and AYP/HCP were treated as two separate companies and for the most part still are.

Around 2015 or so some of the Murray mowers were built by a Chinese company that didn't even have a working website, just an email to contact for parts and service. And seems like I seen a few of the Snapper mowers under the same company. During the 2005-2010 period Murray mowers were actually under the Brute name but the last few years they were produced and serviced by Pulsar and Amerisun. The Briggs and Stratton/Brute logsplitter were made by the same company that makes the Black Diamond brand for Rural King. And the tillers and edgers were built by Earthquake/Ardisam.

upupandaway said:

While true, don't they ever look back and go "Wow, we destroyed the billion $ company we bought... That was a waste of money!" ?
Probably not, because other companies don't learn from it.

Click to expand...

Nope, Lambert's intention all along was to make money by selling off the assets a piece at a time, making money because the parts are worth more than the whole. Take a look back at the movie Wall Street, where Gordon Gecko bought an airline that was under performing. He bought it because he knew that the parts were worth more than the whole. The parts being the mail and cargo carrying contracts, the planes, equipment and the landing and take off rights at the airports the airline used were worth a LOT more than the stock price he paid for the whole airline. The quick money is in selling off the parts over time.

The problem is that the value of the services and goods that the (here fictional) company provided to the people it served and the employees is never counted in classic economic valuations.

This fictional situation, applies in real life to Sears, where the private equity investor realized he could make more money by selling off Sear's brands (Kenmore, Craftsman, DieHard) and the real estate that the company owned. Once Lambert bought Sears he realized it was hard to run a national retail chain, and that competing with the likes of Amazon was impossible unless he invested a huge amount of more money. So he started selling the parts and realized how much more he could make by doing so. Pretty much the same with Briggs and Stratton's brands, only they waited too long to sell the brands off, and so its gone.

ILENGINE said:

prior to 2005 the Walmart territories were split with MTD having east of the Mississippi and north of I-70 Murray having east of the Mississippi and south of I-70 and AYP having everthing west of the Mississippi. With the bankruptcy of Murray and the purchase by Briggs in 2005, MTD stopped using Briggs engines which was the start of the Powermore line of engines. So there were Tecumseh, Honda, Kohler and Powermore engines depending on mower at Walmart. In 2010 with the return of the Murray name the low end push mowers were built by Husqvarna and the high end and riders were bullt by MTD, all had to use Briggs engines. Also the Snapper mowers sold at Walmart were MTD at least in my area.

Prior to the 2005 company split Husqvarna (which became Husqvarna Outdoor Products), AYP(Poulan, Poulan Pro, Weedeater)(which became Husqvarna Consumer Products) both fell under FHP(Frigidaire Home products) and EHP(Electrolux Home Products). Husqvarna/HOP and AYP/HCP were treated as two separate companies and for the most part still are.

Around 2015 or so some of the Murray mowers were built by a Chinese company that didn't even have a working website, just an email to contact for parts and service. And seems like I seen a few of the Snapper mowers under the same company. During the 2005-2010 period Murray mowers were actually under the Brute name but the last few years they were produced and serviced by Pulsar and Amerisun. The Briggs and Stratton/Brute logsplitter were made by the same company that makes the Black Diamond brand for Rural King. And the tillers and edgers were built by Earthquake/Ardisam.

Click to expand...

That seems to coincide with about the things I witnessed over the past few years doing that time frame you mentioned. Of course I only saw Walmart mowers in one region so I didn't see the other side of it. Also, you mentioned 2005 and tecumseh, that's true but they were only around for about another year or so because my 2006 or so they were gone.
I have one of the last Toro models with the Tecumseh engine in my large collection of mowers that has the old what I call shorter rounder deck and even though there are pros and cons to each design, I prefer the newer taller square deck that came out and the Briggs & Stratton engine on it after that but only up until the new briggs took over because I hate that engine.

All the differentiations between Husqvarna and ayp etc are fine if you're trying to be technical about the company structure and I mentioned part of that in my earlier post because you have hop, HOA etc but for the most part, up to now it's all been the same.
They may want to treat Poulan and poulan Pro as a separate entity but for years, and pretty much everything I have seen they share such similarities with the orange Husqvarna that I consider them the same.
I can, however, see how if you're really getting detailed on the analysis you could see how a current or more current poulan black push mower or maybe one of their entry self-propelled mowers is the same mower as the previous red painted Craftsman mowers when they were still basically made by ayp or that technically might have been after ayp was no longer really being called AYP but it was still the same idea under Husqvarna.

They did that weird thing and made their push mowers shorter and that's what these are like with the black ones and the red ones that were older craftsmen's whereas the self-propelled mowers whether they were black Craftsman's or even the older dark green ones, were just like the orange painted husqvarna's just a different color..

It all gets confusing when you're trying to iron out every little detail but the fact remains that as we can tell there's only three or four main players in the game and it's basically been that way for 15 plus years now and it's only going to get worse with Stanley Black and Decker owning all of MTD.

dad7432 said:

Nope, Lambert's intention all along was to make money by selling off the assets a piece at a time, making money because the parts are worth more than the whole. Take a look back at the movie Wall Street, where Gordon Gecko bought an airline that was under performing. He bought it because he knew that the parts were worth more than the whole. The parts being the mail and cargo carrying contracts, the planes, equipment and the landing and take off rights at the airports the airline used were worth a LOT more than the stock price he paid for the whole airline. The quick money is in selling off the parts over time.

The problem is that the value of the services and goods that the (here fictional) company provided to the people it served and the employees is never counted in classic economic valuations.

This fictional situation, applies in real life to Sears, where the private equity investor realized he could make more money by selling off Sear's brands (Kenmore, Craftsman, DieHard) and the real estate that the company owned. Once Lambert bought Sears he realized it was hard to run a national retail chain, and that competing with the likes of Amazon was impossible unless he invested a huge amount of more money. So he started selling the parts and realized how much more he could make by doing so. Pretty much the same with Briggs and Stratton's brands, only they waited too long to sell the brands off, and so its gone.

Click to expand...

This certainly does play out this way and the numbers don't lie but the problem is you eventually run out of real estate and brand lines to sell! So this makes these people vultures. They have to move on to the next whereas a real company we can respect is in it for the long haul and does whatever needs to be done to keep their company strong and grow it as much as possible.
It's one of those examples in the world where there's more than one way to accomplish and end result and in this case the end result would just be making money or the most money but one can be sustained and one of course can never be.
Thus we have these people and these holdings companies that just continue to go around and around and around destroying things that others spent decades building into great things.

TobyU said:

That seems to coincide with about the things I witnessed over the past few years doing that time frame you mentioned. Of course I only saw Walmart mowers in one region so I didn't see the other side of it. Also, you mentioned 2005 and tecumseh, that's true but they were only around for about another year or so because my 2006 or so they were gone.
I have one of the last Toro models with the Tecumseh engine in my large collection of mowers that has the old what I call shorter rounder deck and even though there are pros and cons to each design, I prefer the newer taller square deck that came out and the Briggs & Stratton engine on it after that but only up until the new briggs took over because I hate that engine.

All the differentiations between Husqvarna and ayp etc are fine if you're trying to be technical about the company structure and I mentioned part of that in my earlier post because you have hop, HOA etc but for the most part, up to now it's all been the same.
They may want to treat Poulan and poulan Pro as a separate entity but for years, and pretty much everything I have seen they share such similarities with the orange Husqvarna that I consider them the same.
I can, however, see how if you're really getting detailed on the analysis you could see how a current or more current poulan black push mower or maybe one of their entry self-propelled mowers is the same mower as the previous red painted Craftsman mowers when they were still basically made by ayp or that technically might have been after ayp was no longer really being called AYP but it was still the same idea under Husqvarna.

They did that weird thing and made their push mowers shorter and that's what these are like with the black ones and the red ones that were older craftsmen's whereas the self-propelled mowers whether they were black Craftsman's or even the older dark green ones, were just like the orange painted husqvarna's just a different color..

It all gets confusing when you're trying to iron out every little detail but the fact remains that as we can tell there's only three or four main players in the game and it's basically been that way for 15 plus years now and it's only going to get worse with Stanley Black and Decker owning all of MTD.

Click to expand...

I worked two Walmarts one had Murray and the Other MTD, From my understanding the AYP west half of the US was only 5% of their annual production with the majority of their production going to Craftsman. And the reason that Husqvarna(HOP) and Poulan(HCP) are treated separately is poulan dealers can't warranty Husqvarna branded products. If I remember correctly Tecumseh shutdown in 2010. There main issue was something like 40% of their production went to Murray and with the demise of Murray in 2005 killed Tecumseh. It also didn't help Briggs when they Purchased Simplicity then purchased Murray to try to recoop their $47M that Murray owned Briggs, which was followed by MTD refusing to use Briggs engines because Briggs was no longer an engine supplier but a direct competitor.

The main players are Husqvarna which left the consumer market in 2019 and have been reducing their footprint since then moving more into their robot mowers. Toro with Toro, Dingo, Spartan, and Charles Machine Works aka Ditch Witch. B-D with MTD with all their various brands and Exel industries aka Hustler. JD, and in my area Scag for the commercial guys and some high end homeowners.

ILENGINE said:

I worked two Walmarts one had Murray and the Other MTD, From my understanding the AYP west half of the US was only 5% of their annual production with the majority of their production going to Craftsman. And the reason that Husqvarna(HOP) and Poulan(HCP) are treated separately is poulan dealers can't warranty Husqvarna branded products. If I remember correctly Tecumseh shutdown in 2010. There main issue was something like 40% of their production went to Murray and with the demise of Murray in 2005 killed Tecumseh. It also didn't help Briggs when they Purchased Simplicity then purchased Murray to try to recoop their $47M that Murray owned Briggs, which was followed by MTD refusing to use Briggs engines because Briggs was no longer an engine supplier but a direct competitor.

The main players are Husqvarna which left the consumer market in 2019 and have been reducing their footprint since then moving more into their robot mowers. Toro with Toro, Dingo, Spartan, and Charles Machine Works aka Ditch Witch. B-D with MTD with all their various brands and Exel industries aka Hustler. JD, and in my area Scag for the commercial guys and some high end homeowners.

Click to expand...

It looks like all the Tecumseh stuff started in 2007 when they were sold to another company and then that company cease production of the stuff in 2008 and then it shows them closing their doors for good in 2009.
I know I bought one in either late 2005 or early 2006 with it Tecumseh on it and very shortly thereafter they disappeared. I also don't remember the shortage for a while of Tecumseh branded parts where the dealers had to get the little Chinese bull gaskets and needles and seats and they still to this day can't make the needle valve long enough and the biggest problem is they can't make the gasket for the bowl top fat enough so most of the time they won't seal it all so it's a waste to even buy those.
But then these brand new ones in Tecumseh packages started coming in a few years later and they're readily available now so of course someone bought the rights and kept going like that but at least they did it properly.

I have also heard that it was the class action lawsuit over the horsepower wars that basically was the straw that broke the camel's back for Tecumseh.
Briggs paid the most and I think Tecumseh paid the second most but four or five manufacturers got penalized based on how many engines they had sold and misrepresented etc.
Tecumseh just wasn't in a place to absorb all those losses.

I always figured Walmart just kind of haphazardly did whatever they wanted to from time to time and not on any real set basis or geographical line etc..
If they get a better deal this month from somebody they'll buy a bunch of them etc and then it takes months for everything to get there and to filter out to all the stores so I never concern myself too much with what you'll find there and don't expect anything..

I think that Poulan thing is by design in other words the chicken and the egg..
I don't know that dealers want to work on anything for warranty any more than they have to so this gets them out of doing it whatever but there's no logical reason they can't work on both.

Just like there's no logical reason today for many shops to not work on Craftsman but it's rampant in my area.
Most also don't work on MTD either and that makes more sense but it's crazy to work on a Troy-Bilt but then not work on a craftsman because they're the same machine for a while now.

There was a Toro dealer a few years ago that would not work on MTD but they sold the Toro Rider as far as I know so if they were working on that trail they were working on an MTD.. LOL.
I finally asked one of them and like I said it's not logical it's more personal. Every shop is simply jam-packed full and by getting rid of several brands you will not service, it lowers your workload and eventually lowers your call volume too.
Well actually, it instantly lowers your call volume because of these annoying customers that will call for an update, a status update, or call to check on a mower that's in for service which is absolutely ridiculous and customer should never do - at least they shouldn't make it a habit which most of them do!

It can increase the call volume by three or four times and when everybody does it, which most do, it actually can slow down everyone's repairs etc.


I think it's a shame these manufacturers are openly announcing they're getting out of the more business or whatever, even though I've never liked Honda mowers, and I can only assume most of them are going to focus on battery powered stuff but regardless,..
I've given my predictions before or at least I have my eyes open to what may happen and I guess I kind of hope it does but I see no way that people are going to buy these battery powered mowers and be nearly as happy with them as they have been with their gasoline ones for decades.
They are simply too much of a sacrifice for most people.
These companies needed to cool their Jets and not make rash, and complete decisions or shut down complete lines because the buyers remorse is going to set in on a lot of these people after just a few months or especially after a season and a half or so.
I feel a huge percentage of people are going to want their old gasoline mowers back and if the manufacturers aren't able to make them quickly and easily I guess they won't but we're only get these cheap off brand crap ones.
I expect there to be a surging demand for used gasoline mowers so people can get back to mowing like they always did with power, long basically unlimited cut times, etc.
Basically the people who really embrace and love these battery powered mowers are some of the same people I talk badly about all the time who focus and are usually willing to pay more for things like speed and convenience.
In this case it's just convenience but there are several sacrifices that go with it that all those except the ones with very small portions of grass to cut and who do it when it's not severely overgrown or going to notice quickly.

People who just want to plug that battery into the machine and mow who don't have enough mechanical ability, and don't want to learn any to even change an air filter or a spark plug,... I really have no use for in this world and I think the world has no use for them.
Over the decades, some people have learned these things out of necessity and that's good that it was a motivator for them because they are better off for it, but today, most people don't even attempt and would have no interest in learning anything like that.
It's an epidemic problem and it makes our country and our world worse, sadly.

Oh well..... I've given up mostly on trying to change the world or trying to worry about the crazy things, wrong things or whatever my opinions are on the things people do.
I just want them to leave me alone and quit doing things that do affect me or make it harder for me to do what I want to do because that's exactly what I'm going to do and I'm quite adamant about it.
Of course this isn't really a smooth road to take anymore but it's the only one I can stand the drive on!

TobyU said:

I have also heard that it was the class action lawsuit over the horsepower wars that basically was the straw that broke the camel's back for Tecumseh.
Briggs paid the most and I think Tecumseh paid the second most but four or five manufacturers got penalized based on how many engines they had sold and misrepresented etc.
Tecumseh just wasn't in a place to absorb all those losses.

Click to expand...

Briggs had a bad habit of changing the hp sticker on their mowers, even to the point that they put them over the top of the other sticker. Heard of one case where a dealer got a special on riders one year that advertised with 17.5 hp engines, but when they arrived at 15.5 hp engines, and the solution was the dealer was sent 17.5 hp stickers to replace the 15.5 hp stickers on the engine. Craftsman used a different hp rating system then the engine companies did so they rated their mowers with higher hp then the engine manufacturers did that was in that mower. Like a CV22 kohler engine on a Craftsman with 46 inch deck would have a 23 hp sticker on the side of the mower.

Most of the dealers around me now only service brands they carry and one only services what they sell. I get folks bringing me one or two year old box store mowers because the warranty dealer is over a hundred miles away. I was approached once to be a warranty center for a certain brand. Oh hell no! I hope Stens fixes their supply chain soon. Seems like half the stuff I need is backordered just like the OEM parts they replace.

It is fairly simple when you look at the management.
For the past decade all managers must have an MBA but none are required to have any industry experience because the MBA course teaches accountants & economists that business management is the same for all business .
Because most big businesses are public companies they are now beholden to the shareholders which was fine when no one shareholder had enough shares to dictate to the boards
However now days large investors like pension funds & pooled investment funds hold sufficient volumes of shares to install a bunch of hard line profit maximizers and maximum dividend payers and thee morons go from company to company because the second they get appointed the share price increases and directors get paid bonuses on the share price & profit to capital ratio .
Thus these "super managers" decapitalize businesses pocketing the profits from selling off sections of the business because it shows a larger profit .

Then there is the other problem that since the 70's the emphasis has been on lowering ticket price which send the company down the low margin on a high turnover path, which is fine provided that you never have a bad season and fail to sell your entire inventory or your volumes drop.
Briggs got the double whammy there .
Foolishly they capitulated to MTD's demand and closed down the Murray factory for fear of MTD going to imported engines, which of course is exactly what MTD did in any case .
Then shifting production to NY because NY laws allowed staff to be paid 5% less than in Wisconsin cause an immediate increase in the share price because the desk jockies just saw reduced costs. The disruption to production we all know about and the failure to supply engines for the following 2 seasons then crippled the volumes and quite frankly I expect to see B & S vanish as a manufacturer ( well assembler actually ) from the USA any day and becoming an importer of B & S engines made in China .
Now as Simplicity was a premium brand that should have had a higher profit margin I would have thought would be retained because B & S would have a known premium brand using B & S engines so it is a surprise sort of that Simplicity went.
OTOH they are complicated machines and have high assembly costs compared to ZTR's which are dirt simple and can easily be 100% robot made .
The market share for ZTR's is increasing while the share for tractors is reducing
Residential markets will be forced to go 100% battery in the near future so not a big shock really.

Long term Toro & JD will probably continue to make IC mowers , but expect them to become diesel or EFI only in the very near future and this production will be on the back of their agricultural business . Kubota is reducing their small mower range .
Eventually there will be only 1 mower only manufacturer and that will be MTD who will be making everything that is not imported or part of a massively larger more diversified group

Now I do not have any idea of housing in the USA but down here all of the new houses are massive mansions on tiny blocks and as such have no lawn
We are now building houses on 1/8 th acre lots with fences so close you can touch them from both side windows and a back yard less than 2 yards long so a robot mower will keep it cut in less than 15 minutes run time a week .
We have had 6,000 new residences built here since I bought the run and most of them have almost no grass at all .
The government wants to accomodate 2,000,000 more people in the next 5 years and have 400,000 new residences built for them to live in.
Even in the suburbs, houses on 1/4 acre blocks get demolished & split into 3 lots .

It really caught my eye when I saw that heading. I am an old geezer. And I use many types of lawn equipment. And this actually did not surprise me. What all the comments I seen everyone had a legitimate idea and most had hit the nail on the head. I have encounter many things trying to maintain my equipment. It like my old Kubota. Had the rear rims complety rusted out from that stuff you put in the tires for weight. Now I see where they went to a beet juice not so harmful on the rim. Rims are very scarce for that particular tractor here in U.S. There something that the bolt pattern size was unique or the size of it for the Kubota B6000 E. So far, I do not know of an aftermarket for them and if you do find a used one the cost is astronomical. I know I've done a ton of research and lot of phone calling. Mostly dead ends. A good tractor but impossible to maintain parts. An obsolete model of tractor. There a few around but not a lot. So, you see I think everyone is seeing changes. That our lawn equipment world is changing as is our world and the people in it. And what I can see it not for the good. The equipment is junk. Made to gouge the working man pocket. Throw it away and get another. Not a good idea.

ILENGINE said:

Briggs had a bad habit of changing the hp sticker on their mowers, even to the point that they put them over the top of the other sticker. Heard of one case where a dealer got a special on riders one year that advertised with 17.5 hp engines, but when they arrived at 15.5 hp engines, and the solution was the dealer was sent 17.5 hp stickers to replace the 15.5 hp stickers on the engine. Craftsman used a different hp rating system then the engine companies did so they rated their mowers with higher hp then the engine manufacturers did that was in that mower. Like a CV22 kohler engine on a Craftsman with 46 inch deck would have a 23 hp sticker on the side of the mower.

Click to expand...

I was simply referring to the class action suit where the engine manufacturers were fined millions of dollars. I can look it up and give you the exact amounts but it was something well over the tens of millions.
They were fined on the approximate number of engines they sold in misrepresented so Briggs had the largest fine.
I do know they started to rate the horsepower a little differently afterwards and most of them went to gross foot pounds of torque but regardless it's still pretty much just as bad.
People are suckers and fall for this higher horsepower rating when it's really not one of the biggest concerns of the mower because really, if ever has any more been made that even the lowest horsepower engine available but among many models that is not plenty powerful enough to do the job.

bertsmobile1 said:

It is fairly simple when you look at the management.
For the past decade all managers must have an MBA but none are required to have any industry experience because the MBA course teaches accountants & economists that business management is the same for all business .
Because most big businesses are public companies they are now beholden to the shareholders which was fine when no one shareholder had enough shares to dictate to the boards
However now days large investors like pension funds & pooled investment funds hold sufficient volumes of shares to install a bunch of hard line profit maximizers and maximum dividend payers and thee morons go from company to company because the second they get appointed the share price increases and directors get paid bonuses on the share price & profit to capital ratio .
Thus these "super managers" decapitalize businesses pocketing the profits from selling off sections of the business because it shows a larger profit .

Then there is the other problem that since the 70's the emphasis has been on lowering ticket price which send the company down the low margin on a high turnover path, which is fine provided that you never have a bad season and fail to sell your entire inventory or your volumes drop.
Briggs got the double whammy there .
Foolishly they capitulated to MTD's demand and closed down the Murray factory for fear of MTD going to imported engines, which of course is exactly what MTD did in any case .
Then shifting production to NY because NY laws allowed staff to be paid 5% less than in Wisconsin cause an immediate increase in the share price because the desk jockies just saw reduced costs. The disruption to production we all know about and the failure to supply engines for the following 2 seasons then crippled the volumes and quite frankly I expect to see B & S vanish as a manufacturer ( well assembler actually ) from the USA any day and becoming an importer of B & S engines made in China .
Now as Simplicity was a premium brand that should have had a higher profit margin I would have thought would be retained because B & S would have a known premium brand using B & S engines so it is a surprise sort of that Simplicity went.
OTOH they are complicated machines and have high assembly costs compared to ZTR's which are dirt simple and can easily be 100% robot made .
The market share for ZTR's is increasing while the share for tractors is reducing
Residential markets will be forced to go 100% battery in the near future so not a big shock really.

Long term Toro & JD will probably continue to make IC mowers , but expect them to become diesel or EFI only in the very near future and this production will be on the back of their agricultural business . Kubota is reducing their small mower range .
Eventually there will be only 1 mower only manufacturer and that will be MTD who will be making everything that is not imported or part of a massively larger more diversified group

Now I do not have any idea of housing in the USA but down here all of the new houses are massive mansions on tiny blocks and as such have no lawn
We are now building houses on 1/8 th acre lots with fences so close you can touch them from both side windows and a back yard less than 2 yards long so a robot mower will keep it cut in less than 15 minutes run time a week .
We have had 6,000 new residences built here since I bought the run and most of them have almost no grass at all .
The government wants to accomodate 2,000,000 more people in the next 5 years and have 400,000 new residences built for them to live in.
Even in the suburbs, houses on 1/4 acre blocks get demolished & split into 3 lots .

Click to expand...

They will over build and destroy the entire way of life!
I can't stand population and overpopulation.

The dealer network and consumers are the ones who need to take responsibility.

Consumers are constantly demanding cheaper and more affordable products. As a result, the dealer network has had to adapt and start offering lower-quality items just to stay in the game.

Now, we find ourselves complaining that the major brands are going under, and we're quick to point fingers at the accountants.

Believe me, if you had a product sitting on your dealership floor that just wouldn't sell and you had to practically give it away to move it, you'd drop it without hesitation.

Business decisions, no matter where they're made, always come with consequences.

Unfortunately, what happened to Briggs & Stratton can be traced back to Todd Teske. He systematically dismantled BASCO, and then COVID-19 hit. If it weren't for Teske's actions, the Briggs Corporation, as it existed before him, might have weathered the pandemic just fine.

You can thank Sears for the horsepower wars. About the time when Sears went away from the Roper made mowers they started the more horsepower than you advertising game. You would walk Into a Sears and see big signs on the riding mowers advertising the HP. Twins and OHV engines were coming out and Sears was banking winning the HP war. Which they did for a long time. This led to some creative marketing by engine manufacturers and Sears.

Reel Mower Expert said:

The dealer network and consumers are the ones who need to take responsibility.

Consumers are constantly demanding cheaper and more affordable products. As a result, the dealer network has had to adapt and start offering lower-quality items just to stay in the game.

Now, we find ourselves complaining that the major brands are going under, and we're quick to point fingers at the accountants.

Believe me, if you had a product sitting on your dealership floor that just wouldn't sell and you had to practically give it away to move it, you'd drop it without hesitation.

Business decisions, no matter where they're made, always come with consequences.

Unfortunately, what happened to Briggs & Stratton can be traced back to Todd Teske. He systematically dismantled BASCO, and then COVID-19 hit. If it weren't for Teske's actions, the Briggs Corporation, as it existed before him, might have weathered the pandemic just fine.

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Same old story
It is called asset stripping
Two ways to get a bigger dividend
Increase profits
Sell assets
The easy way to do it is to sell off assets and this is what the "super CEO's" do .
Then just before there is nothing left to sell off they resign, usually taking the last of the cash with them as a "performance bonus"
Then the incoming CEO has a mess because they need a massive capital raising to repair the damage done by the previous management
So they get tossed out & replaced with some one who does a cut & run, sacking the workforce and retreating to the most profitable line items
By the time they have finished there is nothing left & the business folds or gets bought for the brand name as in MTD .
While it is not the consumer who is directly to blame they do carry a large amount of the load because they are the ones who believe that they can have it all with money to spare because the USA or Aust or UK are "wealthy countries " .
I find it almost unbelievable just how many people I deal with and come on here who are living so far beyond their means it is astounding .
If you have 20 acres & can't afford a deceint mower to cut the grass then sell the property & get something that is within your means .
After all you can not take those 20 acres with you when you die and giving your children a rich life and proper education is a lot more important than leaving them with a big inheritance that they will blow through before you are cold in the ground .

justice said:

It really caught my eye when I saw that heading. I am an old geezer. And I use many types of lawn equipment. And this actually did not surprise me. What all the comments I seen everyone had a legitimate idea and most had hit the nail on the head. I have encounter many things trying to maintain my equipment. It like my old Kubota. Had the rear rims complety rusted out from that stuff you put in the tires for weight. Now I see where they went to a beet juice not so harmful on the rim. Rims are very scarce for that particular tractor here in U.S. There something that the bolt pattern size was unique or the size of it for the Kubota B6000 E. So far, I do not know of an aftermarket for them and if you do find a used one the cost is astronomical. I know I've done a ton of research and lot of phone calling. Mostly dead ends. A good tractor but impossible to maintain parts. An obsolete model of tractor. There a few around but not a lot. So, you see I think everyone is seeing changes. That our lawn equipment world is changing as is our world and the people in it. And what I can see it not for the good. The equipment is junk. Made to gouge the working man pocket. Throw it away and get another. Not

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Can't just swap the hub off a B6000 I guess? That would make chit too easy huh..lol
Fwiw- You can do a normal parts search on Ebay, then click "save search" at top of page so any future rims that are listed will be emailed to you asap. Craigs site does this too but I think it just says "Have search results emailed" something like that on top of your search page?? Idk now, its been awhile since I looked there, sorry but hey' It says something on top of a page? That helps out huh?..lmao
Man I had this same issue but on a simplicity tractor I saved. Its wheels were easy to find but it still sucked! They had antifreeze in it but never changed it out over yrs & yrs so they just rusted out. Folks just need to stop, over time most liquids break down & just create $$$ problems.
Good luck on your search ol' geezer..lol