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Cam shaft from Amazon

#1

L

Lapdog411

I bought a replacement camshaft for a B&S 18.5 hp engine from Amazon. The cam lobes are cast, not ground or polished. I've never seen a cam lobe that didn't have a mirror finish. Has anyone else seen this? I've really reluctant to install this. Your thoughts, please.


#2

I

ILENGINE

Small engine manufacturers have been using pressed powder metal cam lobes for years.


#3

B

bertsmobile1

To be totally blunt as Aussies are renown for
"you pay shite & you will get shite"
or as grandad use to say
"he who buys cheap pays thrice "
Amazon is good for books,, some times .
everything else is potentially rubbish as Bezos has no quality control over the vendors, most of which are totally annonomous so the perfect site for selling scrap metal pretending to be quality parts as you have just found out
I but mine off Alli-BABA where vendors are identified and must have a real street address and add to that if they get complaints from customers about vendors they get kicked off.
IF I want 10 or more , and I do with 31 series cranks I buy them direct from the manufacturer via MadeInChina
I know this is hard for patriotic flag waving Americans to appreciate that their own man is a crook and that horrid baby eating communist China man is far more honest but unfortunately that is the case.
WFIW the last warehouse I was involved in running used to rent excess pallet space on a weekly basis to people who sold goods via Amazon & Ebay & Buy-Right & other on line sites
They had multiple identities on the same & different sites and in many cases sold the exact same item under several names for several different prices and all of it was scrap
They sent us the picking order + invoice to be included with the package
So you buy the $ 10 cam and it is junk so then you buy the $ 20 one from what you think is a different vendor & get the same junk cam so then you try the $ 30 one, same story
IF they have a lot more to offload then they will give you refund but if most are gone then they will ignore you .


#4

sgkent

sgkent

anything from Amazon you have to be careful with the words. Often something will say, "OEM quality, replaces XYZ." "Replacements XYZ, DEF, HJU, etc." That usually means a cloned copy not the original quality part. What you are looking for is "Genuine B/S part number XYZ." Then you read the bad reviews to see if people are getting what they are paying for.


#5

B

bertsmobile1

You still have the problem that I can legally sell quality control reject parts as
OEM B & S 123456789 part
And also fits models X,Y & Z which is what most do
I can then place a photo of the original B & S part in the add with the caption
Not the actual part or indicitative or for identification purposes etc etc etc .
Being independent I only have access to parts that my wholesalers carry which is about 1/2 of what I need.
So I originally tried buying off ebay & Amazon and even using my usual methods of testing the vendor & only buying pars that are branded still about 1/2 of ebay purchases and 1/3 of Amazon nes were trash
Then when looking for motorcycle parts I stumbled across Made In China and from them the ALI's ( Ali-Baba & Ali-Express ) .
In the 8 years I have been buying from them not one single part was bad .
Some did get damaged in transit and of course most do not use China Post so I pay through the neck for freight but I get good service, usually 14 to 21 days delivery and every single item has been good
So Amazon will never see another cent from me and ebay is for buying used things from private vendors .


#6

StarTech

StarTech

I tried five of those Amazon aftermarket 793880 camshafts. They were junk. Two had to be filed to even to even get them to fit and three failed with 90 days of use. I still got two in the box here but I probably just going to trash them as it is a waste of my time because I am having to rework the repairs at cost as I gave the customer the choice of using OEM (having to wait until them came in) or taking a chance. All three customers agreed it was a mistake to go with the aftermarket cams.

BTW the two I had to file I couldn't contact the Amazon vendor as they closed and open back under another vendor name. One heck of a con.

It bad enough that even the Briggs 793880 superseded to 84005207 is a poor design but at they hold up a lot better. What worst is the last time I checked they were on back order until after Christmas. At least I got two OEM on hand and only seen one failure this year and it was one of aftermarket ones I installed.


#7

L

Lapdog411

Thanks for the education. ... . Lesson learned.


#8

Fish

Fish

I put this one in my personal mower a few months ago, looked decent. Still working.


#9

E

Elkins45

Are camshaft failures a common problem?


#10

B

bertsmobile1

On Briggs yes very much so and the 31 series seem to be the worst by far
Kohler less so except for the Courage singles and their cam can be changed in about 1/2 hour by an experience tech because it can be done with the engine still in the mower .


#11

I

ILENGINE

I tried five of those Amazon aftermarket 793880 camshafts. They were junk. Two had to be filed to even to even get them to fit and three failed with 90 days of use. I still got two in the box here but I probably just going to trash them as it is a waste of my time because I am having to rework the repairs at cost as I gave the customer the choice of using OEM (having to wait until them came in) or taking a chance. All three customers agreed it was a mistake to go with the aftermarket cams.

BTW the two I had to file I couldn't contact the Amazon vendor as they closed and open back under another vendor name. One heck of a con.

It bad enough that even the Briggs 793880 superseded to 84005207 is a poor design but at they hold up a lot better. What worst is the last time I checked they were on back order until after Christmas. At least I got two OEM on hand and only seen one failure this year and it was one of aftermarket ones I installed.
Hey @StarTech Here is some more sarcastic good news on the camshafts. The new ETA is now .3/14/2023


#12

StarTech

StarTech

Hey @StarTech Here is some more sarcastic good news on the camshafts. The new ETA is now .3/14/2023
I just wonder when are they going their doors for good. Customer waiting all Summer to get their mowers back and then Briggs put push back the orders another three months. I just see if the customers are willing for me to install an Kohler engine. At least I can get parts for them yet.

Every OEM vendor seems to be dragging their feet lately on parts but still selling new machines. It seems that they just screwing the customers over now.


#13

B

bertsmobile1

IMHO I believe that a lot of companies are using covid / Ukranian war / China trade restrictions to make old gear redundant and force every one to replace their mower / motorcycle / car / boat / truck / fridge / washer etc etc etc .
And of course because every person in management is an accountant they believe that the numbers on their spread sheets are real so if you can not get a part for one of their old products you will naturally go out & buy one of their new products .
The idea that customers are people who might get angry about this situation so go buy one of their competitors products and never buy any of theirs again never occurs to them because all they have to do is drop a mill or two on some You tube hero to endorse their product and the mindless masses will flock to buy them .
I waited 22 months for Mitsubishi to get a Mass Air Flow Meter in for my L300 ( 1.5 ton 5 door van ) .
The parts man rang me a month ago to tell me they are in stock now for $ 325 and they have one waiting for me .
HE got really angry when I said as Mitsubishi don't keep parts I have bought a brand new Great Wall

The truth is I got one off Alli-Baba for $ 60 + freight & the only difference between it and the one in the van is it has some marks where they removed Mitsubishi & the diamond logo from the mould .
And this happened when I finally got an expected delivery date that was 6 months out which became 18 months
Over the 22 months I got bombarded with "special deals" on Mitsubishi commercial vehicles


#14

StarTech

StarTech

To me that is what happening as they are profiteering off fear. The problem it that these big don't think anyone else can make a clone of their products. I just recently had 22 Yazoo ZTR mower(actually a Husqvarna ZTR redressed) that they decided not to sell parts anymore trying to force the customer to buy a new ZTR. Well Rotary had the idler pulleys that Husqvarna would not sell and I use a beer can to repair the idler arm bushing problem. Last it was TSC here saying a kid's ATV that was only 9 months had no parts available yet when I walked into their local store there was a new one that they just unboxing of the same exact model.

These last few years has really made me good at figuring out how to get around most OEM high prices and the so-called no longer available parts. These OEMs don't realize that many of us that been in business for some time have figure things out how find parts at better prices that are of the same quality as the ones they sell; sometimes, by buying direct from their source.

I just became a dealer for Rotary but as with all vendors some parts are at better prices and others not so good of a price. I tend to use my database to my advantage by having multiple cross references for each part. Just got be careful of mismatch crosses.

I actually just cancelled a couple back order Stihl items that were already out 4+ months and sold the customer another brand of string trimmer.

And now companies are just collecting out email addresses to bombard us with junk mail. To stop this here is now I started using disposable email addresses as I hate junk mail. I even had places to demand my mobile phone number. They can't get it through their heads that I don't have one.

This site bombard me with ads. Right now my ad blocker is showing 250 ads blocked.


#15

B

bertsmobile1

Non family owned businesses are most run by graduate accountants with MBA's and none of them have done any real work since they left high school
Even fewer have any contact with real middle class let alone working class people .
Their heads are stuffed full of theories formulated from highly flawed economic assumptions .
So some shinny bum works up a spread sheet showing how his brilliant idea will generate X millions of extra profit and the rest of the silver spoons just nod their heads and work out a bonus structure based around the extra profits .
Perfect example is the biggest Telco down here Telstra, stopped accepting cheque payments through the post office for land lines & mobiles and with mobiles will only accept an on line payment full stop .
This is because the PO charged $ 4.20 to do the transaction so when the 200,000 stopped using cheques they would save $ 840,000 a month in fees justifing Mr Shinny Bums extra bonus of $ 20,000 / month.
The thought that if I now had no option but to use some form of on line payment then I could go to one of their competitors never crossed their minds. They lost over 100,000 customers so for me that was $45 / month for mobile and $ 55 for the landline
I signed up with one of their resellers so get the same service but I now pay $ 12.00 / month to the reseller for the mobile who obviously takes a cut so they would now be getting no more than $ 10 / month. thus loosing $ 35 / month to avoid paying a $ 4.20 a month fee .
The land line is now disconnected .
But if you include this that makes a $90 / month of lost income .
They have just recorded their 3rd year of decreasing total revenue .
Every other telco is showing an increase in total revenue yet they blamed Covid for their drop .


#16

I

ILENGINE

Latest on the backordered 84005207 camshafts is my backordered camshafts are shipping today. So it looks like they are coming about 6 months before expected.


#17

Scrubcadet10

Scrubcadet10

Latest on the backordered 84005207 camshafts is my backordered camshafts are shipping today. So it looks like they are coming about 6 months before expected.
Now if only the parcel delivery service doesn't screw up......


#18

StarTech

StarTech

Now if only the parcel delivery service doesn't screw up......
Wouldn't like to a few days vacation like the packages do sometimes. I one to go to CA twice before I finally got it. That was the USPS that did that one. And UPS has sent two my packages to Montgomery, AL from Nashville.TN. Then they went back to Nashville and then Tullahoma. Boy I could have enjoy a day off going to Alabama.


#19

I

ILENGINE

Now if only the parcel delivery service doesn't screw up......
I hope not. That shipment also includes my roll of backordered 72EXJ100U chain and my nephews part for his stump grinder.


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