HF Predator Engine

[Mikel1]

I bought one so I will see how long it will last. Only use this tiller a few times a year for deer feedplots, where the Kubota tractor can't get to.

 

[reynoldston]

The good thing about the cost of the Predator engine is you can buy 2 1/2 engines for the price of one another brand. I have to say never bought or worked on a Predator engine so don't know very much about them. I have worked on the Chinese ATV,s and are they under powered junk.

 

[My_guy99]

The problem goes like this. Currently China is bending over backwards to develope a big manufacturing industry, offering all sorts of incentiveves that a non authoritarian government can match. However once a local factory has closed down it will never reopen unless a rich benefactor can be found.( or you can convince the government to foot the bill ) This is because "shareholders money" can make a no risk return importing for almost no cost on a very quick turn around as comparred to the massive risk of setting up an expensive fatory to make a mower on the hope it will be successful in the market place and a long term turn around. If you had $ 200,000,000 to invest which would you preferr to put your money into 1) a mower factory that might give you a return of 10% to 30% pa in a few years time which employs several hundred people, or 2) a lot of different items of trash products that will return you 200% profit in less than 3 months and employs a dozen or so people. It is really a no brainer if your only motive is raw profit. The long term outcome is falling employment and lots of unemployed on benefits. Even worse is the "rip off" products steal the good will of main line companies who do the hard yards and maintain an inventory of spare parts in very expensive warehouses and distribution networks. They do this by ensuring Honda consummable parts will also fit their engines so they make all the profit from selling the complete engine and Honda makes the loss by long term supplying the spare parts needed to keep the engine running. When we had a regulated importing regime down here, distributors had to maintain adequate spares for eninges for a prescribed number of years. This put a brake on what was economic to import and basically better quality goods were imported to reduce the amount of "dead" inventory required to keep them running. Both your government & our government run this idiot line about transferring to a "service" economy. The problem with this is a "service economy" does not create wealth . just like a TAX it simply transferrs money from one pocket to another, there is no net increase in value. Real wealth only comes from doing something to an item that makes it worth more money. This can be writing code to make a computer do a job better or turning a lump of rocks into metal and metal into a mower. Increasing quality of living can only be accomplished by inceasing real wealth, not by simple transferring of wealth from one pocket to another. Had your current government not pumped billions into the motor industry Ric would not be salivating about the new Ford truck because Ford will be owned by Win Wan enterprises and be assembling Woo Hoo trucks that are too expensive to ship fully assembled. While it seem great to save $ 500 on a motor for your plow that is not much of a saving whn comparred to the $ 60,000 your children did not make this year because they could not find a job for over 12 months. Or the $ 40,000 difference beteen what they made working at the mower factory and what they make flipping burgers at the local take away.

Very true! But it's sad we got here and see NO end in sight...

 

[reynoldston]

So go ahead and buy one of these cheap Chineese rip offs but don't complain when your kids/ grand kids can not get a job because the only jobs left are sales assistants at HF & Walmart.

You can cry about how bad Australia is but it isn't happing here in the USA. My children and grand children are all making more money then I ever made and all doing just fine. All you need is a will to find a job and willing to work.

 

[My_guy99]

You can cry about how bad Australia is but it isn't happing here in the USA. My children and grand children are all making more money then I ever made and all doing just fine. All you need is a will to find a job and willing to work.

Very true! I know I'm thankful that I'm making great money doing what I love and also this job cutting grass to which I love doing as well!

As my belief do something you love that way you do get up and dread going to work everyday... JMO

 

[Carscw]

The good thing about the cost of the Predator engine is you can buy 2 1/2 engines for the price of one another brand. I have to say never bought or worked on a Predator engine so don't know very much about them. I have worked on the Chinese ATV,s and are they under powered junk.

I have two of them on gocarts. I like them.
All the local kart tracks have a class just for them. A stock class and a modified class. Very easy and cheap to get extra power out of them.

 

[bertsmobile1]

You can cry about how bad Australia is but it isn't happing here in the USA. My children and grand children are all making more money then I ever made and all doing just fine. All you need is a will to find a job and willing to work.

It is happening there,just as much as it is happening here, just not to you, right now.
And while some will always be able to find work. I have never been unemployed for more than a week since I was 12 for the exact reasons you stated. Others will not and when enough others are out there the economy collapses and the bottom 90% all end up in the poo.
It has taken 10 years of 0 and near 0 interest rates and trillions of borrowed dollars to get USA industry employing again.
Last year GM opened a new state of the art foundry , all financed out of various governement loans & grants and signalled the end of its world car programme and as we supplied nearly all of the alloy castings worldwide for GM , an exit from Australia where government interfearence has prevented any investment in higher productivity equipment. No bad feeling about this by the way the fault was with our governments idiot industry plan and party politics deliberatly trying to deunionize the workforce even it it means they end up on welfare.

Banks have been creating money out of thin air for decades with nothing to back it up which is why the WFC happened and will happen again because virtually nothing has changed.
The well educated elite, those with nepatistic benefits and some who will just do anything will always have jobs, However without value adding none of this creats wealth. Money yes, wealth no, there is a big difference.

An top attorney does not make $ 1,000,000 + a year. It gets transferred from elsewhere to them . Teachers do not make money it is transferred from somewhere else to them . Lawn & landscape companies do not make money, again it is mearely transferred from one pocket to another. I do not make money either, it is transferred from my customers to me. My landlord does, they grow produce and fatten cattle thus adding value to something even if that something is only short lived.

In order to hide the truth from Joe Public governments lie.
Currently the USA employment rate is the lowest it has been since 2000. But so is the productivity per capita and that is only after a subtle change in the definition of unemployed and productivity.
The cop who gave you a speeding ticket was not actually being productive and some one who worked 2 or more hours for a benefit in the past 14 days is hardly employed either.
We are currently trying to redefine "employed" so that our numbers will "truely" reflect the status of Australia camparred to the rest of the world as we still define a shift as being 4 hours of work .
So while the official unemployment rate in the USA is currenty 4.9 % which has gone down, the underemployment rate in the USA is currently 32% and rising.

The smart & strong will survive, but what of the say Veterians that are now quite ill but dennied the help they deserve, where do they find work ? let alone the 50% of the population with IQ's of 99 and under, people with a physical dissability who can be productive in low end jobs and would happily work making engines at Tecumseh, except Tecumseh have gone and the jobs have gone to China.

 

[reynoldston]

You are speaking for Australia not USA. Yes there is unemployment now and always has been. We do take care of our poor over here, all they have to do is ask for it. We do have homeless people , but that is the way they want to live because of drugs etc. Your businesses are booming, car dealers selling new cars as fast as they can get them. My grand daughter had to go over asking price to buy a house because they are selling so fast. The malls are so full of customers its hard to find a parking space. As I say you most be speaking for Australia, never been there and never will.

A very proud US citizen :thumbsup:

 

[ziti]

I don't think I would buy an engine from Harbor freight. If I were in the market to buy a multi-purpose utility engine, I would go with a Yamaha. Then again, they are made in China. So, who knows? It's all kind of a shot in the dark. Isn't it?

 

[motoman]

The current state of US employment is a radical change from one or two decades ago. Despite pockets of good paying jobs the middle class IS disappearing. The employment figures released by the feds bear scrutiny because they typically ignore a huge sector of people who have simply stopped looking for work. When, occasionally, that sector is included, it pushes the unemployment into the 15%17% range.

(still ranting) Ads that appear on TV showing happy couples in new homes and talking to their financial advisors are red flags to those underwater with home equity, those again beginning to abuse their credit cards (got to eat) and those seriously looking at 700 ft wooden play houses to be used as permanent homes.
I see this situation clearly as my wife and I were fortunate enough to work when good paying jobs were plentiful and did not necessarily depend upon union membership. Now we are having to constantly bail out our daughters who, with college degrees, nevertheless cannot seem to save enough or sustain adequate cash flow even with both spouses working ( yes, one is a spendthrift). Factoid: One is now seriously looking a US Postal service mail carrier job which is a "high" paying job ($50K).

(off rant) Let's hear more results from the go cart race guys. That would give a good look at reliability. I watch bike mag tests of Chinese product. It lags but none I can remember fails during journalist testing.