bertsmobile1
Lawn Royalty
- Joined
- Nov 29, 2014
- Threads
- 65
- Messages
- 24,995
All a part of "evil capitalism" mentality.
Every thing MUST get cheaper every year while I MUST get paid MORE every year for doing exactly the same as I did last year.
So factories continually down grade products to make them cheaper.
HE who makes the cheapest product sells the most & thrives.
He who makes quality products either ends up just surviving with a tiny niche market, or goes bankrupt.
When I was at school ( a very long time ago ) they taught me that "competition will cause industry to provide the best product at the cheapest price"
However there were a whole lot of assumptions made in order for this rule to work.
One of them is an "informed market" which is why they crucify company directors for not telling the stock market stuff that might affect the share prices.
Now the down side is Joe Public who buys mowers has absolutely no idea about the mower, the quality of the machining, assembly & metallurgy.
Further there are no side by side analysis available and very little long term information available.
Thus the "market" is not informed so 99% make the judgement by comparing spec sheets with price charts and thus the cheapest pile of garbage ends up on top.
Then because manufacturers use focus groups to determine what features will be available we end up with 22 almost identical mowers as all of the planning goes into producing a mower with the least number of features that most people felt was undesireable in order to capture more of the market if the price can be driven down far enough.
Now vertical shaft engines are made exclusively for mowers ( Ok Earth Augers too ).
Because they are only made for an item that is almost 100 % price driven they are made as cheap ( and nasty) as possible.
Henry Ford proved this conclusively.
The way to make a fortune is to make a product that is only just able to do the task it was purchased for and to make it work for the least time that the market will tollerate.
Thus with almost identical looking engines except on one the shaft is vertical while the other is horizontal , the vertical one is 1/2 to 1/3 the price of the horizontal.
Why? Because the mower engine only needs to work for a few hundred hours to last 5 to 10 years while the horizontal engine needs to run several thousand to make the same number of years.
A few years back all of the commercial & top end residential mowers ran horizontal shaft engines.
Most of these are still running strong and will continue to do so for decades.
But some started to fit Vertical shafts so the mowers were 1/2 the price and outsold the good ones 10 to 1 .
So companies like Cub , Bolens , Simplicity & Troy-Built went to the wall.
Remember Onan ?
I just spent 6 hours making a Walbro carb work with an Onan engine.
Why was this "viable" ?
Because the Onan ( once the only engine for a generator ) uses ball races top & bottom on the crank, cam & counter shafts.
Thus this engine will run forever and with a little welding on some flogged out parts the owner will get another 20 years out of their Toro 244. Which means there "overpriced mower" will have an amortised cost of around $ 150 / year .
There are no bearings inside a modern vertical shaft engine, except Kawasaki and they are going the run directly on the case route as well because they are not cost competative with the new Kohlers & Briggs, let alone the Loncins & Ducars from China.
So no engine is much different from any other.
Each one has an Achillies heel and it is just luck of the draw as to weather you get one that is good or a lemon.
I got customers who have done better than 1000 hours of their Courages while others had the engine self destruct in under 100.
I have 3 customers who got brand new heads ( and was a complete engine ) from kawasaki because of a weakness in the rocker anchorage.
Heaven only knows how many Intek head gaskets I have done, but I buy them regularly in batches of 20.
Every thing MUST get cheaper every year while I MUST get paid MORE every year for doing exactly the same as I did last year.
So factories continually down grade products to make them cheaper.
HE who makes the cheapest product sells the most & thrives.
He who makes quality products either ends up just surviving with a tiny niche market, or goes bankrupt.
When I was at school ( a very long time ago ) they taught me that "competition will cause industry to provide the best product at the cheapest price"
However there were a whole lot of assumptions made in order for this rule to work.
One of them is an "informed market" which is why they crucify company directors for not telling the stock market stuff that might affect the share prices.
Now the down side is Joe Public who buys mowers has absolutely no idea about the mower, the quality of the machining, assembly & metallurgy.
Further there are no side by side analysis available and very little long term information available.
Thus the "market" is not informed so 99% make the judgement by comparing spec sheets with price charts and thus the cheapest pile of garbage ends up on top.
Then because manufacturers use focus groups to determine what features will be available we end up with 22 almost identical mowers as all of the planning goes into producing a mower with the least number of features that most people felt was undesireable in order to capture more of the market if the price can be driven down far enough.
Now vertical shaft engines are made exclusively for mowers ( Ok Earth Augers too ).
Because they are only made for an item that is almost 100 % price driven they are made as cheap ( and nasty) as possible.
Henry Ford proved this conclusively.
The way to make a fortune is to make a product that is only just able to do the task it was purchased for and to make it work for the least time that the market will tollerate.
Thus with almost identical looking engines except on one the shaft is vertical while the other is horizontal , the vertical one is 1/2 to 1/3 the price of the horizontal.
Why? Because the mower engine only needs to work for a few hundred hours to last 5 to 10 years while the horizontal engine needs to run several thousand to make the same number of years.
A few years back all of the commercial & top end residential mowers ran horizontal shaft engines.
Most of these are still running strong and will continue to do so for decades.
But some started to fit Vertical shafts so the mowers were 1/2 the price and outsold the good ones 10 to 1 .
So companies like Cub , Bolens , Simplicity & Troy-Built went to the wall.
Remember Onan ?
I just spent 6 hours making a Walbro carb work with an Onan engine.
Why was this "viable" ?
Because the Onan ( once the only engine for a generator ) uses ball races top & bottom on the crank, cam & counter shafts.
Thus this engine will run forever and with a little welding on some flogged out parts the owner will get another 20 years out of their Toro 244. Which means there "overpriced mower" will have an amortised cost of around $ 150 / year .
There are no bearings inside a modern vertical shaft engine, except Kawasaki and they are going the run directly on the case route as well because they are not cost competative with the new Kohlers & Briggs, let alone the Loncins & Ducars from China.
So no engine is much different from any other.
Each one has an Achillies heel and it is just luck of the draw as to weather you get one that is good or a lemon.
I got customers who have done better than 1000 hours of their Courages while others had the engine self destruct in under 100.
I have 3 customers who got brand new heads ( and was a complete engine ) from kawasaki because of a weakness in the rocker anchorage.
Heaven only knows how many Intek head gaskets I have done, but I buy them regularly in batches of 20.