Fair enough. I didn't take it that way. My apologies. I am looking at the future, not the past. The mower won't last another 12 years. That's the way I took it. Once again. Apologies.
No need for appologies.
The point was that you will pay big time with your own labour .
I do this sort of stuff all the time for my customers because the replacement costs of a new mower is deceptively low and a lot of them are pensioners or widows on a fixed income.
Deceptively because most cheap mowers are throw away items. And we get gouged big time for mower parts down here .
Also people have a tendency just to look at the price and not to amortise it over the service life.
If the mower runs another 5 years that is still only $ 20/ year which is what 1 to 3 hours of paid labour ?
And again what is $ 20 , a case of beer ?
And yes I would rather the case of beer too but it is not a great sacrifice.
You will not find much under $ 50 and by the time you buy some tube and pay for the electricity used in welding it you will have spent more than the $ 100 asking price.
Now that I have taken the time to check the SV600 looks like a Kohler engine speced by Toro & rebadged.
However Kohler mufflers are not cheap and the generic one for your engine retails for $ 140 to $ 165.
The point I was making about fuel consumption also stands.
Engines have mufflers specifically designed for them and fitting a wrong one can drastically reduce the power out put or increases the fuel consumption, or both.
Insufficient back pressure can allow the exhaust valve to burn, a big problem on mowers because the headder pipe is so short and that repair is $ 55 in parts alone.
I know times are tough for most USA wage earners.
We have had very flat wages growth for the past 6 years and people are screaming mad.
You lot have been subject to flat wages growth ever since President Regan cut taxes for the top end because the "Trickle down effect" would make all workers more wealthy.
Even a Briggs or Tecumseh muffler for the same sized engine will set you back $ 50 to $ 190 and you still have to make it fit.
It is a low volume thing which pushes up the price.
Toro offer several engines for each mower.
Each engine will require a different muffler
So while they may have produced 1,000,000 mowers, which makes the mower parts cheap
The number of mufflers could be down to a few thousand and as most are made from pressed parts welded together that makes them very expensive.
