Vanguard carb backorder saga continues.

[ILENGINE]

My backordered Vanguard carb from May of last year that had the original ETA of September 2, which then changed to November 25 which promptly changed to November 19 which was then missed and later changed to January 2 of this year, That date has now been missed and new ETA is July 2.
Starting to think I will never get the part to repair this engine on a leaf vacuum for the customer. May have to consider replacing this 3 year old engine with another brand to get it up and running again. Just to let people know that would advise to clean the carb better, be aware that the brass emulsion tube has been broken by the customer when they attempted to remove it for cleaning.

 

[Scrubcadet10]

Nothing aftermarket by Stens, Oregon, etc?

 

[ILENGINE]

@Scrubcadet10 nothing that I can find. did find a generic one on Amazon with reviews showing about a 1 in 3 chance that it will leak fuel as soon as connected to the fuel supply.

 

[StarTech]

Dang I hate when I get one like that.

IL you might have to bite the bullet and try anyway like I had to do with the camshafts that I have to rework here just to get the engines running again. I working a generator right now that had to piece together a carburetor repair kit as the kit has been on back order for three months [I cancelled the order the last week of December]. Once the freeze is over here I get the engine back up running as finally got the carburetor back together.

I think Briggs really screwed up by not paying their vendors and most are not easily fooled this time around so Briggs has apparently been begging for parts to made and delivered. That what you get for dealing with the Chinese in the first place.

My Briggs distributor [A&I] just threaten me with a cutoff if I don't I buy over $2,000 in parts by October 2022. They are just coming out a six month purchase suspension that I had placed them on. They are the reason my purchases dropped from nearly $4,000 per year to $421 in 2021.

Heck they were the reason I cut them off last year for poor service. From supplying improper v-belts lengths, defective spindles, failing to timely return emails, simply lying to me [saying they had called every day for three weeks], complaining they are over worked, charging ridiculous shipping rates [on one order the shipping was $45 on a $192 order], and extreme part delays. And now most their after market parts are higher than OEM and other after market suppliers. I think they are screwing themselves too. Their parent company John Deere is just plain greedy. Sometimes it don't pay to threaten me with a cutoff as I will find another vendor to replace them. It like the local JD dealer that changed my discount to none have lost sales to me as I now order from an out state dealer that gives me the discount and have better shipping rates.

 

[Hammermechanicman]

About 20 years ago i looked i to being a Briggs dealer. They wanted me to buy $5k of parts up front and a minimum of $3K a year and i had to stock engines. Nope. There was a parts house in town and they gave me a good discount but they have been gone for many years. When cities and schools all started buying their parts online it did them in. Just got back from the JD dealer buying a $77 neutral switch for a small tractor and they have upped their labor rate from $98/hr to $105/hr.

 

[StarTech]

My local dealer went there back in 2020. Many of their customers are looking for shops like mine now to do the service work. Not many are willing to pay $105 plus parts the fix a Stihl chainsaw that cost $159. I heard one customer to say "I buy over $10,000 in parts from you each year and you are still going charge me like that to fix my saw?, I don't think so.". As he was passing me he said he was going to buy a Husqvarna saw instead. I offered to repair the saw in my shop and now I got a good customer.

Even I had about quit buying most my parts from them as they took away my discount. I now used a local Stihl dealer in the same area as the JD dealer and I order most of JD parts from a dealer outside the state that does give me the discount.

You also got watch your dealer very closely too as sometimes they have two PNs for the same part. I ran into that last year on a coupler I was needing. One was $59 and the other was $36. Same exact part.
[AM117829 and AM145639]

And Stihl has been a real pain when they brought out Zama and barred Zama from selling carburetors and kits that fit only Stihl equipment through their distributors just so Stihl can double dip the customer wallet.

 

[slomo]

Inform customer a Chi-sneeze carb is all you can get. Might have to tweak the carb to get it to work. Nothing you couldn't handle for sure. Probably buy 5 on them compared to a real OEM carb. Maybe pressure test the needle......

 

[Scrubcadet10]

IL, what are the engine numbers or the carb part number? when you get a chance.

 

[ILENGINE]

IL, what are the engine numbers or the carb part number? when you get a chance.

84004885

 

[Hammermechanicman]

Most of my business is from folks with older stuff and don't want to pay $100 an hour and 50% parts markup. The 2 JD dealers and the 2 other dealers around me are not hurting for business. They are all 4 to 6 weeks behind every spring. There are lots of folks willing to pay that and wait for a month. I don't blame the dealers as they have high overhead. I on the other hand have almost no overhead so at $40 an hour i actually clear more profit per hour than a big dealer. I will probably raise my rate sometime this year. I have all the business i need and my little 24x24 building is not big enough anymore but the cost to build back bigger is too prohibitive.