- Joined
- Dec 26, 2016
- Messages
- 2,027
After nine years of flawless service, my Ariens snow blower engine started to act up, it all of a sudden started to run on screaming fast RPM, lowering the throttle position to slow did not help much, so I decided to find a decent mechanic locally to fix it and thought if I paid $300-$400 it would be worth it to have a snow blower for a few more years.
But on the other hand, being almost 70 years old my peace of mind and stress free living is also more valuable to me than saving a 9 year old machine at any cost, here is what I found out about the small mechanic shops and how they make a living nowadays:
After calling 5-6 shops I soon realized every one of them are either an authorized dealer of a brand or , sell refurbished snow blowers on the side.
so what does that mean to someone who just wants a repair to be done on their snow blower? every shop mechanic tried to convince me that I am better off buying a refurbished blower or better still , a new one if I can afford it, in the meantime they showed lack of interest/ total laziness in wanting to figure out what was the cause of high rpm in the engine.
I soon realized the way these shops make their living is, to upsell new machines , then turn around and fix the used one, probably replace the parts with whatever parts they find that fits, and sell that Frankenstein like snow blower as " refurbished" to someone else. every one of the shops I contacted were following the same routine,.
So my wife who is a very smart woman asked:' how long were you expecting the old one to last"? according to her logic 9 years of service was like $100 a year, we got out money's worth just invest on a new one and hope it'll run trouble free for another 9 years, so that made more sense than dealing with the used machine, I went ahead and bought a new snow blower but unfortunately can not help feeling like I've been had .
I on the other hand tried at first to see if I could fix the engine myself but soon found out it was a governor issue and the linkage was to hard to reach for someone like me with zero knowledge /understanding of small engines. I decided that my peace of mind was worth more than chasing /begging mechanics to just fix the engine so I went ahead and bought a new snow blower and get rid of the old one and the the headaches that came with it.
But on the other hand, being almost 70 years old my peace of mind and stress free living is also more valuable to me than saving a 9 year old machine at any cost, here is what I found out about the small mechanic shops and how they make a living nowadays:
After calling 5-6 shops I soon realized every one of them are either an authorized dealer of a brand or , sell refurbished snow blowers on the side.
so what does that mean to someone who just wants a repair to be done on their snow blower? every shop mechanic tried to convince me that I am better off buying a refurbished blower or better still , a new one if I can afford it, in the meantime they showed lack of interest/ total laziness in wanting to figure out what was the cause of high rpm in the engine.
I soon realized the way these shops make their living is, to upsell new machines , then turn around and fix the used one, probably replace the parts with whatever parts they find that fits, and sell that Frankenstein like snow blower as " refurbished" to someone else. every one of the shops I contacted were following the same routine,.
So my wife who is a very smart woman asked:' how long were you expecting the old one to last"? according to her logic 9 years of service was like $100 a year, we got out money's worth just invest on a new one and hope it'll run trouble free for another 9 years, so that made more sense than dealing with the used machine, I went ahead and bought a new snow blower but unfortunately can not help feeling like I've been had .
I on the other hand tried at first to see if I could fix the engine myself but soon found out it was a governor issue and the linkage was to hard to reach for someone like me with zero knowledge /understanding of small engines. I decided that my peace of mind was worth more than chasing /begging mechanics to just fix the engine so I went ahead and bought a new snow blower and get rid of the old one and the the headaches that came with it.