Things I recently learned about small engine repair shops.

[Ken from ontario]

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.

 

[RJSakowski]

It sounds like a fairly simple repair. Most likely a broken or missing spring. They are usually fairly light wire and it could have rusted through.

 

[Ken from ontario]

It sounds like a fairly simple repair. Most likely a broken or missing spring. They are usually fairly light wire and it could have rusted through.

That's what I thought at first, but after I partially removed the covers over the throttle linkage ,cleaned up and lubed all I could I ran the engine, it became clear the issue was the governor linkage not broken or missing springs, unfortunately that meant removing the gas tank to get access to the linkage but I do not have the knowledge or understanding of how to replace or repair the governor in small engines and was not prepared to repair replace anything more than a spring.
I did find videos on how to adjust the governor but once I attempted to remove the gas tank , it looked like I had to remove 4 more impossible to reach bolt. at that point I was at my wits end and too frustrated to go further, decided to close it up and let a pro look at fixing it, which proved harder than I thought.

 

[brino]

Hi Ken,

I find that is a very personal decision, with many factors that influence it.
Some of those factors:

If you feel that you've already gotten your money out of a machine, then it can be hard to justify throwing more money at it.

However, if you need a project to keep you busy (or your wife needs a project to keep you busy ) learning about the governor, spending some time to figure out the access to it, and finally fixing it could actually be fun.

Of course all that "fun" immediately evaporates if you get 18-inches of heavy snow tomorrow! Then you're under the gun for a quick solution, that may lead you down the purchase new option path anyway.

Personally I doubt anything you buy today will be of comparable quality to a 9-year old Ariens.
(Did MTD buy them out and then immediately "cost reduce" them to crap, like almost every other mower, tiller, snowblower, etc?)

Back in 2018, I decided my old 1999 Ariens was still too good to give up on...... and it had a bigger issue:
https://www.hobby-machinist.com/thr...d-you-do-in-your-shop-today.14637/post-546326
It is still running today!

It all comes down to your own assessment of all the factors.

-brino

 

[7milesup]

Interesting train of thought here.
I am in the camp of "They landed a man on the moon, I can probably fix the dang thing." Sometimes, I relish the challenge of fixing a machine just to prove that I can do it. I also believe that our world cannot sustain our throw-away society, and thus more of a desire for me to fix things.
My wife's boss threw away a commercial expresso machine a while ago. I believe it cost them $3000-$4000 initially. I actually knew what was wrong with it but I was too late. That sort of stuff makes me sick.
But, on the flip side, I get not wanting to mess with it Ken. I am getting more that way when it comes to my vehicles.

 

[Ken from ontario]

The truth is, generally speaking, I do not like to accept defeat easily, if I had another fully functional snow blower and the space to keep the old one, I probably would have kept working on the old but working on engines ,smelling like gasoline is not something that turns me on, I would only do it if had no choice, money was tight, was stranded without a possibility of getting a new one before the snow ,etc. so as 7milesup said, not wanting to mess with it is more like it if I'm not interested in the challenge, the honest truth is, I'd rather spend my time doing something more creative.

 

[Ken from ontario]

Hi Ken,



Personally I doubt anything you buy today will be of comparable quality to a 9-year old Ariens.
(Did MTD buy them out and then immediately "cost reduce" them to crap, like almost every other mower, tiller, snowblower, etc?)

Back in 2018, I decided my old 1999 Ariens was still too good to give up on...... and it had a bigger issue:
https://www.hobby-machinist.com/thr...d-you-do-in-your-shop-today.14637/post-546326
It is still running today!

It all comes down to your own assessment of all the factors.

-brino

You might be right Brian, the Ariens was very well made ,had linkages not cables for example , for moving the Shute, speed FWD-REV. etc., the engine was powerful enough though not acceptable by many who deal with 18"+ heavy wet snow, but good enough for me, what you went through to fix your I could never do or would want to do but to each his own, I still admire what you did to bring it back to life it's just not my cup of tea. although it is a kind of project I don't mind watching someone else work on. if you were my neighbor, and allowed me I would have been there giving you a hand but, not something I'd accept on my own as a project.

 

[projectnut]

The repair shops in your are far different than the ones around here. Most would be more than happy to take on a snowblower of that age. The bigger problem would be that you would be so far down on the list you probably wouldn't see the machine until May. I've had an Ariens similar to Brino's since 1990. Last year it would hardly push a leaf let alone dig into a pile of snow. Being somewhat lazy in my old age I really didn't want to tear it apart in the garage so I asked a local shop if they would be willing to look at it. They were more than happy to take on the job.

I was suspecting a worn friction plate since the machine is 30+ years old and has moved tons of snow in its time. I was shocked and pleased when the shop called back saying it only needed one or possibly 2 belts. They weren't worn but rather one was glazed to the point it slipping on the sheave. They ordered the belts, installed the badly glazed one and gave it a try. It worked fine so they gave me a second call saying I could pick up the machine. When I got there I was informed that the second belt wasn't necessary and they could either send it back or I could take it as a spare. The bill came to less than $100.00 including the spare belt. I used the machine last weekend to move about 6" of snow at the family cottage. It hasn't worked that well in 20 years.

As for new machines being of lower quality, I would disagree. The Ariens that was repaired is at the family cottage replacing a 1974 Craftsman that had been there for the previous 30+ years. It was replaced with a new Ariens model 926056 tracked model. The newer one is a beast. It can push through 3' drifts and piles at the end of the drive as though they weren't even there. It's a little larger than the ST824 it replaced, and with a 14 hp engine, track drive, and a hydrostatic transmission it's easy and almost fun to operate.

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On Edit: AS for the spec of the new machine being able to throw snow "up to 60 feet" that's an understatement to say the least. The first time I was cleaning the drive I had the chute pointed straight ahead blowing snow into our back yard. I wasn't watching where it was going very closely until I reached the end of the drive. That's when I noticed that the snow was going over our fence 40' away, over the neighbor's backyard, over their pool and landing on the roof of their house. That distance is well over 90'. Fortunately, I caught it before I piled too much on the roof. Now I turn the chute to the side as I pass our garage (it's 90* to the drive) and blow the snow into our yard.

 

[matthewsx]

Perhaps I can give some perspective as I used to own a small engine shop and was an Ariens snowblower dealer.

First, your problem may be related to the governor linkage, an intake leak or other issue. The governor has parts both external and internal to the engine so perhaps an easy fix or not depending on factors unknown from looking at it.

What I did in my shop was to charge a half hour labor ($35 up front) on all repairs regardless of how "easy" the customer believed it would be. This allowed me to pay my mechanic, mortgage, utilities, taxes, etc. I did often suggest to customers who brought in older equipment that repair might not be a worthwhile expense given the likelihood that another component would fail and they would be right back where they started. Even re-powering with a new engine can be more expensive and less effective than you might think. I started off selling refurbished equipment at my shop but quickly learned that the only thing worth doing this with was the most basic, non-self propelled lawnmower. I would only do this when I had three such units in stock since it didn't make sense to troubleshoot one that came back from a customer and swapping it out was the best way to deal with that inevitable circumstance.

IMHO, nine years service for a snowblower in Canada is pretty good, that's why I sold Ariens and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend them today. In reality, margins for authorized dealers on all of this equipment are quite low and the challenges of competing with big box stores (at least here in the US) are significant. Additionally, servicing dealers are required to purchase a certain number of new units every year regardless of how many actually sold the previous year. This is why you see "blowout" sales at the end of the season, servicing the debt of these "floorplan" purchases can be challenging in the best of times and crippling when the economy takes a dip.

The small engine business used to be a reasonable way to make a living in many towns but is much less so nowadays. Equipment isn't made to be repaired in many cases, and economic realities of commodity pricing is making is less so every day. These are mostly small owner/operator businesses which are run by very stubborn people in your community. They live and die by word of mouth and if you have more than one in your area you are lucky. It's very likely their advice is given based on years of experience and they have no desire to steer you wrong.

I hope you bought the new one from one of these independent operators, I shut my business down in 2014....

John Matthews
Heartbeat Power Products (former)

 

[C-Bag]

That seems to be the modern Catch22. I have always hated and resisted planned obsolescence. First by not buying a purposely garbage manufacturer and only buying what appeared maintainable, simple looking. But the scam you are talking about Ken is similar to the one appliance "repair" places here are doing. If they are an outfit that sells used, I avoid them like the plague. But there is only a couple local.

My 10yrld side by side seemed like it was running all the time and that got my attention. Then it started making this clicking sound and not getting cold. So after some research I found a guy that does only repair but all the others said, oh, you only get 10yrs out of a fridge now. WTH?!?!? Meanwhile you can't get a new white fridge, only stainless...it seemed so hopeless. Guy came out, checked it out, put this little weird relay that's only supposed to work if there's a power outage, which we'd had. $180 later good to go and I hope it stays that way.

One of the hardest parts anymore is finding someone who knows what they are doing and can fix stuff. One of the best things about our move here was not needed powered outdoor equipment. Mowers, edgers, weedeaters, chainsaws no more, c'ya. Don't miss it at all.