Outdoor Power Equipment (Lawn Mowers, Snow Blowers, Chain Saws and more) Discussions

I took a good look at an Ariens with a LCT  engine today. Does Briggs  have something going on with LCT? I see original Briggs parts on  the Ariens 208cc engine built by LCT

I heard that Briggs is having all of their smaller engines but in China now.  I wonder if LCT is the manufacturer that is building them for Briggs?

carlb wrote:
I never read that one. Ware did you get your information?

Well i guess i was only partially right.  Based on this Briggs press release they are making the 10 and 16 hp engines in china I cant say about any others.
 
http://www.nytimes.com/1986/06/21/business/briggs-stratton-in-china-venture.html?ref=briggsandstrattoncorporation



I believe the LCT is a Chinese knock off of the Briggs engines.   Just like Lifan makes knockoffs of the Honda GX series.

carlb wrote:

Maybe B&S owns LCT? Another way of sending jobs abroad.

I looked at a toro 621 single stage and the dealer told me to get the honda 520 instead as the toro motor was made in china also and they were having trouble with them. Go figure!!

Besides the fuel leak issue at the carb bowl, there hasnt been any other reported problems of the Toro sourced engines. There is a recall on the 421 models and they might have taken care of that issue on this year 621 model. 

Painting a broad brush across Chinese engine is just wrong and ignorant.

The Honda 520 model may actually have more domestic content than the name suggests, it's assembled here.

I herd on  another snow blower thread Do It Yourself.com that Ariens bought Sterns and Sterns owns LCT. That being Ariens is now getting their engines from their parent company LCT.  Now does LCT build engines for Briggs? I do not know.

I would prefer made in Japan over made in China for obvious reasons.

If you are importing something, make sure it is something of equal or better quality compared to doemstic equivalents.In the case of Chinese garbage it is just outright waste of resources.Why make something that is going to break in 50 hours?Why carry it accross continents? People need to get their brains working again.

bus708 wrote:
It's actually spelled "Stens", not Sterns.   Here's the Stens link that mentions Ariens buying Stens back in October 1995.  This is old news.     
    http:/www.stens.com/history.html

Another Stens information article:           
     http://www.stens.com/history2.html?workstrip=3&StensID=495b189d0f474d65ca17cd8bdcc52c18

Here's a link about Stens, LCT, Tecumseh, and Certified Parts Corporation. 
     http://host.madison.com/wsj/business/article_e030ff66-baa6-11df-a8cd-001cc4c002e0.html

According to this article, LCT is from South Carollna.  Guess they have their engines made in China.

Bus708, I found that same thread on that other forum you mentioned. 


I think there is a lot of distrust of the Chinese LCT engines.  Remember LCT is headquartered in South Carolina.  We have to wait and see what the results will be overall as time goes by.  There are a few comments in the DoItYourself thread that seem better informed.  There may be a good future for the LCT engine, after all.  That would be good, I hope and think.  The Japanese engines have proven themselves to be well-engineered, so maybe if LCT is smart, they also will pursue top quality.  It will provide plenty of good incentive for Briggs and Stratton to continually push themselves for top quality as well.  There is nothing like competition to improve quality.

I'm just repeating what a major distributor of snowblowers told me on the phone when I called to ask about prices, this guy said buy the honda and not the toro in the single stage machine. His opinion surprised me also.

carlb wrote:
That NY Times article has a publishing date of June 21, 1986, even though the copyright date of the article at the bottom of the web page is 2011.  What's with that 1986 date?

Does any company actually build small engines anywhere in the United States anymore ?  LCT = Red China !  MTD (the largest manufacturer of snowblowers uses LCT engines)  MTD builds Sears Craftsman, Yard Man, Yard Machines, Cub Cadet, MTD, White, and others. No Engine Throttles any longer, one speed that you don't get to control.  Buy a Honda and get a throttle, and a fuel shutoff.

New_Yorker wrote:

MTD uses Zongshen, not LCT. Toro uses Loncin. Ariens and Husqvarna use Briggs and LCT. There are countless other brands of the import GX-style engines (99.9% are Honda GX derivative, not Briggs). Quality is from soup to nuts depending on the brand and manufacturing plant. LCT would be at the top of the hierarchy. They're really not that much different than Briggs or Kohler. Stateside ownership, engineering, warranty support, testing, logistics, and significant domestic facilities with off-shore manufacturing operations. 

The ones you want to stay away from have no significant stateside presence or investment (save a handful of Chinese nationals at a leased office somewhere). Many of these engines from the lower grade imports are nearly cash and carry for the OEM's with little backing from the manufacturer. There are few small engines still made in the US due to the labor intensive nature. Kind of like ball bearings and certain other products.

Throttle and fuel shutoffs are available from most of the import manufacturers, some are not equipped with such (mostly the throttle) because they are used on lower end models with restricted feature sets.

Lastly, LCT is privately held, Briggs publicly held, there are no ties or cooperative efforts between them.

May I ask a stupid question? Who cares if B&S moves over there plant to china? As long as they are build 100% to original specs they are still a USA quality product!! And if B&S will begin taking short cut's in there quality, they may have there plant right here in new York and the engine will be junk!! Can some one explain me, what is the big deal about a mtd or lct china engines? Is there a china company that took apart a brrigs engine and cloned it with junk parts?

JoelKlein wrote:
Personally I care,  I'm a retired Vet. I love this Country. To see so many people with no jobs because Companies  want to pay cheap labor to fill there pockets ticks me  off. I rather pay extra for a American made product than see my Brothers and Sisters out of work. That what hurt Techumseh  . Its war out here. The Japs are taking over, China and other countries are moving in for the kill. This is the United States , lets not let the other countries drift us apart. ASK NOT WHAT YOUR COUNTRY DO FOR YOU, ASK WHAT YOU CAN DO FOR AMERICA. Help keep our people working.

Bus708,

I am a vet and with an asian background.  Do you still want to call people japs (it is not too cool) and trust that it was not your intention.  There was a guy on eBay using similar language selling Honda shear bolts and hopefully that is not you.  IMHO education is the best way to compete whether you are a vet or not.  Uncle Sam paid for my education and I am glad I studied my ass off I can have a nice job and stable work.

MN_Runner wrote:
I'm not trying to be personal. I'm Just referring to  To the many Made in Japan and China engines that have flooded our country sience  the fall of Techunseh

JoelKlein wrote:

 I am with you Joel.  If you make high quality products people will buy them regardless where they come from.  This is an essence of the free market - I do not buy an inferior product just because it is from a particular company, state or country.  I get to keep my job because I continue to provide quality work, have a passion for work and keep myself updated with unique skills.  I doubt my company will keep me because of my skin color or it feels sorry for me - although I am very good at getting some sympathy votes.  If you make junk, people will not buy them regardless where they come or how cheap they are.

bus708 wrote:

I love made in Japan products.Quality is their highest value, they respect their customers, they respect themselves. They have not flooded our country.We need more.Unfortunately Yen is overvalued now, it is hurting their exports.They are being forced to outsource as a result.

Briggs,Tecumseh etc. were not high quality, reliable engines even when they were built in the US. An inferior quality item can be passed as quality to Americans. GM,Chrysler and Ford have done this for decades.People liked getting burnt over and over again.

As for made in China items, I see them as a waste of resources for the time being.If/when they put quality before quantity I might change my mind.But I do not call them names, I just try not to buy anything made in China as a way of doing my individual part.

If I am able to choose country of origin for an item (not engines only, in general) I look for made in Japan first, if it is not available I look for made in Germany,USA,Canada.I prefer Malaysia,Indonesia,VietNam over made in China. 

The true advantages of the small engine plant being in Communist red China instead of the USA is that they not only employ slave wage Chinese workers and eliminate jobs here, but they can also pollute the environment, have no safety agency like OSHA and they have no Environmental Regulators to make sure they don't dump their waste into rivers and oceans, and foul the air with coal burning in old inefficient power plants.  The alloys are questionable and probably only get questioned when an engine becomes too short lived to be sold here in the US.  They do provide higher profits that benefit the top 1% who own the companies that closed down the US plants and exported the jobs.  So all in all, it's a great Sensible Capitalist Way to support Communism, undermine the United States, and make a lotta money in the process. Oh, and the engines generally suck, the Chinese are NOT the Japanese when it comes to Quality and Design.  You may have noticed, HONDA engines cost a lot more than the junk.

New_Yorker wrote:

I got a BOSE earphones for something like 300 dollars.I was expecting the country of origin to be USA or Japan.But it was made in China.Probably it did not cost more than 20 dollars to make and import it here.The corporation who owns the brand makes the money.Not even the Chinese.

Same goes for Iphone.Workers manufacturing Iphones in China are committing suicides, they can not buy an iphone with a month's salary.Apple pockets the money.

By having things made in China, they are not selling them for cost or cost+a fraction of the cost in profit of course.They are making exorbitant profits.Not paying taxes here, getting bigger and bigger, hiring less and less domestic employees.

I read recently that at a salvage yard in Michigan they discovered a used metal cheese grater from China.It was radioactive.God knows what they made the metal from.Recycling disposed metal from a nuclear plant?

http://www.scrippsnews.com/node/43576

blumonster wrote:

blumonster wrote:

A lot of Japan products have only a perceived quality.    Toyota is a good example.      They have had many hidden recalls on their cars and trucks. A friend of mine had his 2011  Camry into the dealer to have an oil and filter change.   He wondered why the service took so long to do.   After waiting for several hours, he decided to go into the garage area of the servive department.  
 He found out that they had his car's engine partially dissassembled and the bottom off the automatic transmission. .  He went to the Service Manager and it was explained to him that there were several recalls that needed to be done on the Camry.   My friend was upset because he had never received a notice about his car being recalled.  The Service Manager finally explained that Toyota has had a lot of recalls but the dealer is told to hide them and to do them when the car is in for regular service.  The reason that these recalls on the Camry were caught  was because when they worked on his car, the correct parts had not been ordered in for this particular recall.

Yes, Toyota owners stand behind their Toyota vehicles,  It is not safe to stand in front of them.

I had a Tecumseh engine on my snowblower, It only ran  reliable  for 23 years.Then I could no longer get parts for it.

carlb wrote:

So they know people do not like seeing 'made in China' label on products. Designed in :D

royster wrote:

Recalls started because American government invented a different standard for Toyota than the standard it applied on GM,Chrysler and Ford. Secretary of Transportation went on record saying not to drive Toyotas.Can you believe that?

Also outsourcing parts production to America and China played a big role in reduction of quality in Toyotas.Most recalled areas have to do with American-made parts.They do it to lower the cost of parts and it lowers the quality also.Proof? Markedly less recalls in Japan since mostly Japan-made parts are used there.

He had to eat it later when it turned out that it was some stupid drivers who could not tell accelerator from brake.

I'm not going to jump on the bandwagon and diss American or Japanese made products, but,  I can tell you that since 1990 I have owned 3 Nissan Maxima's and 2 Infiniti G35 coups, all of these were purchased new.  These cars have been rock solid and other than one of the maximas needing a window regulator replaced when it was about 9 years old all of these Nissan/Infiniti products have performed flawlessly never having to go to the dealer for service except for an O2 sensor on one of the Maximas.  I have performed all standard normal service on these cars.  The 1990 Nissan Maxima had over 265,000 miles on it as it was passed down to my son then to my nephew before it was rear ended and sent to the junk yard.

You people can say what you want about Chinese products, everyone is entitled to their opinion. I will say that the American workforce is a disgrace. Sure there are some good workers but there are many that are lazy that don't care how well they do their job. They try to get out of doing many things. Take extra breaks, long breaks, avoid certain tasks and the list is too long to put everything in this post. The saddest part of all is the companies enable them. Always an excuse. Different people have different learning curves. Not everybody works the same. People take smoke breaks outside of normal breaks all day long and are allowed to. The bosses go to human resources and they always have an excuse why nothing can be done about it. One guy was caught sleeping in his car during work hours and the boss was told that is not enough to fire him. I am just scratching the surface here. I have talked to people in other states and other companies and they have similar problems. I have seen this for years in different departments. Different people have admitted they are lazy and they screw off as much as possible. Other people over here do almost nothing and to listen to them they are working their butts off. They whine about every little thing and end up with repetitive motion. Go to some of these other countries and see how attitudes and people are different. I have met people that worked for GM years ago at a local plant that closed many years ago and they used to laugh about how little they did and how much they got paid. I will repeat this. A large part of the American work force is a total disgrace and are allowed to be that way. I don't see it changing because nothing is done to make them change and it is not going to be. I am an American by the way. With a workforce like this and it will probably continue to get worse, how does this country expect to remain the greatest country in the world? I will answer that. By words not by deeds. Most of what you buy today is made in other countries. I think this made in USA is overrated.

Garth wrote:

Same laziness can also be observed in China, but not Japan.

Import brands built in North America (all of them) are not in the same class as the same brands built in their home countries.   Our industries have a bad habit of dragging quality products down to their manufacturing level.  Rather than domestic manufacturers stepping up to meet the challenge of superior products, our governments encourage/force foreign manufacturers to build plants here and hire our people to do the work.  The foreign companies see that we run loose ships and figure that they can do the same while still making money because the products they're competing against are usually worse than them.  They see that they don't need to keep up to their "home plant" standards and we end up getting inferior products.  

I have bought nothing but Toyotas for the last 30+ years.  I drive a 1996 Toyota T100 that I bought new in '96.  It has cost me nothing in repairs.  Not one dime.  All I've done to it in fifteen years is oil changes, tires, batteries, windshield wiper blades and air filters.   It's still got it's original timing belt.  Thinking of changing it but, the engine has non-interference valve train so if it breaks, the vehicle stops but no engine damage.  So, I'm flirting with the idea just letting it run to see how long it will last.  The other belts still look to be in great shape and they don't have the protection that the timing belt does. 

Bottom line is that even the best overseas brands are now being compromised due to domestic manufacturing.  If I buy another Toyota, I will pay a premium to ensure I get one that's built in Japan.  Even if I have to buy it in a foreign country, have it shipped and certified here.  I will never buy another domestically manufactured vehicle.  

The factory wheels on my Toyota have CHINA cast on the inside of the wheel. So even Toyota is using Chinese parts

Knee_Biter wrote:
After  WW1 Japan head such a bad name nobody wanted there stuff. They named one of  ther main factory cities usa  so they can sell more to the USA. Now Japan makes high quality . Perhaps we are giving China a bad rap now.  Who knows the future .Only time will tell. I know USA has some junk for sale too. What about Russia? God knows they have snow storms, Maybe Mersadies is building snow blowers

borat wrote:

As far as I know Yaris is imported directly from Japan.But I am sure Toyota uses parts sourced outside of Japan in building Yaris.What percentage I do not know.

T100 is like Hilux?You must have seen Top Gear torture scenes involving Hilux.

Not unusual at all.  My 98 Ford Windstar went 235K without any repair besides an alternator.  Used Walmart brand oil and filter at 8-10K miles.  Of course, brakes, wiper blades, tires, hoses not included..







carlb wrote:

blumonster wrote:

I owned a Toyota Hilux D4D when i lived overseas and NOTHING made from Toyota today can equal a Hilux, certainly not a T100 or a Tacoma or any of the crap that Toyota sells here. The same goes for Honda as well, it's not just Toyota. Of course a White Honda Accord painted white would run you about $42,000 over there.

The Hilux I had was great and got 26 mpg in heavy city traffic with the A/C blowing all the time. There were no highways, well one but I rarely used it since I didn't have to drive to Manila too often. I would buy another one if I could but there is no way to get one here especially a diesel. Mine was manufactured in Thailand and it was solid, great fit on all the seams. The guy I sold it to is still driving it and thinks it's the best truck he's ever owned. Cost new at that time was about $16,000 USD.

Beg to differ with you Steve.  The T-100 that I have was built in Japan.  I bought it new in 1996.  I have not spent a dime on repairs in all of fifteen years of ownership.  It's nothing but stone axe reliable.  Other than a cracked windshield and a few paint chips, It still look relatively new.  To say it doesn't compare to your Hilux is more than a bit inaccurate.  Unless of course, your Hilux was capable of space travel, then I'd have to agree with you.   In conclusion, I will assume that you meant to say Tundra, not T-100. 

Steve_Cebu wrote:

Nice truck.According to Wikipedia they sold Hilux in the US for some time. T100 was originally made in Japan for American market.After 1996 they moved production to USA.

Small truck market is still there, maybe bigger now with the fuel consumption worries. Toyota can bring Hilux with diesel option.It might be Turbo diesel as Toyota's smaller cars come with it in Europe and elsewhere.

Wikipedia has the photo of the tortured Hilux on  a car dealer's lot as photographed by a buyer.

borat wrote:

I'm not saying the T100 wasn't a good truck. I know it was and I have a friend who used to own one. But The Hilux gives you a lot of bang for the buck. Also it's not personal as in YOUR T-100 it's that the Hilux is a very superior truck to most pickups made today. Mine was a 2006 and it was a gem. I had teh cheapest model they made since you never need 4wd over there. The Tundra andTtacoma are not even close to a Hilux.