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

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.