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

LCT and Loncin are getting their names out there.  Now Toro is going with Loncin.  Ariens has LCT on all three of their Sno-Tek blowers.  Husqvarna has the new revived LCT Snow King (Tecumseh "revival") on some of their blowers.  So who's best?  Will Briggs end up putting engines only on their own Simplicity, JD, Snapper models?

borat wrote:
I can't comment on longevity because I don't  have any experience with Chinese engines.

Many years ago, and maybe still for some small private shops now, quality meant that the products you produced would last for a long time (maybe generations), it was/is a point of pride for the craftsman. Now the words "planned obsolescence" are more the norm. Hence Borat's comment. Is it better to buy something cheap that will last a couple of years, then replace it when it breaks, and over & over? Big business sure thinks so, but I'm not so sure, since it will always break when you most need it & it's most inconvenient.
I worked in the purchasing department of a very large multinational for 25 years so I know what the word Quality means to them, and it's not the same thing it means to most of us. For them, the term "quality" means you build it to customer specs, no more and less if you can get away with it, and that goes for any big corporation anywhere. They all report to the shareholders, and shareholders want only one thing, PROFIT, at any cost. I once had a VP tell me that our shareholders were the most important thing to our company!!! "What about the  customers?" I asked. "not as important as the shareholders!" he replied.

Don't blame the Chinese, their shareholders only want their piece of the pie!

Occupy Wall Street was right, it's time the 99% stood up and demanded some of the pie!

I'll start buying chinese engines when they show me a detailed parts list and a guarantee that parts will be available for, say, 20 years.  I've got an old Isuzu Trooper that is in quite good condition, but it had to sit idle for lack of an unavailable (from both manufacturer and after market sources) emergency brake cable that I eventually rounded up at a junk yard.  Needed some reconditioning, but works OK now.

Dr_Woof wrote:
I don't know about all of the chinese engines but the older greyhound engines sold by harbor freight were direct knoffoffs of the Honda GX series and honda parts will interchange.

GtWtNorth wrote:

Thanks for sharing your view.

Customers showed to be as important as shareholders in the case of Netflix recently.

I do not blame the Chinese, it is the American corporations that outsource to China and ask for low quality products. Corporations some like to call as 'people'...

blumonster wrote:

Too easy to blame Chinese and ethanol for everything wrong with OPE, as if America is the only country that knows how to do anything right.

As if bargain hungry Walmart/Costco/HD customer has nothing to do with it.   Aint' going to get anything cheap coming out of Japan or USA.

I'm surprised there aren't more countries hating the Western world for the lifestyle, glut, and appetite.

aa335 wrote:
Agree with your comments aa335. 

If we North Americans weren't in everyone's back yard stirring the pot, we'd have a lot less animosity against us.  People have to wake up and understand that the military industrial complex supported by certain politicians needs conflict and wars to keep them in business.  Shut down the MIC and we will have a lot less strife in the world. 

The problem with that however, is the fact that the military industrial complex is now one of the biggest employers in the USA.   Taken them out and the jobless rate will go through the roof.  It's a very insidious economic dependence that will keep us sending our sons and daughters off to die in foreign lands just to fill the coffers of a certain few billionaires, all in the name of a "good cause" of course.   If we kept our noses out of other people's business, they wouldn't be trying to blow us up all the time. 

Apologize for going off topic.