A prince must have an enemy to keep his subjects concerned for their safety and somewhat willing to pay excessive taxes to protect themselves. Today we have a crowd of would be princes and each has his pet enemies to stir his constituents. Terrorists, Communists, entitlement crooks, crooked bankers and even the environment. Fighting global warming will be much cheaper without resulting in the deaths of thousands of people fighting around the world. If we are to spend ourselves into bankruptcy I would prefer doing so cleaning up the place rather than tearing it down. Global warming vs Gulf of Tonkin. Global warming vs WMDs. It would be good if we elected some leaders with more good sense and less ego though. .
Yeah but ignoring people that are trying to kill us would be a mistake and I still remember a certain leader pounding his shoe on the podium saying “we will bury you”.
Chilling words indeed,all the good intentions in the world seldom help those that really need it,CPS will send the Gestapo after you if your Child goes to school with a scratch a lot of times,but the Children that need to be taken into protective custody are oft times left in dire conditions because the do gooders are scared of the parents.
It puts me in mind of incarceration,you go in with a set of rules,that the enviroment guarentees will be violated and oft times no action is taken to correct anything,because of the mythos and the built up bs,foisted by the ruthless and smarter ones on the others,Nothing takes care of itself,but will fail to a cruddy norm.
The myth of the maintenance free car,is just that,a myth.They were not designed to be carefree and never will be,there exist lawnmowers now,that dont require oil changes,but some folks are too lazy to charge them.
I asked my former Boss(who was renowned for ruining engines and brakes on vehicles,because of lack of maintenance)why He didnt have an electric golf cart to get around on,His reply"It would never be charged when you needed it" theres no fixing Human nature apparently.
I look at the OP’s B&S oil change article with optimism.
Whether it’s B&S lawnmower engines or car manufacturers with car engines:
- Are they making progress extending oil change intervals? Yes.
- Will there be setbacks along the way? Always.
- Will all of us be the beneficiaries in the long run? Yes
Briggs & Stratton has a significant investment in air cooled internal combustion engines and outdoor equipment that is likely being threatened by the growing popularity of electric rechargeables which are virtually maintenance free. I might guess that the B&S marketing department came up with the suggestion to optimize the ‘appearence’ of low maintenance in any way possible and this is what we get. It’s along the lines of the Cadillac 4-6-8 engine that didn’t prove to be worthwhile.
Recently I was told that B&S bought out the local MTD factory where bargain model mowers and tillers have been produced for many years. Also B&S seems to have bought out Snapper and now the Snapper brand can be pasted on anything produced there. The situation would be similar to Yugo buying out Subaru and making the Yugo reliable and safe by merely gluing on the Subaru Icon. No doubt we in America are all about appearance and image. How many Mustangs were sold in 1965 with anemic 170 cu in 6 cylinder engines?
Maybe in the future we can have a car that mows the grass and multi task
drpower.com/power-equipment/lawn-mowers/riding-mowers/raven-46in-lawn-mower-7100-watt-generator.axd
They’re getting closer. When you get done mowing with that thing you drop the deck and go off roading in it.
No doubt we in America are all about appearance and image.
I’ve often agreed on this. From fake wings, fake turbos, etc on cars to false fronts on buildings, we often seem less concerned with what something is than what we can trick others into thinking it is. The sad part is that it almost never works. No one is fooled by a false front. The only people who would know what a turbo setup/ wing is supposed to look like are the exact ones who will know if you’re BSing them with fake stuff, and the rest of the population will be unimpressed because they don’t know or care what a turbo does.
In fact, it appears I’ve already invented this engine for Briggs and Stratton.
You and me both. I am notoriously bad with my small engines. for example, I have a Simplicity lawn tractor I bought new in 1994 w/a 12hp Briggs on it. Nothing fancy, no oil filter on this motor.
It gets used for at least two hours every 5-7 days in the spring, summer and fall; mowing grass, mulching up copious amounts of leaves using a tow behind DR etc. It has had a very hard life. It gets an oil change about every 5 years whether it needs it or not 
As expected, it needs a little oil during the seasonal maintenance to top it off…
My prior mower was a similar Craftsman tractor that was around 14 years old when I gave it to a friend because I was moving. He killed it about 5 years later when he hit a stump while mowing…
The thing that kills a mower that gets itsoil changed is deck rot. The cause of deck rot is fertilizer.
If like me you never fertilize your grass, your deck will last a long long time.
I fertilize 3-4 times a year and pretty much never wash the deck. I’ve got the cheap stamped metal deck too. It sits in the garage though so maybe that makes a difference. I’ve been looking at new ones but it looks like the weak link now is those hydro transmissions. The Tuff Torq 46? that is used on most machines under $3000. Just can’t use them on hills or pulling anything etc. or they have to be overhauled. Just can’t believe how they could replace a cheapo variable pulley multi speed manual that lasts 20 years with an undependable complicated hydro.
All I want is a red twin cyl, manual trans, 42", with a cup holder for a couple thou. Something that can pull a trailer and other implements and push a plow. Try and find a non-Craftsman though. What’s wrong with these people? Even the big box John Deere has the same ole cheapo transmission.
Just can't believe how they could replace a cheapo variable pulley multi speed manual that lasts 20 years with an undependable complicated hydro.
If you’re selling to a limited market, you drive yourself out of business if you make things too reliable.
People who rent don’t buy lawn equipment. People in the suburbs usually buy push mowers. People who have the cash for a big enough lawn to justify a tractor are a minority compared to those other people.
We are no longer a fix-it society. Companies are going to take advantage of that by introducing “features” that we think we want, but will break and leave us shopping for a new lawn tractor (or car, or TV, or… or…). There are a lot of cool features on my mom’s BMW. I’ll be amazed if 50% of them don’t break within the first 7 years. And what will she do? She’ll march right out and get herself another BMW, because it has the BMW logo on the hood.
Deere will make more money off of you if they make a transmission last 10 years than they will if they make a transmission last 20 years, as long as everyone else is doing the same thing… Which they are.
Yes, I would agree. From electronics to tools such as mowers, they don’t make them to last like they used to. My dad used to buy whatever was cheap from wherever for mowers, weed eaters, etc. and take reasonable but not great care of them. He could count on 10 pretty good years and then they would start to go down hill from there. He bought some of the cheap stuff about 10 years back and it was just junk. The decks were so thin and the engines burned oil and smoked, then they became a nightmare to get started. He would maybe get a couple years out of them. 1 good year and 1 frustrating year. He finally bought something a little better and is on year 7 or 8 and it shows no signs of slowing down.
I recently traded for a Husqvarna riding mower. It was a model from a big box store and cost $3000 new so I figured it would be a pretty nice unit but used a Kohler Courage which not a commercial grade engine like the Command. The guy I bought it from thought it was too cumbersome and bought a zero turn so it was only a couple years old and had like 12 hours on it. I got a decent deal on it with the trade and it did fine for a couple years of pretty heavy use. Then one day it backfired a little. The stress this caused stripped the plastic teeth off the governor gear inside the engine and then the thing took off like mad. It was a 25hp twin cylinder Kohler Courage. I never really looked this up until I had the issue but all kinds of internal parts such as the timing gears were made of plastic. I talked to a local mower repair shop who said reports of these failing for all kinds of odd reasons were pretty common. He told me to override the throttle and revert it to manual control which I did. This was a pain and you had to anticipate load changes as to not stall or overrev the mower. It worked well but was annoying. Then one day the changing system went out. I got in the habit of connecting a freshly charged battery and having it strapped to the running board to start the unit and keep it running. I had two spare car batteries and would always keep them fully charged.
Then the oil burning began. I don’t know what let go but I had always changed the oil and never had issue with this. One day it started drinking the oil at the same rate as the gas. The breather and all was fine so I don’t know what happened. It would smoke for a while and then FLAMES would start after about 5 minutes once the exhaust got hot enough to ignite the burning oil. Then the thing started dieseling. You would turn it off and it just kept running. I mean you could turn it off and still mow the grass for like a minute until it shut down. The flames were pretty spectacular at times and I had to be careful not to have my mower start a fire.
Then it became a nightmare to get the starter to engage. I cleaned the shaft and gears well which helped some but I had to hold the gear up with a screwdriver to get it to engage the flywheel. Then oil started leaking from the front seal under the flywheel. This found its way to the hot flaming exhaust and started a nice engine fire about 1/4 mile from anywhere I could put out the fire. It was a pretty major fire and I thought about shutting the mower down right where it sat but decided to see if I could ride it back to the house so I could put it out. I made it back with flames lapping at my legs. Somehow it kept running and did so throughout the entire time I was putting it out. I had to repair quite a bit of wiring after this but somehow it still ran.
The wiring to many of the safety mechanisms was burned in this fire so I simply bypassed them. The shut-down when you lift off the seat and such no longer worked. Then one day it started to take off while on because of this and the fact that the brake popped off with the hydrostat in full forward speed. In trying to grab the mower, I accidentally pulled the manual control throttle wide open so it takes off at what seemed like 30 mph across the yard. The high revs really pushed the oil out the exhaust so I have a flaming mower screaming across the yard heading right towards the woods. I luckily ran into a tree right at the edge of the woods and sat there bathing the base of the tree in flames until I got to it and shut it down. I swore this thing was cursed at this point but kept running it making sure to double check anything before I got off so it was not in a forward or reverse position in case the brake popped off.
The oil consumption just got worse and worse with each use and it got to where it was a struggle to mow even with new plugs. I pretty much gave up on the thing and began using jugs of used oil I was going to recycle to keep it topped off. It was so bad I began asking my neighbors for their used oil. I had given up on the engine and just planned to run it to failure. It lost so much power it could barely mow, was smoking hot, and just quit running. I tried to restart and the starter went up in smoke so I considered it done for. I towed it back and found another used mower that has so far served me much better. It uses the commercial grade Kohler Command and I get none of this nonsense.
I have a perfectly good riding mower with a good deck, new blades, new belts, new spindles, etc. but no engine. The new engines for these things cost as much as a mower so I am keeping my eyes out for a good used engine for the thing.
They certainly don’t make things to last. I will NEVER EVER consider a unit with the Kohler Courage line of engines again after these experiences.
CW,that was quite an adventure,I wouldnt haave put up with it near that long.Check with the local metal recyclers ,oft times they have good mower parts cheap(including engines-I dont want no stinking engine with plastic internals)Kohler is riding their name and old reputation,shame on em’ and I wouldnt pay the extra for the fragile plastic hooded green things now either-Kevin