Seems like the mower dealer has made a business decision not to sell second-hand mowers beyond a certain age, and there is no other official dealer who feels differently, so Joe has become the 'other dealer' for that part of the world - getting mowers for nothing, and repairing them for not much. This should be a good deal for you, Joe. The dealer seems to feel that selling repaired old mowers in competition with new mowers is not the business he wants to be in, probably for marketing reasons (or maybe because he doesn't have competent mechanics). I can understand why he doesn't want to weld up failed steel Victa mower bases - if you costed the time it takes, you probably wouldn't do it yourself. However if you can pick up 5 mowers a week for nothing, repair them in less than an hour each of your spare time for less than $20 each out-of-pocket expense, and sell them on ebay for $100 each, then you are making $80 an hour and having fun doing it. If it takes 2 hours each (including ebay time), I can understand why the dealer doesn't want to do it.
