OutdoorKing Repair Forum Forums Repairs and Maintenance Questions on Engines Questions On Briggs & Stratton Engines Briggs has file Chapter 11 Bankruptcy

I agree Jack, there are some good engines they make - mainly vanguard and other similar IC motors.

It pains me that we are in such a disposable society that we have got to the point where a $500 piece of machinery, let alone one which has the capability to take limbs off, is treated with such disregard by people.

I was in bunnings the other day and briefly helped a guy (who stank of cigarettes) pick which oil for the Victa he had on his trolley (classic cut, briggs) and said take this 1L 10w30, tip in 450ml, fill with petrol, start and let it idle for 10 minutes to run in. Then after 3 months, use most of the rest of the bottle to do the 5hr break in change and use the dregs to clean and oil the filter. He questioned why he would want to do any of that. Told him to preserve engine life. He said he could care less about engine life, he just needs the lawn cut.

I eventually related it back to fill it up, start it, put it at idle, go smoke 2 winfield's and then mow. That got it through his head. The oil and filter change less so.

The general way is to treat everything like crap then complain it doesn't last.

There are very few things I do not maintain to a high degree (mostly hot water systems and computers).

Is it because people are not taught or because most people have grown up in a world where cheap products are readily available that they do not bother to maintain or repair.

I must admit, I was having computer issues and complaining about the damn thing. I was called a hypocrite - I bemoan all these idiots who run things into the ground; yet I hadn't done a defrag in 2 years, rarely deleted old programs, never cleaned up photos for at least 4 and had never had the laptop apart in its 6 years. So I did all of that and it runs 10 times better. Different priorities.

Had I taken it in for service, the tech would have got as angry as I do when I see a 6 year old formerly $1200 Victa with no oil, filthy filter, deck covered in grass and blades worn to stubs. Those people had different priorities as well.


Overall, it must just be most people are either ignorant or so self centred and can afford new things every time something breaks. Good luck to them, I bet its going to come back and bite them very shortly now.

Their good engines are mainly outsourced. Their core engines are antique pigs with lipstick with inferior components.
This debacle it's the kick in the bum this company needs although the architects of this doom get rewarded for negative achievement. That makes them worse than bludgers and bank robbers for that matter.
The worst part of all is it's perfectly above board. That's why we have regulation to make stuff like this illegal in the first place and put a stop to it.

Hi Tyler
Many thanks for a reasonable and considered opinion.

----------------------------
Jack

Actually you can trace B&S's downfall to a certain type of management ideology which also came to Victa post the Sunbeam sale to GUD Holdings When all the decks became cheap and the sale of the Milperra site. Now was the Power-torque an in house Victa design or was it outsourced by Sunbeam to a engineering company.

MBA's and Cocaine are bad mix

I hate that term holdings. It means grubby take over merchants who remain behind the scenes trading in respected names. Wasn't a company like that responsible for the demise of DSE?

They are cases where a company is worth more broken up than it is as a complete entity.

The people responsible are worth-less in my eyes and worth more broken up as well.