Briggs has gone nuts with parts pricing

[SUKI]

had similar problem this morning looking a thremo wax module for a Honda mower. The K5 version only showed the carburetor kit with the thermo wax and the K6 showed the parts separately. Same carburetor kit number.

[jerkputter123]

Boy you make me feel so old....as I do remember when just before they started changing in the 80's.

Yup, tell me about it. I was actually offered a job working for them, back in 1987, but 40 miles one way was too much of a drive to be worth it. They were offering 9.50/hour which to us was a small fortune at the time, but it was just too much of a commute.

I took on a job SRC back in '86 starting out as a PMT but doing the work of a CE. The pay started at $9.50 /hr. Lots of driving as I was covering 30 counties. But that was a huge pay jump from $6.25 when I covered 6 counties with the office supply company. Eight years later I was a SCE and drawing $15.50 /hr. I was driving up to 50K per repairing equipment in the field.

Now of course I got caught up in the corporate downsizing going in the mid '90's. After I was laid off it was impossible to find work. Either I was over qualified or didn't the certificates the employers wanted to prove I knew what I did. After several years I gave up and went into business myself. Now I taking away their customers. Ha Ha.

Either way running an one person service office was great training for me to run my own business as I had to depend on myself to get everything done locally. Of course I had corporate support that I had to fight with to get things done at times.

I now make virtually nil but I am a lot happier as I don't have to kiss someone's backside to have a job. One year/4-1/2 months to go but SS and medicare kicks in. I would be drawing than I make now.

Good for you on getting to the age we all looked forward to. It has been eleven years for me since I retired and started SS. I waited until a few weeks shy of 65 to start drawing .
Now I still work in my shop but I do it to stay busy. I will be 76 this year and those years ticked off fast.
I got to say I don't think I've ever seen things change like they have in the last three years.
I went into Home Depot today on the way to my shop just to see for myself about the price of things. Checked out the JD mowers and everyone had Briggs engines. I don't really need a mower right now . I am sure not buying anything with a Briggs in it. Wow on those increases also. I got in my truck and went to work.

[SUKI]

Checking the prices is how justify my labor rates. The those prices are nearly double what it was a few years ago on some of the equipment.

Just pickup an order that the Stihl had mistakenly put a 6201 bearing on my order. Boy did I have sticker shock. $21 for a $2 bearing that I have in stock. It got returned along that $4 plain washer. I got a whole bag of the washers for $5 (100 ea)

[bertsmobilerepairs]

Yep.
Where ever possible nuts bolts & washers com from a specialist nut & bolt shop which the USA does not seem to have from the reactions I get when I suggest them .
Fortunately we have several down here and despite their prices being higher than hardwear stores they are a lot lot less than mower companies .

[KE4AVB]

Yes you got to be careful procuring hardware too. They try to hide all the specs for them too lately. I usually find what I need from Fastenal, McMasters, MSC, and Grainger but not always. The last item that was extremely pricey and difficult was some JD M20-1.50 Spindle flange nuts. Only found one source that size but they are made wrong. But I got lucky on the JD shipping as the dealer I use had a .99 shipping special compared to their normal $16 shipping so I order 6 nuts @ $6 each. But I do expect a specialty store to a little higher as things are not the cheapest grade. Most hardware retail stores have the bottom line of fasteners to meet Mr Penny Pincher demands.

The other 4 nuts I have in stock will require me get in the 25mm drill bit @ $55 so I can modify them. I will wait to mid Summer to get the bit; unless, run something close at a better price.

I was looking at Riders and ZTRs at TSC today. The lowest price was around $2000 even the walk behinds were in the low $250 range.

No wonder customers are not complaining about my repair prices now. But I am having problems getting parts for even the newer equipment now.

[38racing]

Just watched a video on failing acr on briggs snowblower engines. Lots of blowers with those engines and cam is nla from briggs. I thik that they still sell those engines?

[SUKI]

Briggs just doesn't want to support the older engines anymore. They just want you to buying new engines now.

[bertsmobilerepairs]

Briggs just doesn't want to support the older engines anymore. They just want you to buying new engines now.

This is because B & S do not make any of the parts, so they have to order them in from another manufacturer, in qualtites that the external manufacturer is willing to make
SO B & S then need to order 500 parts that they sell 50 of a year thus have dead money sitting on the shelves,adding more cost for the next 10 years .
If they were making the parts themselves then you can ecoomically set up a small production run of 50 to 100 every couple of years.
I can get 2000 or more push mowers from China , with custom paint & my name on the decals for $ 20 a unit
If I order 1000 then that price becomes $ 40
In 200 unit batches they become $ 75 a hit and I have to take what ever colour they come off the line with generic decals
And that is the smallest order quantity .
People forget there is oppertunity costs ( what I could have made with the same amount of money ) plus storeage costs plus delivery costs.
An efficient sized warehouse would be from 5,000 to 100,000 pallet spaces
Pallets cost $ 2 to $ 10 a month to rent so for our small warehouse of 5,000 pallets is costing $ 10,000 to $ 50,000 a month just in pallet rental
We used to charge out pallet spaces a $ 10 ( aus) a week + $ 5 for picking + delivery fee at costs.
Keeping an inventory of several million parts is one of the things that sent B & S to the wall in the first place
Not keeping any parts is who HF can supply engines for 1/2 the price of the equivalent B & S engine.

[KE4AVB]

All I can say is that my Briggs parts sales went from over $3,000 per yr to nearly nothing now. And they still demand my to buy $2,000 in parts but were unable or unwilling to provide them. I closed my Briggs dealership last Fall. I just kept open my Power Portal account just in case I need to lookup an old engine. Now I mainly deal with Kohler and Kawasaki engines that I can get parts for. I am not wasting my time awaiting parts that they take money up front and then a month or two later refund it. That is just financing their operation with no rewards.

And I haven't even sold a new Briggs engine in two years. No one wants them now that parts are not available. They rather try to install HF engines if they can't get repair parts. That is cutting off your nose to sprite your face thing.

[KE4AVB]

Here is another example of prices going nuts.

Husqvarna PN 531008682 Gasket Intake 224 L Trimmer

Even the $21.25 at my distributor before the $15 shipping charge (can be spread across several parts) is ridiculous for a simple paper gasket. But of course RBI want $127.50 (OEM PN 531008681) for the carburetor which I can get the Walbro WYB-34 thru RBI for $33.94.

Companies just plain being greedy lately.

And to top it off I just had to a third engine due to the lack of the 3 qt gas tank being available from Briggs. Nice tiller otherwise, just can't get the darn parts because Briggs just wants to sell a new engines instead.