Those parts distributors have us coming and going..

[hanz63]

Whatever that really means. Holy crap, Gardner has apparently decided to increase exec bonuses this year by the look of their latest pricing. Stens emailed and said stuff your freight discount. I'll have to charge like a crazy person. Parts pretty much are up 20% plus since the plague.

[bgsengine]

And you're surprised? I knew it was coming ages ago, just a matter of "when" - just one of the many reasons I quit the business. I suspect eventually the old-fashioned ways (Factory - to Distributor - to Dealer) will go the way of the DoDo Bird... Soon it'll be only the Mega-Dealers and they'll be buying factory-direct without a middleman, warranties more likely to be denied or "just give em a whole new one" (And let them pay to ship it to warranty center, and pay to ship the new one back, and most folks will look at retail rates on shipping and say "fuhgeddaboudit" and buy something else, ship the broken unit to the boneyard) Upshot of it being, smaller indie shops will be sourcing parts from Amazon/eBay (and getting OEM parts used but good from Ebay or independent scrappers) Along with those with a certain political mindset following in the footsteps of California and banning more and more gas powered equipment (and regulating cattle farms to death - Cow Farts are causing global warming, after all.. right? right? what about elk and moose and bison though? how ya gonna regulate them? Since the same loonies wanting to ban Cow Farts are also Vegan or Anti-Hunting nuts, no way to control wild populations, right? Just a matter of time before you have to buy a state DEP Permit if you want to fart in public... )

[KE4AVB]

And Gardner will over charge on shipping and flat will not explain why either. Gardner also install a new system that demands you to accepts Microsoft cookie that allow Microsoft free access to your local system so they dig around looking for bootleg software and anything they can find. Its their way or the highway attitude. I have ordered from since they are refusing to explain charged nearly $20 to ship a $6 part that they split the order and it should only a small additional charge.

And my RBI salesperson lied to me last Fall about the cost to ship a short block. I was told $50 and then I got billed $200. So I end eating the profit on the short block as the customer had already paid for it.

Stens upped their minimum free shipping level to $180 and they are now using FedEx which has terrible tracking and deliveries here. Just as bad as USPS now.

And BGS what about people farts? Some of them you better not light a match.