Echo PB-500T

[lefty]

Is there a way to tell when a unit was manufactured?

PB-500T
SN:P31212050542

Emissions sticker says 2011

Thanks.

[KE4AVB]

I was hoping BGS would chime in as he was apparently an Echo dealer at one time. Personally I have not found anything on the net as to how to find the age other than trying to contact a local dealer.

[bgsengine]

Can't really tell from serial number, though you can sometimes find the manufacturing date on the serial number label (sometimes!) OTOH Echo never made a particular distinction for model year in their production - their only distinction being serial number breaks - *commonly* machines might see updates once or twice a year anyways, so you could infer by serial number what year they might be. However, as I no longer have access to Echo dealer portal (Though I believe I sent KE4 a copy of a quick reference manual that can help narrow down to within maybe 2 years) , without that I don't know of any other parts lookup that gives an indication of model year for a given model & serial.

[KE4AVB]

The only Echo Tech reference I got is from 2015 and it is basically useless other than the tune up guides. Does not have anything on the serials.

[lefty]

Thanks for checking into it.

I originally posted because the person who dropped it off said it was a year old. As usual, the story developed as time went on and they backed off that position.

Every machine I've seen had an emissions tag that was contemporaneous with the manufactured date. A year or 2 off maybe. It may be just the ones I've seen. I also have several personal units in which this is the case as well. And I had 4 customer units in at the time showing the same.

This one had an emissions sticker that said 2011, which seemed strange if I were to believe it was a year old. It did not look that young.

[bgsengine]

Thanks for checking into it.

I originally posted because the person who dropped it off said it was a year old. As usual, the story developed as time went on and they backed off that position.

Every machine I've seen had an emissions tag that was contemporaneous with the manufactured date. A year or 2 off maybe. It may be just the ones I've seen. I also have several personal units in which this is the case as well. And I had 4 customer units in at the time showing the same.

This one had an emissions sticker that said 2011, which seemed strange if I were to believe it was a year old. It did not look that young.

Bear in mind, it is possible for a machine to be "a year old" as in a year since it was bought new, but it still could have been in some dealer's back stock room forgotten (or just unable to sell it) for several years.

I've worked at (and have had, myself) dealerships that are required to take a certain amount of inventory each booking order period (once or twice a year) in order to keep the dealership, so tendency can be to try and book just one of some item that is priced "just enough" to meet dollar minimums, or book more than is expected to sell of entry level best sellers (at the lowest dollar price available) to meet unit minimums, and then the dealer is left with a bunch of leftover inventory that takes some creativeness to move them, but sometimes you quite literally couldn't even give them away free... fast forward a good 5 to 10 years later and the ONE customer comes in that asks about that particular model, and voila you have it in stock and can sell it as new as it is still in the box. (Or it gets torn apart to be used for repair parts, hardware, etc, until there's little left that just gets tossed in the trash or recycling)

So, while it may be brand new in the box to the customer last year, it could still be quite old model-year-wise.

[KE4AVB]

That having to have a certain amount in stock (mostly non saleable items) and annual purchases is the very reason I have not sign up for a Briggs dealership. Just not enough volume to justify it. And with Briggs filing bankruptcy it even worst now as I see very little in Briggs engines. Only two this year and one had to be a royal pita which turned out to be a faulty spark plug in the last battle with it.