One of the two front wheels that propel my Sears Craftsman self-powered rotary lawnmower stopped working, while the other wheel started working intermittently. When I removed the plastic cover over the drive mechanism, I saw what appears to be a worm-drive transmission that was coupling power from the engine via a belt to a shaft driving the two front wheels.
While squeezing the control bar on the handle, I could see the drive shaft turning, but one of the wheels was not turning. Once I removed the front wheels, I noticed that at least half of the teeth had been almost ground away inside of one wheel, while a smaller section of the teeth had been ground away in the other wheel.
When the drive control bar on the handle is squeezed, the worm-drive transmission is pivoted forward, presumably on a bracket attached to the deck. When that happens, the pulley tightens up against the belt, drawing power from the engine. As the transmission pivots, the drive shaft is moved forward, engaging the gears on the ends of the drive shaft into the teeth inside the front wheels. The front wheels are made of plastic with gear teeth molded inside the rim.
The gears on the ends of the drive shaft are made of metal and are engaged into these plastic teeth when the mower’s self-propulsion system is engaged. If the operator doesn’t fully squeeze the control bar up against the handle bar, the metal drive gears are not fully engaged and literally chew away the plastic teeth inside the front wheels. Replacing the wheels is only a temporary fix, as the new wheels will suffer a similar fate.
This entry was submitted by Andy Morris and edited by Rob Spiegel.
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You would be willing to pay the extra $50, but too many end users will not. Therefore, your friends experience in China backs my point. The distributer will buy what he can sell, regardless of price. But why would he buy the highest quality to only see it sit, unsold in a warehouse somewhere. Consumers are the driving force and so long as we demand cheap and are willing to accept junk no retailer is going to survive trying to sell only high quality expensive merchandise except in rare niche markets.
There will always be people willing to spend $100 for an Armani shirt just so they can say they are wearing Armani. But the vast majority of us cannot and will not do that. So Arrow shirts are now made in, take your pick of third world countries, so it can sell at local department stores for $25 instead of the $35 it would cost to be made in the US. That pattern has repeated so many times that it is not arguable. So when we are griping and moaning about poor workmanship and low quality we need to look in the mirror and honestly ask what we are willing to pay for now and what did we accept in the past.
We need to turn the ship around, but in many cases it is too late. True enough there are/were many short sighted CEO's who off shored entire product lines and since have allowed factories to become obsolete before they were closed never to return. But it never would have happened if we as consumers had not facilitated the change. Go into any modern machine shop and count the number of new US made mills, lathes, grinders, etc. They no longer exist. Corporate America mirrors the population, it does not dictate the terms. Middle class America is not being murdered, it is committing suicide. End of rant.
You're right about the pricing problem, Tool_maker. A good example is the way WalMart would come to a small town and wipe out mom-and-pop stationary stores, gardening stores, hardware stores. That would happen even though the small stores were owned by neighbors.
We are so used to the disposable, throaway society. Most stuffs today don't last more than two years, or should I say a year. Ever make an effort to get a part for some product in the household, like a fridge or washer only to find the part is not made anymore? It's known as planned obsolescence, something producers plan for to keep individuals getting more stuff. The only way to really beat planned obsolescence is to buy things as cheaply as possible. That way, at least you aren't getting ripped off as much.
We buy cheap so we can buy more. The Mower was a Sears not a Walmart. Sears used to supply quality stuff - Craftsman. They nearly went under and now owned by KMart - always the quality store. The adage "You get what you pay for" in my experiance is you get less for your money when you save a buck. Where I work there is a sign that states " the price is forgotten long before the product wears out". We've never gone lacking for customers. Second - If the operator is letting the mower drag them over the yard nothing will hold up. I never liked self propelled because thay added wight to the mower and they never went the correct speed. Get some exercise and push that lawn.
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