Is quality going downhill?

   / Is quality going downhill? #31  
Way back when, US manufactured automobiles were considered impressive if they went 100k miles. My 2000 VW TDI just clicked over 220k miles and is running better than it ever has: wouldn't trade it for anything! I once had a car (highly modified, of course, well, I was a kid!) that I couldn't keep spark plug in- Champion plugs would last me a day (again, high performance car); Autolite plugs lasted me a week; Bosch lasted me a month.

ANYTHING that's quality is going to have to be comprised of quality materials, quality engineering and quality manufacturing (excellent QA checks/tests). Even the best can push out a statistical piece of garbage, and if you're THAT lucky recipient it doesn't matter how touted something is, it's a piece of garbage. How a defective product is dealt with matters; though, one buys something to work.

Look around at all the stuff one has. It's a numbers game. More stuff means more stuff that's going to be less than great. If you go with fewer things then it's easier to focus on quality (research) and have them be affordable (total budget- less stuff means you can afford better things).

I bought some voltage regulator boards when needing to retrofit a failed circuit (capacitor based) in my 1994 generator. Got two for something like $23. Chinese, of course. Lots of folks in an old generator forum had used these and had stated that they're cheap enough to get a couple in case one is bad. First one I pulled out of its package went into the generator and has been operating now for a couple years: a spare sits in wait- hopefully I'll never have to test it! Output from my generator is insanely steady. I could have opted to pay $700 for an original [US - Cummins/Onan] part that relied upon a huge capacitor, knowing that capacitors only last so long.
 
   / Is quality going downhill? #32  
When I read that somewhere, I actually cringed. Oil is so cheap, not changing it regularly is false economy. They do have a drain plug I presume? m Thought I'm a registered user over on the lawnmower forum, I don't go there way too many brain dead stupid people on it for my liking.
No drain plug. Tip the mower on its side to drain through the dipstick. Drain plugs started getting eliminated on push mower style engines close to 20 years ago. What is even worse is I have actually had those type engines come into the shop mounted on tillers. Now the customer is expected to tip a tiller on its side to drain the oil, or use a suction pump to pull the oil out.

Lawnmower forum has a lot more people with no clue that want to work on their own mowers as opposed to having no clue about working on a tractor or would even attempt to work on their tractor. The problem that we see over there is people thinking they are smarter than the techs that have done this for 20-30-40 years.
 
   / Is quality going downhill? #33  
When I read that somewhere, I actually cringed. Oil is so cheap, not changing it regularly is false economy.
No drain plug. Tip the mower on its side to drain through the dipstick. Drain plugs started getting eliminated on push mower style engines close to 20 years ago. What is even worse is I have actually had those type engines come into the shop mounted on tillers. Now the customer is expected to tip a tiller on its side to drain the oil, or use a suction pump to pull the oil out.
Guess I haven't checked out small engines lately. The HF Predator I bought maybe 6 years ago has drain plugs, as does the cheapie lawnmower motor I got from TS. Boy, I'd sure hate to have to tip my log splitter over to drain oil in it!!

I agree with 5030, a quart of oil is less than $4, why wouldn't you change it regularly, especially in a small engine?
Way back when, US manufactured automobiles were considered impressive if they went 100k miles. My 2000 VW TDI just clicked over 220k miles and is running better than it ever has: wouldn't trade it for anything! I once had a car (highly modified, of course, well, I was a kid!) that I couldn't keep spark plug in- Champion plugs would last me a day (again, high performance car); Autolite plugs lasted me a week; Bosch lasted me a month.
And you were lucky to get 75% of that out of a Japanese vehicle. How things have changed! Now 100k is barely broken in.

Curiously, what's the difference between spark plugs where one brand supposedly lasts longer than another? I've always been pretty brand agnostic, never had problems with any brand.
Quality is quite simple; pay the price and it’s there!
.
If only that were true. :(
 
   / Is quality going downhill? #34  
I'm thinking that many personal watercraft, boats, and snowmobiles with 4-stokes are drained by using a sucker.
 
   / Is quality going downhill? #35  
Guess I haven't checked out small engines lately. The HF Predator I bought maybe 6 years ago has drain plugs, as does the cheapie lawnmower motor I got from TS. Boy, I'd sure hate to have to tip my log splitter over to drain oil in it!!


Curiously, what's the difference between spark plugs where one brand supposedly lasts longer than another? I've always been pretty brand agnostic, never had problems with any brand.
:(
The preceding issue with eliminating the bottom drain plug on push mowers started with mower frames being made due to either being enclosed under the engine, or due to self propel systems you couldn't get to the drain plug if you wanted to. So over time the mower manufacturers, ie, briggs, tecumseh, Honda just stop making the engines with the drain plug.

And I have had issues with Champion plugs with shorting out shortly after installation. Install new plug run mower 5 minutes, engine dies, replace plug and do it again. Had an entire case of J19LM that did that one year. Went to NGK after that, but have had a few of those even quit shortly after installation but seems to be more random.
 
   / Is quality going downhill? #36  
Back before most all reviews were created by BOTs, I would always buy lightly used goods that had good reviews as a measure of quality. People rarely use to write good reviews unless they were truly impressed. Now, everything new has a review of some sort. These are 90% created by the vendor or manufacturer, to be positive, even if the item is compete junk. I love watching the Boltz, now called AvE, tool review videos.
 
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   / Is quality going downhill? #37  
Curiously, what's the difference between spark plugs where one brand supposedly lasts longer than another? I've always been pretty brand agnostic, never had problems with any brand.

If only that were true. :(
It's quality. Back then it was electrode and ceramic material. Racers won't toss any old plug in something. But, I'll have to admit, I don't really follow much these days as pertains to spark plugs (other than some small gas engines, everything I have is diesel).
 
   / Is quality going downhill? #38  
Back before most all reviews were created by BOTs, I would always buy lightly used goods that had good reviews as a measure of quality. People rarely use to write good reviews unless they were truly impressed. Now, everything new has a review of some sort. These are 90% created by the vendor or manufacturer, to be positive, even if the item is compete junk. I love watching the Boltz, now called AvE, tool review videos.
Yeah, it's a good idea to focus on stuff that has a huge amount of reviews. It's hard for bots to create a ton of reviews for one product, and over, perhaps, several years.

Regarding the strategy of buying used, I would prefer something that is well-used over gently used: assumption is, of course, that there would be a significant price differential here. Reason being is that if equipment is pushed as it's intended and it's still working then it'll almost always continue to work just fine. Stuff that hasn't been worked could be harboring a factory defect that hasn't popped yet: warranties are meant to cover the expected statistical anomaly. I've read enough posts in this site of folks who have run into significant issues with tractors that have low hours but are several years old and are out of warranty. I would bet that had they been pushing that equipment earlier that they'd have forced the weak stuff (statistical anomaly) to break and they'd have had it replaced under warranty. I got my B7800 with 738 hard hours on it; I've put about 1,100 hard hours on it; knowing what I know about it, and how hard it's been worked, I wouldn't hesitate to buy it. I agree that the ODDS are that a quality, low-use item is likely going to be a good bet; I'm just saying that there still can be a risk lurking.
 
   / Is quality going downhill? #39  
I'm thinking that many personal watercraft, boats, and snowmobiles with 4-stokes are drained by using a sucker.
My Arctic Cat snowmobile's drain plug is pretty easy to get at, but I have a neighbor who has a Yamaha that's miserable to do anything on, including change the oil.
I can see how a jetski might not be the easiest thing to drain oil from, well not and remain watertight.
 
   / Is quality going downhill? #40  
If one has a dip stick tube then one might consider using an oil extractor. That's what I use on my Polaris UTV (Yanmar diesel) and on my VW TDIs (cartridge oil filters right up front- easiest oil changes there are! one of the few things the German engineers forgot to make difficult :LOL:).
 
 
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