"Wayne Cook" wrote in message
...

That's for sure. A long time ago mowers was my main business. Back
when I started out my fixit shop I did a lot of mowers and managed to
make a living as a bachelor. I still do mowers though it's definitely
the low priority part of my business. The fact is about 3/4 of the
time it's possible to make some money on a mower. The problem is that
the other 25% cause such a loss that they eat into the profits of the
good ones real fast.


My dad used to sell mowers, and had to carry out warranty repairs and
otherwise help the customers service the things. I was (and am still, for
old customers) often given the task of fixing mowers that the customers
couldn't get to run properly. What we've observed is that the amount people
are willing to spend on a mower is inversely proportional to the size of
their lawn and the difficulty of mowing it. For some reason, those who have
small, tidy, flat-as-a-billiard-table gardens buy the expensive
self-propelled mowers that never develop any problems, while those that have
large and bumby lawns buy the cheapest mowers available. And damned near all
lawnmower buyers are useless bloody morons who should not be allowed to own
anything more advanced than a scythe ;-)

The ones with small lawns and expensive mowers call in every summer
complaining the mower won't start, and every time it turns out to be
something silly like forgetting to put fuel in the tank or opening the
stopcock. We have one repeat complaining customer who can never get her
mower to start, and every time I try it starts on the first pull. It turns
out that she's so afraid of somehow hurting herself or damaging the mower
that she doesn't dare to pull the cord with any real force- but no way will
she buy one with an electrical starter.
The ones with large, bumpy lawns and cheap mowers have no problem getting
the things to run, but _always_ set their mowers to the lowest setting so
that they either hit rocks or overload them trying to cut 2' of grass down
to 0.5" in one go. These people keep complaining that their
cheaper-than-dog**** electric mowers burn out the motor windings or bend the
driveshaft, and demand that it be fixed under warranty. Those few in this
category who buy gas powered mowers tend to be hobby mechanics who mess the
things up and return them for "warranty repair" with half the parts missing;
the rest are incapable of following simple instructions and always tip their
mowers toward the carb side when cleaning out grass and gunk from the
underside. Most inexpensive mowers get oil in the carb if tipped to this
side, and stop working as a result. Oh, and don't even mention those who put
too much oil in the crankcase.

Long story made reasonably short: about half of all lawnmower repairs are
laughably simple, but take so little time to accomplish that I can't with a
good conscience charge much money for them. The rest would be more expensive
than buying a new mower, and preferally one that is actually capable of
mowing the customer's lawn without breaking. Since I can't/won't charge
money for the "repairs" that are worthwile and won't do repairs that aren't,
there's no money to be made from this whatsoever.

--
Aamund Breivik