5 ms·

> And the prices of these new and used are out of this world even compared to baseline inflation. How many such cases do we need to have to be able to put out

> And the prices of these new and used are out of this world even compared to baseline inflation. How many such cases do we need to have to be able to put out the hypothesis that the baseline inflation figures we're being fed are wrong?

Mumps 1y ago
If the poster is in the USA couldn't it be explained by Trump Tariffs (in addition to inflation)
- IgorPartola 1y ago
  Yes I am in the US but in so far as inflation is an overall increase in cost of goods and services, the tariffs are one contributing factor to it. How much of a factor is probably hard to tell but my gut feeling says in this case it is probably significant.
marcosdumay 1y ago
No amount of things like grass mowers can add up to it. You have to look at stuff people buy in large volume, like food, housing, energy, education, and health-care. (By the way, I don't know if your figures are correct. I don't even know what country you are at.)
- IgorPartola 1y ago
  From what I gather you can measure inflation many different ways. It’s not an absolute value but more of an average of prices on some number of goods. Kind of like how there are many index funds having different mixes of securities.
IgorPartola 1y ago
This is as much a complaint about high prices as the fact that Briggs & Stratton keeps making and selling an engine with an absolutely awful design. If you want the boring details: it is a single cylinder 4 stroke motor. The first issue is that while it is dead simple, it does not have a modern way to control the RPM. These motors are meant to run at roughly 3600 RPM but at full throttle (how they are meant to be operated once in use) they will easily exceed that especially with no load such as in neutral. So they have a mechanical governor, which is also combined with an oil slinger (exactly what it sounds like: it is just a thing that slings oil all over the place hoping to get it onto the parts that need it). This contraption looks like this: https://www.lawnmowerpros.com/prodimages/691968.jpg https://www.lawnmowerpros.com/prodimages/691968.jpg. It is not very sturdy and is not very well mounted. It tends to break or even jam the gears between the crankshaft and the camshaft. This is bad because you don’t want loose pieces flying inside the bottom end of the motor. In addition these motors have puny starters, so they have what’s called a compression release, which is a weight and a spring on the cam shaft. You can see it right by the gear here: https://www.briggsbits.co.uk/acatalog/84005207.3.jpeg https://www.briggsbits.co.uk/acatalog/84005207.3.jpeg The idea is that at low RPM such as while you start the engine, the tiny spring will hold the weight to the shaft and the bump on it will keep the exhaust valve slightly open. This will mean you don’t get normal combustion but also it will be a lot easier to turn the engine over which is important for the puny starter. At higher RPM the weight will fly out and the other side with the bump will retract causing the exhaust valve to close fully when necessary. The issue with this design is that the spring as you can see is tiny and thin and the weight is also pretty flimsy. They tend to break off and then you have a chunk of metal again. Speaking of the camshaft, notice that the cam lobes are pressed onto the camshaft, not cut out of a single piece of steel. This is cheap but tends to be very sloppy. These motors don’t run very well. And lastly, while these motors have a (tiny) oil pump and it is properly driven by the camshaft, the part that drives the oil pump is actually a separate piece of shaft that just slots into the main shaft of the camshaft. You can see it here as the short shaft with two flat parts on either end: https://www.lsengineers.co.uk/media/catalog/product/cache/2183975d50b12d1ff8f0f4c988893bcd/b/s/bs793880.jpg https://www.lsengineers.co.uk/media/catalog/product/cache/21... This means the camshaft isn’t even straight necessarily but is gear driven which requires more precision than chain, not less. This is before we get into just basics like the fact that none of them have proper head/cylinder mating surfaces so they blow head gaskets like crazy, or their very loose rockers that go out of spec all the time causing it to run very poorly and needing constant adjustment. This is the same exact engine in every smaller riding mower on the market today. If you don’t get this one, you will get a much worse Kohler equivalent. An equivalent Honda engine I could swap into my mower would cost me $2,000 for a refurb. Harbor Freight used to sell a motor for this for $800 but discontented it a few years ago. Basically, the entire market segment is shit. Greenworks and Ryobi have the electric mowers for about $5,000 that don’t seem to have these issues but batteries don’t have nearly the energy density than the two gallon of gas which is what it takes to run a normal mower for an hour.
- HeyLaughingBoy 1y ago
  Is this a newer design? Asking because I have a 40-year-old Murray garden tractor with an 18hp 2-cylinder Briggs 4-stroke and while it's harder to start in winter now (snowblower duty), it doesn't show any sign of dying soon.
  - IgorPartola 1y ago
    This is the Intek single cylinder 500cc that is rated for 16-18hp depending on who you get it from (though internally they are all the same). I do think it is newer but not that new. Their V twins are apparently a bit more bulletproof though I haven’t taken mine apart to check. That’s the one that catches fire now due to bad wiring.

Mumps 1y ago

If the poster is in the USA couldn't it be explained by Trump Tariffs (in addition to inflation)

IgorPartola 1y ago
Yes I am in the US but in so far as inflation is an overall increase in cost of goods and services, the tariffs are one contributing factor to it. How much of a factor is probably hard to tell but my gut feeling says in this case it is probably significant.

marcosdumay 1y ago

No amount of things like grass mowers can add up to it. You have to look at stuff people buy in large volume, like food, housing, energy, education, and health-care. (By the way, I don't know if your figures are correct. I don't even know what country you are at.)

IgorPartola 1y ago
From what I gather you can measure inflation many different ways. It’s not an absolute value but more of an average of prices on some number of goods. Kind of like how there are many index funds having different mixes of securities.

IgorPartola 1y ago

This is as much a complaint about high prices as the fact that Briggs & Stratton keeps making and selling an engine with an absolutely awful design. If you want the boring details: it is a single cylinder 4 stroke motor. The first issue is that while it is dead simple, it does not have a modern way to control the RPM. These motors are meant to run at roughly 3600 RPM but at full throttle (how they are meant to be operated once in use) they will easily exceed that especially with no load such as in neutral. So they have a mechanical governor, which is also combined with an oil slinger (exactly what it sounds like: it is just a thing that slings oil all over the place hoping to get it onto the parts that need it). This contraption looks like this: https://www.lawnmowerpros.com/prodimages/691968.jpg https://www.lawnmowerpros.com/prodimages/691968.jpg. It is not very sturdy and is not very well mounted. It tends to break or even jam the gears between the crankshaft and the camshaft. This is bad because you don’t want loose pieces flying inside the bottom end of the motor. In addition these motors have puny starters, so they have what’s called a compression release, which is a weight and a spring on the cam shaft. You can see it right by the gear here: https://www.briggsbits.co.uk/acatalog/84005207.3.jpeg https://www.briggsbits.co.uk/acatalog/84005207.3.jpeg The idea is that at low RPM such as while you start the engine, the tiny spring will hold the weight to the shaft and the bump on it will keep the exhaust valve slightly open. This will mean you don’t get normal combustion but also it will be a lot easier to turn the engine over which is important for the puny starter. At higher RPM the weight will fly out and the other side with the bump will retract causing the exhaust valve to close fully when necessary. The issue with this design is that the spring as you can see is tiny and thin and the weight is also pretty flimsy. They tend to break off and then you have a chunk of metal again. Speaking of the camshaft, notice that the cam lobes are pressed onto the camshaft, not cut out of a single piece of steel. This is cheap but tends to be very sloppy. These motors don’t run very well. And lastly, while these motors have a (tiny) oil pump and it is properly driven by the camshaft, the part that drives the oil pump is actually a separate piece of shaft that just slots into the main shaft of the camshaft. You can see it here as the short shaft with two flat parts on either end: https://www.lsengineers.co.uk/media/catalog/product/cache/2183975d50b12d1ff8f0f4c988893bcd/b/s/bs793880.jpg https://www.lsengineers.co.uk/media/catalog/product/cache/21... This means the camshaft isn’t even straight necessarily but is gear driven which requires more precision than chain, not less. This is before we get into just basics like the fact that none of them have proper head/cylinder mating surfaces so they blow head gaskets like crazy, or their very loose rockers that go out of spec all the time causing it to run very poorly and needing constant adjustment. This is the same exact engine in every smaller riding mower on the market today. If you don’t get this one, you will get a much worse Kohler equivalent. An equivalent Honda engine I could swap into my mower would cost me $2,000 for a refurb. Harbor Freight used to sell a motor for this for $800 but discontented it a few years ago. Basically, the entire market segment is shit. Greenworks and Ryobi have the electric mowers for about $5,000 that don’t seem to have these issues but batteries don’t have nearly the energy density than the two gallon of gas which is what it takes to run a normal mower for an hour.

HeyLaughingBoy 1y ago
Is this a newer design? Asking because I have a 40-year-old Murray garden tractor with an 18hp 2-cylinder Briggs 4-stroke and while it's harder to start in winter now (snowblower duty), it doesn't show any sign of dying soon.
- IgorPartola 1y ago
  This is the Intek single cylinder 500cc that is rated for 16-18hp depending on who you get it from (though internally they are all the same). I do think it is newer but not that new. Their V twins are apparently a bit more bulletproof though I haven’t taken mine apart to check. That’s the one that catches fire now due to bad wiring.