Why the race to the bottom....?

[Maine Sail]

We live in Maine, we get lots of snow, we use snowblowers to relocate the white stuff because we'll require back surgery other wise. None of this really pertains to my current level of frustration though...

My frustration is; why do I need to buy a Japanese brand snowblower to get quality, reliability and the ability to actually throw wet heavy snow....????

At home we have a Honda snowblower that has more hours on it that I can count. Living right near the ocean we get LOTS of heavy wet snow. The Honda has never once given us an ounce of trouble. Just yesterday it was throwing almost clear wet slush over 60'!! After nearly 9 months of sitting the damn thing started on half a pull (*Disclaimer: both machines are stored with TruFuel). In all the years we've owned this machine, and the tons and tons of snow it has thrown, it has broken one shear pin. The Honda shear pin is elegantly simple & nothing more than a 10mm bolt that I can buy at a Hardware store for 32¢.

It broke that shear pin because the plow truck left a 8" diameter rock, from a neighbors stone wall he destroyed, in the 4' snowbank at the end of the driveway, and I sucked it up. It took me about 25 seconds to replace it and it did not require "knocking the old one out with a punch & hammer". Other than that one shear pin, that has been it for issues. Nothing has broken! Never even replaced a belt. The thing is absolute QUALITY and yes Honda charges a premium for this quality. I was glad to pay for this quality after the piece-o-crap home center model I bought in the early 90's that lasted less than one season.

EDIT: The only thing I have done to the Honda is fluids and one minor track adjustment.

Up at our ski place, where we tend to get lighter and drier snow, we decided on an American made XXXXXX brand. My folks had one when I was a kid and as I remember it was a decent machine.

We had a tough time justifying the price of the Honda for this application and we like to buy "US Made" whenever it makes sense.. NO, we did not buy cheapened the home center version of the XXXXXX but rather the "Professional Series" with the premium price. This is the one you buy from the local mom & pop small engine shop not the Home Depot special. A supposed "quality" piece of equipment. This is also not some wimpy version either, it is XXXXXX second largest model, a 32" machine!

I am saddened that a company like XXXXXX has let Honda literally kick their a$$ this badly. As an American it frustrates the heck out of me. This machine is nowhere near the quality, nor can it do what the Honda can. It also eats $3.50 "proprietary" shear pins for breakfast.

• Last Saturday while relocating a measly 6" of white stuff I chewed through three shear pins. We go through about 20 per season!!! This really puts a huge dent into ho many "tons" of snow the unit can move per hour.....
  
• The chute won't stay where you put it and we've broken a window because of that. The chute has been adjusted no less than 10 times and still won't stay where you put it.
• It chews through belts to the tune of at least 1 per season
• Tires won't hold air, never have
  
• Drive adjustment is required about twice per year or the wheels stop spinning
• The original Chinese built engine was a pile of rust and required fiddling every season to keep it from surging, spitting and backfiring despite always running TruFuel in it. Last spring the dealer replaced it with a NOS Tecumseh.
  
• At the slightest hint of wet, slushy snow it clogs the chute.
  
• The chute direction (rotation) knob fell off and is MIA. Probably blew a shear pin when it fell off in the snow and we ran over it.
• The chute angle knob (up/down) fell off and is MIA. It too probably blew a shear pin when it fell off in the snow and we ran over it.
• The chute angle cable (up/down) seized up.
  
• The knuckles that drive the chute rotation are piles of rust and re-quire copious amounts of Fluid Film to keep them from rusting any further.
• Various bits of metal are all rusting at differing rates suggesting some real crappy and inconsistent metal sourcing.
  
• The starter motor pinion gear (on the original Chinese motor) lost all its teeth in less than 30 starts...
  
• The On/Off key switch apparently filled with melting snow and corroded causing intermittent starting, the troubleshooting that goes along with intermittent starting and eventual switch replacement. It is mounted on a near horizontal panel on the handlebars. D'oh.... Honda mounts theirs vertically so it can't fill with melting snow/water.
  
• Etc. etc....

Needless to say we have been actively looking for a used Honda....

Why oh why can't I buy a unit of comparable quality to the Honda from a US manufacturer? It's not like the Honda is a "little better", it is not even in the same league as the others. Our Honda is also smaller than the XXXXXX and it still eats the considerably larger XXXXXX for lunch.

I really hated to pay the premium price for the Honda but from the count in our neighborhood alone a lot of people are paying it. I watched my neighbor across the street chew through three home center snowblowers, a Husqvarna a Cub Cadet and an MTD all in about 6 years. Last fall he broke down and bought a Honda, the smallest one they make. During a blizzard last winter he came over to me, all bundled up in his snorkel jacket, and yelled over the motor noise, "Holy shit, now this is a snowblower!"

If there is a market for this level of quality why can't/won't a US company build to this level or better? Why race to a bottom quality level instead of racing to the top..?

Rant off...

 

[justsomeguy]

Heckuva rant!

 

[jwing]

Why the race to the bottom....? If there is a market for this level of quality why can't/won't a US company build to this level or better?

I know it's a rhetorical question, however, there is an answer to it. The key is understanding the minds of people who rise to policy-making levels of US corporations. I don't understand those people, so I can't give you the answer. I do know enough about them to know that they are good at playing corporate politics, but not usually the sharpest knives in the drawer. They do know that cheap sells and share of market is a very big deal to them. Long-term success of the company and pride in making good products are not meaningful concepts to most U.S. corporate types.

 

[BrianRobin]

Unions have a lot to do with it.

 

[justsomeguy]

Globalization is inevitable.

 

[Parsons]

You all know the answer - supply and demand. Consumers either do not know, or do not care, about the quality of certain things and compare only price. Above a certain quality standard, I do not care about more quality or features - they are valueless to me. I do the exact same thing with airline tickets or cars. Yes, I would like a free drink, a meal, or more legroom, but I am unwilling to pay $100 more. All I really care about is that I get there safely and on-time. Apparently, I'm not alone as that's the service offering by airlines. Perhaps this is the reason for the decline in US yacht construction?

Those of us that are concerned with making ends meet (for example, without ski places or waterfront living) are happy to save that $1,500+ price difference between Honda and "big-box" quality. Look at income inequality - over the past three decades, real wages have stayed flat and all of US wealth growth has accumulated in the top 5% of earners. I really love your boating site and comments on these boards, and have learned much from you, but please do not complain that there are not more options to spend money as it hit a nerve this morning.

 

[oldlaxer1]

Find an old Gravely....

 

[jwing]

Unions have a lot to do with it.

I wonder what that "lot" is. Japan has labor unions, too.

 

[shemandr]

Good rant. I think it's because we shop price first. We assume that the quality is there. We're wrong mostly. As for manufacturers I wonder a lot if the top people ever use their products. They can't because if they did they would say to their designers - FIX THAT!
BTW I bought a brand name 1 stage blower at the Mom & Pop store and paid more for it, and even bought the electric start option and the rotation chute option. All in all, it's been good for the amount of snow we get; but that electric start didn't last two seasons.

 

[Will Gilmore]

I certainly don't know anything about how your Honda snow blower ous made but I do know that it had become SOP, for larger corps, to open a factory close to their market. Your Honda may, in fact, be American made.
I do agree with jwing, there is a mind set in CEOs that says, cut today to show profits at end of year and get my bonus. Does that lead to a reduction in quality? Most likely.
- Will (Dragonfly)

 

[Don S/V ILLusion]

It's always ironic reading rants written by someone after buying something based on price rather than quality as though it wasn't a self-inflicted problem.

Cheap and value are usually mutually exclusive..

 

[Skipper]

Honda snowblowers.
Designed, developed, and made in the USA. --Honda website.

 

[Parsons]

Sorry, Skipper, I did not mean to start an argument. I thought that income and wealth equality were well-known economic concepts. On these boards we often wonder, as Maine has above, why people don't buy higher quality stuff like snowblowers or boats. I was merely suggesting that perhaps lack of money could be a reason, rather than stupidity of consumers. I do not know how trade unions entered into this, and since they represent only 10% of US workers mainly in the public/governmental sector, I fail to see the connection.

 

[Rich Stidger]

There is no substitute for quality tools. I do by inexpensive stuff for jobs that I don't do very often. But quality rules.
I can offer only one suggestion for your multitude of problems. The solution to clogged chutes and blowers from heavy wet snow is to spray the inside of them with Marvel Mystery Oil. The oil has a high film strength and will stick for most of a season. Clogs are greatly reduced. Works good on snow shovels as well.

 

[kloudie1]

This thread can go lots of places..
Automobiles too.. and much more of an investment! Note that the Honda Accord has been the top "Car and Driver" magazine pick for 31 years! Now, Accords are assembled in America (Marysville, Ohio, since 1982) .. so why can't an American manufacturing company do something like that competitively? Interesting that some of the North American industries are world leaders, like the big guys of the oil industry; Aerospace (except for "sport" aircraft) is another place where we are way up there..

 

[Maine Sail]

Those of us that are concerned with making ends meet (for example, without ski places or waterfront living) are happy to save that $1,500+ price difference between Honda and "big-box" quality.

Wrong assumption #1.

Why would you so wrongly assume my family is not concerned about making ends meet?

Did you ever consider that perhaps we may have played the real estate market, with our first three houses, that were all sweat-equity fixer-uppers, all purchased using well known real estate strategies that actually worked? Strategies that allowed us, in the end, to put more than 65% down on our current house?

Did you ever consider that our fist home cost us 70K with 5% down and that is the real estate investment what we started with?

Did you consider that the real estate in Maine, when we bought our house, well before the Portland popularity explosion, was very, very affordable?

Did you consider that we don't live in a McMansion and instead choose to live in a small home well within our means so that we can afford to have things like boat??

Did you ever consider that we never took out home equity to fund vacations, boats, vehicles etc. like so many our age?

Did you consider that when I said "near the water" it did not mean direct waterfront? Yes we are feet from it but we have neighbor between us and the water who pays the big property taxes. This was yet another strategic decision, & one that has saved us a lot of money.

Did you ever consider that perhaps we own our ski place (I could have said camp too) with my brother and his family as an easier way to afford it? (I failed to mention that, my bad)

Did you consider that we treat the ski place as any other investment? It too was a fixer upper / distress sale that we put piles of sweat equity into & we're still incrementally fixing it up almost every weekend.. We consider it a smart investment/purchase that we will get to actually use and enjoy while the value grows. In the end it will cost us nothing to have yet we get to enjoy it.

Did you consider that the whole thing costs us less than the monthly payment on a Tercel?

Did you ever consider that we have never purchased a new car, never ever will, and I won't even consider purchasing a car until it has 100K to 150K + on it?

Did you ever consider that when we then sell those cars I lose, on average, approx 15% of what I originally paid for it? Many Americans, making similar incomes to us, lose the entire value of our vehicles the minute they drive off the lot.

Did you ever consider the money we save in car payments we pay to ourselves each month as savings? Right now much of it used to fund the ski place, which will actually yield a return on our investment, when we eventually sell it..

Look at income inequality - over the past three decades, real wages have stayed flat and all of US wealth growth has accumulated in the top 5% of earners.

If you are suggesting we are in the top 5% of earners you'd be grossly mistaken. The only reason we can afford the things we own is because we have been very careful with our money. Buying quality stuff in my experience cost less over the long haul. Take for example my wife's current vehicle (another quality product). It is approaching 250K and has required virtually nothing in non-routine maintenance. It costs us nothing except gas, tires, oil changes and routine maintenance. I bought her last vehicle for $9750.00, she drove it 2.5 years, we did no non-routine maintenance, and I sold it three years later for $9500.00. I try to be smart with my money by purchasing quality, when I can. Most often buying quality has paid us back....

BTW
"The top 5% of households earn an annual income of $214,462 or higher, according to the Census Bureau."

Not us.....

I really love your boating site and comments on these boards, and have learned much from you, but please do not complain that there are not more options to spend money as it hit a nerve this morning.

There is a difference between spending money and buying quality that far too many folks fail to see. If there is one thing I have learned in 50 years it is that paying a bit more for quality very often costs less, over the long haul. Take my neighbor for example, a gold plated trust funder. He bought three machines in about six years. Those three machines cost him more than the Honda which he eventually purchased too. If he'd bough the Honda first he'd probably still be running it without the cost of the three other machines.

I will admit finding true quality these days is very tough. Lots of products that were once high quality now just masquerade as "premium" or "quality" brands, like our XXXXXX brand snowblower or the POS XXXXXX XXXXX drill and impact driver I bought a few years ago based on past reputation. The reputation some of these companies once had, can't always be counted on, as it once could.

.

 

[justsomeguy]

Interesting that some of the North American industries are world leaders, like the big guys of the oil industry; Aerospace (except for "sport" aircraft) is another place where we are way up there..

You might find that those two particular industries enjoy certain federal subsidies?
Edit- State subsidies too.

 

[Skipper]

Sorry, Skipper, I did not mean to start an argument. I thought that income and wealth equality were well-known economic concepts. On these boards we often wonder, as Maine has above, why people don't buy higher quality stuff like snowblowers or boats. I was merely suggesting that perhaps lack of money could be a reason, rather than stupidity of consumers. I do not know how trade unions entered into this, and since they represent only 10% of US workers mainly in the public/governmental sector, I fail to see the connection.

You're right.
I deleted the reference.

 

[LakeOntario270]

Why the race to the bottom....? If there is a market for this level of quality why can't/won't a US company build to this level or better?

I know it's a rhetorical question, however, there is an answer to it. The key is understanding the minds of people who rise to policy-making levels of US corporations. I don't understand those people, so I can't give you the answer. I do know enough about them to know that they are good at playing corporate politics, but not usually the sharpest knives in the drawer. They do know that cheap sells and share of market is a very big deal to them. Long-term success of the company and pride in making good products are not meaningful concepts to most U.S. corporate types.

This explains why. Great answer.

 

[kloudie1]

@ JustSomeGuy.. Generous Motors (?) and Chrysler have enjoyed fed money too..