HF Predator Engine

[motoman]

Stumbled onto a home mail ad : 6.5 HP Harbor Freight Predator 4 stroke ,$99 in non CA and CA trim. About 40 reviews surprisingly good if you can believe them. Seems this is a drop in for many tiller, pump, apps. For your information.

 

[bertsmobile1]

Stumbled onto a home mail ad : 6.5 HP Harbor Freight Predator 4 stroke ,$99 in non CA and CA trim. About 40 reviews surprisingly good if you can believe them. Seems this is a drop in for many tiller, pump, apps. For your information.

So go ahead and buy one of these cheap Chineese rip offs but don't complain when your kids/ grand kids can not get a job because the only jobs left are sales assistants at HF & Walmart.

 

[nick9882]

So buy what?? A Briggs?? And you think none of Briggs parts are made in China?? You should do you research. Buy the HF engine. It a good engine and parts are readily available for it. We run them on a couple pieces of commercial equipment and they do just fine.

 

[Homer1]

I have a friend that dropped one into a tiller 3 years ago, still running strong. Apparently they are a close replica to a Honda engine. I'd buy one if I had a need. I plan on buying one of their "Predator" generators when they are on sale again. The 5500 watt got marked down to 300 bucks last year. I may never use it, but ****** I'm gonna have one in the garage just in case, lol.

 

[motoman]

Much as one may hate to admit it the Chinese will eventually get to where the Japanes and Koreans are. Their big military parades this week should be full of fairly reliable equipment. At the rate the heat is rising in the China sea we may soon find out. (Woops, I think I just turned this into a front porch item)

 

[bertsmobile1]

well if your post didn't , my reply most likely will.
At the very first trade conference I went to as a nice freshly minted Metallurgist way back in the 70's had the first paper given by a spokesperson for the government Department of Trade & Industry.
Their paper focused on how Australia was the answer to world manufacturing as we had an highly educated workforce, abundant resources , plenty of green field development sites, cheap export freight rates , the cheapest coal & electricity in the western world and no quotas on energy consumption. This paper did not get any responce from the audience.
The second paper was given by a spokesperson from the private Chamber of Manufacturers.
Their paper focused on how uncompetative local manufacturing was, how much overpaid the work force was and how troublesome unions were.
He preached that the only future for Australia was to outsorce all of our manufacturing to Japan while maintainnig the highly profitable design in Australia because the Japaneese did not have the capacity to develope quality products. This paper got a standing ovation.

5 years latter the same paper was presented only the country changed from Japan to Singapore , then it was the Phillipines , a bit latter it became Korea, then India , then Brazil , then Malaysia , then Indonseia and now China.

Being a bit peeved at blatant corperate racism and by having my time wasted listening to this drivel I once question one of the presenters as to weather he was being racist and drew his attention to 5 previous reguratations of essentially the same paper and perhaps it would be more prudent to invest in higher productivity equipment in order to get a better return on the "overpriced labour" . I was jeered violently by the other candidates and then ejected from the room.
Over the past 50 years I have watched this idiot racist mentality destroy the entire manufacturing base.

The danger is not from China pushing but from the local market pulling.
Businesses chasing way too much profit and consumers rewarding them by consuming every imported product with glee, regardless of the effect on the local economy and eventually the entire country itself .

China will not invade Amercia, it will use Amercians own greed to sent the country to the wall much the same way as mulitnational bought out most production in OZ then ofshored it the second they could get a better price elsewhere.

 

[Mikel1]

Yeah I have been looking at the same one to put on an old tiller. On sale for $99 right now.
Anyone else used this engine on here?

 

[John R]

So go ahead and buy one of these cheap Chineese rip offs but don't complain when your kids/ grand kids can not get a job because the only jobs left are sales assistants at HF & Walmart.

Seems all the stuff we buy now is made poorly, even the B&S are throw away's unless you get their commercial ones, and they are questionable.
I know guy's that run the harbor fright engines without any problems.

 

[motoman]

Behold the wheel and bow and arrow. Try to keep that from going 'round the world. And Detroit..it is a tragedy, but plenty of thought to go around. Management was greedy and uncaring, but unions had big chip and did not maintain quality. (I have worked for teamsters AND in the corporate world.) China is beginning to reap the whirlwind as some get rich and others now cannot find work. Remember, to do business in China foreign companies have to provide so called "technology transfer," or "show me how you make it"...So the stuff will get better like other Asian product.

JohR, Yep I used to think Briggs were throw aways, but once I fixed the quality lapses ole Intek is still doing its thing since 2004.

 

[bertsmobile1]

Behold the wheel and bow and arrow. Try to keep that from going 'round the world. And Detroit..it is a tragedy, but plenty of thought to go around. Management was greedy and uncaring, but unions had big chip and did not maintain quality. (I have worked for teamsters AND in the corporate world.) China is beginning to reap the whirlwind as some get rich and others now cannot find work. Remember, to do business in China foreign companies have to provide so called "technology transfer," or "show me how you make it"...So the stuff will get better like other Asian product.

JohR, Yep I used to think Briggs were throw aways, but once I fixed the quality lapses ole Intek is still doing its thing since 2004.

The problem goes like this.

Currently China is bending over backwards to develope a big manufacturing industry, offering all sorts of incentiveves that a non authoritarian government can match.
However once a local factory has closed down it will never reopen unless a rich benefactor can be found.( or you can convince the government to foot the bill )
This is because "shareholders money" can make a no risk return importing for almost no cost on a very quick turn around as comparred to the massive risk of setting up an expensive fatory to make a mower on the hope it will be successful in the market place and a long term turn around.
If you had $ 200,000,000 to invest which would you preferr to put your money into
1) a mower factory that might give you a return of 10% to 30% pa in a few years time which employs several hundred people, or
2) a lot of different items of trash products that will return you 200% profit in less than 3 months and employs a dozen or so people.
It is really a no brainer if your only motive is raw profit.

The long term outcome is falling employment and lots of unemployed on benefits.
Even worse is the "rip off" products steal the good will of main line companies who do the hard yards and maintain an inventory of spare parts in very expensive warehouses and distribution networks.
They do this by ensuring Honda consummable parts will also fit their engines so they make all the profit from selling the complete engine and Honda makes the loss by long term supplying the spare parts needed to keep the engine running.
When we had a regulated importing regime down here, distributors had to maintain adequate spares for eninges for a prescribed number of years. This put a brake on what was economic to import and basically better quality goods were imported to reduce the amount of "dead" inventory required to keep them running.
Both your government & our government run this idiot line about transferring to a "service" economy.
The problem with this is a "service economy" does not create wealth . just like a TAX it simply transferrs money from one pocket to another, there is no net increase in value.
Real wealth only comes from doing something to an item that makes it worth more money.
This can be writing code to make a computer do a job better or turning a lump of rocks into metal and metal into a mower.
Increasing quality of living can only be accomplished by inceasing real wealth, not by simple transferring of wealth from one pocket to another.
Had your current government not pumped billions into the motor industry Ric would not be salivating about the new Ford truck because Ford will be owned by Win Wan enterprises and be assembling Woo Hoo trucks that are too expensive to ship fully assembled.
While it seem great to save $ 500 on a motor for your plow that is not much of a saving whn comparred to the $ 60,000 your children did not make this year because they could not find a job for over 12 months. Or the $ 40,000 difference beteen what they made working at the mower factory and what they make flipping burgers at the local take away.