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Twice this week, customers want stuff fixed, so I spent probably 3 or 4 hours diagnosing their equipment, asking questions on here, fixing minor things so I can make a better diagnosis, figure out what parts they'll need so I can give them a somewhat accurate quote.
And darned if they all haven't said. "Na that's OK, I'll fix it myself. "

Well crap, if you aint got the money to have something fixed, or don't wanna spend it, why bother wasting someones time.



Ok, I feel better.

Now back to your regularly scheduled program.

OH should have been around my place last Wednesday. I let two vendors have it. Promise they had resolve their after market belt problems. Well they haven't and I lost several days having to re-order the correct belts. One want if I wanted a credit for the belts and I said at this point I don't give a D****; just not ever ordering any more belts from them; I don't what their salesman says. She lied...

I hope you charged them at least a diagnostics fee before they left.

Yes at least charge an estimate fee as many are just wanting to find out what wrong so they can fix themselves besides all of our time is worth something. Besides thank you's don't pay our bills as those billers don't accept thank you notes.

ILENGINE said:

I hope you charged them at least a diagnostics fee before they left.

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The one with the messed up wiring on his JD, I'm not going to charge him anything. I should. But he's good people, just kind of poor. The other guy, with the bad governor, yup, he's getting charged.

Sounds fair to me. And you may end of with some payable business from the poor guy at a future date. Could be in the form of him sending some customers your direction.

Ah grasshopper, you are learning. I don't give estimates for any problem i am not sure of when they drop it off. I tell them there is a $20 diagnostic fee if they want an estimate. There are reasons people bring in a ragged out, red neck rigged POS machine. It finally took a dump and they can't get it running. They won't put good money in it. I don't get as many of those as i used to. There is another guy that will work on those.

I am a little different
IF I can not fix it because it is just plain worn out or parts are NLA then I bill out 1/2 hour and asked to come pick it up because I don't want it cluttering up the shop & there is nothing on it I can use .
If they ask for an estimate they get one X for parts & Y for labour.
If they ask what is exactly wrong then they get told a written quote will be $ 60 ( 1 hour )
The quote will list the parts by part number not name .
If they are a good customer then I will tell them exactly what needs doing but mostly these are drive bys
The clincher is to tell them I have most of the parts if they want to do it themselves .

The other PIA's are the shop hoppers who get quotes for everyone then pick the cheapest.
Or even worse the ones who buy the cheapest parts from a dozen different places then pick me because my labour rates are the lowest .
Nothing you can do with them other than to let the job sit for several weeks before you start it .

Honestly, is it that hard to diagnose your own lawn mower and hunt down the parts yourself? And decide if it needs the parts money spent on it, or just junk it?
Hate to think how these people go with something more complicated, like a car.

I had customers that try to fix their mowers themselves. For some it is way over their head, for some it is too simple. For one or other they just give up bring to a shop for repairs. Personally I rather have them not to try as it makes my job so much easier; otherwise, I got to undo all their makeshift repairs before I can get to the real problems.

I remember one customer recently that had starting problems. He basically was just throwing parts at it hoping to fix it. New starter and solenoid, new stator and voltage regulator. After it was getting expensive fast he yielded and brought it to my shop. It turned out to be a fifty cent terminal that failed. Once I handed him the repair bill, he was asking if I buy the new parts which I declined as I was not going to make him whole again. I did however offer to buy them at 50% of my cost as they are used items. He decided to try to sale them on eBay.

I like people who know they are not handy vs people who think they are handy.
Back in the old day job had an operator try to fix a problem in a half million dollar printer that ran 24/7. He removed a circuit board (why?????) And when he put it back in he plugged a bunch of sensors in wrong places and a couple stepper motors in wrong. Made machine do weird $h/t. Took me and a specialist 2 full days to figure what was wrong. Asked the guy 3 times if he did anything to the machine. He said no. Customer lost about $50,000 in production profit. They fired his a$$. No loss there. Maybe he can get back on at McDonald's. Nothing like standing in front of a angry customer asking when the machine will be up and you haven't got a clue why it won't boot up. The original problem was a 10 minute fix.

Those are the ones that me very upset but I have learned to take it in stride. I had a similar thing when personal/business computer were first entering the market back in the early 80's. The company owner decided to show off his accounting system on a Sunday afternoon. He couldn't how stop statement printing so just turn it off. He didn't tell me that he did it so I could run the software database repair program. Well three weeks later the accounting department ran statements afterwards the system deleted the three week of data entries. Oh we had backups which we did every day the problem was the backups from three week ago were already overwritten. It took Victor and myself three days to find that even the data was showing on the system we could never find where it was hidden as the database where it was to in ended the day the boss shut the system down. I went back with the bad news that weeks of data had to re-entered. He finally admitted a week later what he did. Oh I felt like just punching him for all the trouble he put us through. It took the accounting department two months to get all the data restored while still operating the normal daily business. Now of course you can't fire the boss of a small company.

You can't fix stupid.

Hammermechanicman said:

I like people who know they are not handy vs people who think they are handy.
Back in the old day job had an operator try to fix a problem in a half million dollar printer that ran 24/7. He removed a circuit board (why?????) And when he put it back in he plugged a bunch of sensors in wrong places and a couple stepper motors in wrong. Made machine do weird $h/t. Took me and a specialist 2 full days to figure what was wrong. Asked the guy 3 times if he did anything to the machine. He said no. Customer lost about $50,000 in production profit. They fired his a$$. No loss there. Maybe he can get back on at McDonald's. Nothing like standing in front of a angry customer asking when the machine will be up and you haven't got a clue why it won't boot up. The original problem was a 10 minute fix.

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The guy with intek & the bad gov also wanted me to fix his Husq ztr. The belt kept coming off. Looks like it was twisted. But since it was already off 2 pulley's, it's hard to say for sure. But none the less, his tensioner spring wasn't in the eyebolt, it was stretched to a different location, where there was nothing for the spring to latch into. It was just pulled against the end of a bracket. He wanted a new eye bolt. Said that would fix it.
I told him that a different eye bolt wouldn't fix it because the one he put in there was already screwed in as far as it would go. And that the problem was the belt was too long.
He wouldn't listen to me, because he installed that belt himself, and swore up and down it was the eye bolt the spring connected to. "If you don't wanna fix it, fine. I will."

So there it sits. And it's gonna cost him $35 to get it and the craftsman back, un-repaired, because he wants to fix them himself. Even thought he called me to come get them, and fix them.
Funny, some don't wanna do it. But get buyers remorse when they here what it's gonna cost to fix it, and fix it right.

PTmowerMech said:

The guy with intek & the bad gov also wanted me to fix his Husq ztr. The belt kept coming off. Looks like it was twisted. But since it was already off 2 pulley's, it's hard to say for sure. But none the less, his tensioner spring wasn't in the eyebolt, it was stretched to a different location, where there was nothing for the spring to latch into. It was just pulled against the end of a bracket. He wanted a new eye bolt. Said that would fix it.
I told him that a different eye bolt wouldn't fix it because the one he put in there was already screwed in as far as it would go. And that the problem was the belt was too long.
He wouldn't listen to me, because he installed that belt himself, and swore up and down it was the eye bolt the spring connected to. "If you don't wanna fix it, fine. I will."

So there it sits. And it's gonna cost him $35 to get it and the craftsman back, un-repaired, because he wants to fix them himself. Even thought he called me to come get them, and fix them.
Funny, some don't wanna do it. But get buyers remorse when they here what it's gonna cost to fix it, and fix it right.

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I had a feeling that what he was up to. Just want to know what wrong so he could fix it himself.

Which Hustler? Super Z, Raptor, or other. Different ways of connecting tensioner idler springs. Plus you should all the idlers for worn bearings and pivot points. I just a Raptor that had the complete tensioner idler system replaced because wear. I also currently working one of the Super Z here with a 72" deck and the neighbor the other one with a 60" deck that just re-worked last year.

I have both the Raptor and the Super Z General service manuals here if you need one of them. Current Hustler site is down until 3/28/2020 for maintenance. If it is the Super Z depending on the model I may have the IPL.

Measuring the current belt might be a little of a problem depending on length. Here my belt measurer only currently go to 170" and some Super Zs deck belts are longer. Oh well looks like I got to get another 30" extension soon if keep working these monsters.

I don't mind if there are incompetent DIY lawn mower owners trying to repair their non starters.
If they get frustrated enough it ends up on the curb, and I'm always on the lookout as I drive around.
A bit choosy though, it has to be complete and reasonably undamaged, and be of an engine design I'm familiar with.
Once fixed, some easy money to be made selling them.

PTmowerMech said:

The guy with intek & the bad gov also wanted me to fix his Husq ztr. The belt kept coming off. Looks like it was twisted. But since it was already off 2 pulley's, it's hard to say for sure. But none the less, his tensioner spring wasn't in the eyebolt, it was stretched to a different location, where there was nothing for the spring to latch into. It was just pulled against the end of a bracket. He wanted a new eye bolt. Said that would fix it.
I told him that a different eye bolt wouldn't fix it because the one he put in there was already screwed in as far as it would go. And that the problem was the belt was too long.
He wouldn't listen to me, because he installed that belt himself, and swore up and down it was the eye bolt the spring connected to. "If you don't wanna fix it, fine. I will."

So there it sits. And it's gonna cost him $35 to get it and the craftsman back, un-repaired, because he wants to fix them himself. Even thought he called me to come get them, and fix them.
Funny, some don't wanna do it. But get buyers remorse when they here what it's gonna cost to fix it, and fix it right.

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Man you you are getting "lucky " with some customers. I have been lucky enough that in the last couple years i have not gotten one of those. Actually just had a cust give me a few extra $ over what i billed because i turned it around fast for them.

Opposite of a rant here!

Picked up a curbside mower yesterday.
Complete, nothing missing, complete with catcher.
Took it home, washed it, no start.
Injected fuel into the carb, fired right up.
Cleaned out the carb and fuel tank, fired up and ran like a new one. 159 cc of raw push mower power!
Changed the oil.

But honestly, putting a mower worth AU $450 * new out on the curb, when two hours of fiddling fixes it?
Some people!
Their loss, my gain.

*Older model, no fuel filter or tap on the actual fuel line, relies on float chamber to stop fuel when switched off. No way to run the carb dry.
In line tap and filter on order.
Something I discovered on a mower of similar age, no vent hole in the fuel cap. Quick drill fixed that.

The bloke I bought the repair run moved down the coast to a beach town near Canberra ( The capitol of Australia ).
He was building a new house so did not get back into business for a while but he did notice a lot of almost new mowers on the side of the road every monday morning.
He thought that this was a lazy contractor but his first trip to the tip proved this wrong.
Brand new mowers there for peanuts.
Eventually he found out what happens in the very much over paid public servants with no concept of the real value of money flex off Friday to prep their house for a Saturday dinner party
Because it is a seas side suburb mower will not start so they ring Harvy Norman ( Big box discount store ) at Nowra because they do same day delivers & get a brand new mowwer / hedge trimmer / line trimers / BBQ etc
Make the yard look perfect for their perfect party then toss the ones that did not work out Monday morning before they drive back to Canberra,'The actual working residents have stopped collected then because they all have 2 or 3 almost new everything in their sheds but will occasionally exchange atheri 3 year old one for a brand new one.
And this includes $ 2000 Honda SP's and every now & then a RER

That's Canberra for you!

I won't be collecting any more, now have three.
All three start first pull. Massaged them to perfection.
I rotate through them, buy a gallon of gas, fuel them all up, run each in turn until dry. Takes maybe 6 months.
My curb find is first, love the sound of a big block (159 cc) mower!