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A couple of weeks ago I found out that my thirty five year old Troy Bilt tiller was dead. Well, OK, not dead, but given the length of time it would take to get parts, if I could get them, along with the expense, it simply made more sense to get a new tiller.
First thing I did was go to the local Troy Bilt dealer. For $2,200 I could get another Horse model, but it certainly wasn't the same as my old Horse tiller. The sheet metal was thinner, there was a lot more plastic, some of the amenities were gone, it simply seemed that the quality of this machine was lacking. But had perused other tillers over the preceding months and found that quality seemed to be lacking in all modern domestic tillers, a field dominated by the MTD corporation.
So I had them fill up the tank so that I could take it out for a test run. Tank filled, they yanked, and yanked, and yanked. Not a good sign, but the salesman mentioned that it probably just needed to be primed, a reasonable observation on a new machine, so he took off the air filter, poured in some gas, and then yanked the cord again, and again, and again. Lather, rinse, repeat, this is not a good sign, especially since I had gotten spoiled, my old Horse had fired up on the first pull until the day it died.
Well, the guy yanked again, and then gas started pouring out, the plastic gas tank had split, so that was that. I walked away from the deal and decided to look elsewhere. I did my research and found that first of all, most "American made" tillers were actually a composite of parts made elsewhere, with Honda engines or Chinese frames. Secondly, none of them measured up to the quality of my old Troy Bilt. Everywhere I looked, thin sheet metal, lots of plastic, fewer amenities (hell, most of the MTD lineup didn't even have a neutral gear, to free wheel you had to undo cotter pins and move the wheels in order to free wheel.
But in the reviews one name consistently came up on top, BCS, an Italian made tractor/tiller combination. The nearest dealer who had models on the floor and who was reasonably priced was over four hundred miles away, so going to visit was out of the question. Well, I took a chance, laid my money down (and yes, this was a few hundred more than the Horse by Troy Bilt), and yesterday it came.
This machine reminds me of my old Troy Bilt. Solid steel everywhere. The sheet metal is thick, the gas tank is metal(with a built in intake filter), the handlebars are durable steel, this machine simply oozes durability. I took it for a spin in the garden, and it was a dream. Three forward speeds, two reverse speeds, and I can shift into neutral on the fly, not stop and re-affix the wheels. I will be surprised if this machine doesn't last for the rest of my life, or at least until I'm in my seventies.
So what's the point of this, other than my bragging. It's this, I will get pilloried by some folks around here for buying a foreign made machine over an American one, even though the American made machine is of lesser quality and I can't afford to throw away money. There are some out there who would want me to go ahead and throw away that money simply to keep Americans employed. They believe that I should accept a shoddier product, or one that doesn't meet my needs, for the greater good of our country.
This applies to all sorts of things, but especially machinery, cars, motorcycles, etc. The same sentiment is there, buy American, sacrifice my hard earned money in order support American workers. Yet the thing is, I can't afford to do that. Will I look at American products, certainly, they will get top priority. But if I'm going to drop down anything over a couple of hundred bucks on any sort of machine, I want quality and durability, with the features I need, and if it's not there in an American product, I'll buy a foreign product. This is what I've done with my motor vehicles. When I went out of buy a car, I looked at American makes, first and foremost, and didn't like what I saw and read (this was in '98). At the time, apparently American cars hadn't changed much, their quality was lower than that of the foreign makes, and at the time virtually all American makes were big, big cars, big trucks, big SUV's. So I bought a Honda Civic that's still doing well ten years and a couple of hundred thousand miles later. Same with my small Nissan truck, also a '98. Meanwhile, when I went scooter shopping four years ago, there wasn't a single American made scooter, and I'm certainly not going to buy a Harley when that's not what I want, need or can afford. So I went with a Baja, from India, and it's been a great ride ever since.
The thing is, I think that I'm like most Americans, I would like to buy American, but I can't afford to. Sure, the product may be cheaper than an import, but that difference is more than made up by the fact that the American product is less durable, and will have a shorter lifespan. This has been a trend in most American machinery over the past three decades. However that could be reversing. With the example of the car company crisis in this country, perhaps other American machinery manufacturers will sit up and take notice, and start making what Americans want, and start making products of better durability. It is a positive sign that finally, at the brink of disaster, that the Big Three seem to have gotten the message and are doing just that. Let's hope others will follow.
So that's my new tiller story. Now, here in a bit I'm going to go out and finish replacing the front axle on my five year old, American made John Deere lawn tractor. Hmmm.
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