UPS rant, Ebay rant, wife rant, mower rant. GRRRRR.....

[STINEY]

So last summer my lovely wife neglected to check the oil in our super-duper zero turn mower, that I bought solely for the purpose of saving time. So the Briggs throws a rod.

New engine is $1300. And it is still a bearingless Briggs. After searching for a year for a decent used replacement, and having several wild goose chases ending in failure, I find that a Kohler was also an option for this mower, and find a decent used engine of that brand. At least they use bearings, and are worth rebuilding.

So it shows up this morning at work. Box is soaked in oil and has been repackaged by UPS. Bad sign.....

Found this on opening.

I am now officially in a bad mood. Tired of chasing parts for a d@#* lawnmower!


(trying to post pictures from my phone, they should at least be crappy enough quality to upload directly)

[TheSilverBuick]

I'd be furious as well.

[squirrel]

Many clueless ebay sellers don't know how to pack anything. I'd go thru ebay to try to get your money back, it's the sellers fault for not packing it properly. I don't know what happened, but I do know that if you make the effort to pack it right, it will survive almost anything UPS throws at it (excepting the occasional fork lift fork, or big truck tire)

[shaun callaway]

i belong to a few prop forums and i can say nobody at all knows how to pack stuff for shipping. when me or my buddy send something out theres always enough packing for 3 packages and it always makes it there in one piece. i get so furious when i receive something and its damaged. the bad this is i always know when ups is at my house cause the package hits the door then the floor and by the time i get there the ups guy is long gone.

[milner351]

That is freaking ridiculous - Seth and I have spent time building crates to ship engines. I shipped a 428 cj block and crank to Minneapolis by truck frieght. I started with a pallet - screwed a lumber frame into the pallet to hold the block in place - put 2" styrofoam board around everything, then 1/2" osb box screwed together around that. I charged the buyer $50 crating fee and surely lost money on it - thankfully Seth works for beer.

There's no reason that buyer should have shipped that engine unprotected - at the very least they should have put that engine on a piece of board larger than the engine - screwed it into place and then put it into a box.

The seller should give you a refund.

Was the shipping insured? If Yes - that maybe a way for you to get a replacement or some money back.

I hear you - nothing frustrates me more than having to spend time messing with a mower when I'd rather not have to cut the grass in the first place.

I hope you can get relief from this situation in some unpainful way - I'm sure your wife feels extra terrible now.

[squirrel]

Mowers...that reminds me...I bought a belt and blades for my mower on ebay last fall, they never showed up, USPS (post office) tracking said they received the item for shipping but never delivered it. I emailed the seller (a decent sized company) and they sent me a replacement on their dime (it was not insured). he said they've never lost anything before in the mail.

must be something about lawn mower parts?

[STINEY]

I called the seller/shipper, its supposed to be insured. But his Ebay Consignment shop is what he does on the days he's not working another job, so he wants to call me back tomorrow when he can get to his paperwork.

Fine, I get that, but no call tomorrow and I go into bulldozer mode. Since I shipped this to work, and we get 30-60 packages everyday, we know the ropes on how to get claims taken care of. Plus this was paid for with my credit card thru paypal, and I also know those ropes, so no call tomorrow and MasterCard will be issuing a provisional credit and opening a claim as well. The fellow seemed very sincere and assured me I wouldn't be hung out to dry. That's all fine too, but I've witnessed very sincere liars before too. Guess I'm getting older and more knowledgable, not about to take this one in the nuts.


Quite frankly, I'm amazed that UPS let him ship this thing full of oil. It must have been full, made one heck of a mess, and UPS also wrapped it with plastic at some point after initial pickup.

Yeah, my wife feels extra crappy every time an engine "find" falls apart for whatever reason. I think perhaps she will be especially religious about checking the oil from now on. Strange thing is, she checks the oil in her car on a regular basis, and is good about taking care of most mechanical things. On that particular day, I don't know, brain fart or extra blondness or something kicked in. I suppose I was kind of a dick about it for a few months too, but I waited 2 years in line at work for a decent trade to come in so I could get the mower to save time, then this happens. Just ripped the wind right outta my sails.

[milner351]

Is there a good aluminum Tig welder and weldor at work or near by? I've got to believe that is repairable.... even though it never should have happened in the first place.

I have my old chainsaw up on ebay now - I'm surely going to drain all the fuel and chain oil out of it before I ship it, but I'll still put it in a bag anyway.

[STINEY]

Its a clean break, and fits back in pretty good. It has a second drain hole so that one could just be welded shut. Have to hunt hard to find someone to weld aluminum around these parts though, most are still in the buzzbox era.

Someone should appreciate you taking care of your chainsaw oil before shipping it. If they don't, right now I appreciate you enough for doing it right to make up for 2 people who don't.

[dieselgeek]

Dang Stiney, that sucks!! I'm a ZTR freak, and NOT a fan of the Kohler engines either - my Scag's CV22 (short production run because they were POS) likes to spit lifters out the valve cover... about once a year. It seems better if I run synthetic oil and give it a long, slow warmup and ESPECIALLY a long slow cool down.

Which briggs model and how much HP is it? Honda makes a VERY nice direct bolt-on replacement for 22-25hp Kohlers and Briggs that you can find brand new for $800 (usually on sale at Northern tool). Presuming yours is a vertical shaft v-twin?

[Brian Lohnes]

Similar but not really kinda story here...

Last year I had to ship a fork truck from my office to the fine dudes in the Cincinnati office. Big company, our corporate is going to take care of the shipping stuff. No sweat....wrong. I'm expecting a flat bed trailer, instead a normal "van" trailer shows up with this wild Russian sounding dude driving. He tells me to drive the fork truck in the trailer. Before doing that I shot about a zillion digital photos of this thing so I had evidence that it left my place in fine shape. Anyway, I pull the thing on, and the guys asks for a 2x4 and a couple nails. He puts the 2x4 behind the little rear tires of the fork truck, nails it down and he's done. By the time it got to the office it had a busted windshield and a bunch of other problems. It apparently punched through the trailer at some point because those guys told me that there were holes in the side of the thing!

Shipping...apparently not an easy task.

Brian

[tardis454]

I thought getting my cylinder heads back 1/2 finished was bad, that sux man.
I've dealt with receiving damaged items from UPS thing too, it's a pita.
There's a few "good" shops up here that tig weld steel/aluminum if that helps...
Hope the seller straightens this mess out.

Forward this photo to UPS.

[Stich496]

just put a vw engine on it and be done with it.

[tardis454]

just put a vw engine on it and be done with it.

Brilliant idea!!!

[STINEY]

Dang Stiney, that sucks!! I'm a ZTR freak, and NOT a fan of the Kohler engines either - my Scag's CV22 (short production run because they were POS) likes to spit lifters out the valve cover... about once a year. It seems better if I run synthetic oil and give it a long, slow warmup and ESPECIALLY a long slow cool down.

Which briggs model and how much HP is it? Honda makes a VERY nice direct bolt-on replacement for 22-25hp Kohlers and Briggs that you can find brand new for $800 (usually on sale at Northern tool). Presuming yours is a vertical shaft v-twin?

That's my problem DG, I can find verticle shaft engines all day long cheap; I need a horizontal shaft. For some reason they seem rare and expensive, like 3-4 times the price of the same verticle shaft engine.

My original was a Briggs 18hp Vanguard V-twin, 1"x3" shaft. This replacement is a 18hp Kohler V-twin, the model is a CH18S, they call it a Command.

You can bet your bottom dollar that I already measured for a VW. Anything can be done, but it would take more fabrication than I'm willing to take time for, just to mow grass. Have to "backhalf" the frame, come up with a way to mount a starter to the engine, change the drive setup (its too far from the crank centerline to the deck drive with a vw in there, the front drive would be too high then.)

Love that blue tractor!