Husqvarna Chainsaw Fiasco

Yep! The key to this whole scenario is to shop. Often I've been pleasantly surprised to find the best deal at the least likely place. and that includes the guy you'd swear would not compete.

When you live on SS, you don't toss your money around like it's from a bottomless well. Our lifestyle is a humble one, but we live as comfortably as we choose, and do it on minimum money by not being wasteful or stupid in how we use what we have. In order to do that, we have learned to shop before we buy. It always pays benefits.

Harold

True, it's like flipping a coin: Heads, Tail or OnEdge. HTH

You will, of course, pay the appropriate tax on your out-of state purchase, though?

I know I always do....

I could use a brush hog too, but first the hydraulics for the front blade. Dragging snow is tougher than pushing it.

. Then, in the last go-'round, when

Done deal, and for ever. Any time I find a business that has that kind of attitude, I not only don't patronize them, but I make sure that others understand their attitude. There's nothing like negative advertising to sink a business, and it's the cheapest and easiest advertising a person can get, with plenty to go around. All it takes is a go-to-hell attitude displayed to the consumer like the example above.

Small wonder!

Interestingly, a local hardware store recently learned how to sharpen their pencil. A few years back I needed some damp proofing for the foundation of the shop. They wanted double the price asked at Home Depot. The 50 mile drive one way was worth the trip because we needed a few pails. Of late, however, they seem in tune with more reasonable pricing and we've been spending our money with them. Smart business people don't rely on screwing the consumer if they want to be in business tomorrow. All too many of them chase business away that way. For the most part, they're now getting a wakeup call in our community. HD is going to open a local store, and Wal-Mart has one of the largest stores in the western US near us. There's considerable bitching, but it's going to get things on an even keel here. In the end, more of the local dollars will remain here, instead of going to other communities where prices are reasonable.

Harold

Or he's tweaking your nose . I checked with our Comsumer Products Service Manager- here's how it works: "Authorized" Toro dealers do not have to work on any machine they didn't sell and cannot warranty repair any product line they don't sell. So if a hardware store only sells Toro leaf blowers, they cannot do warranty work on a Toro lawn mower. Fair enough.

Toro "Master Service" dealers can do warranty work on any non-commercial equipment and must accept any warranty work that comes in the door. If the equipment was purchased from a 'big box' store (one without a service department), the dealer will get a small incentive spiff in addition to the normal repair payment. There is no higher labor rate. If the equipment was purchased from another Toro dealer, there is no spiff.

Toro Commercial distributors cannot do any sales or repair on consumer goods.

HTH.

-Carl

Hehe. He usually doesn't do that unless its Friday at quitting time... :-)

Interesting. I didn't see any of this on the Toro site - I wonder if they spell it out in the warranty language or in the user manuals for the machines?

Thanks for the clarification.

Mother in law owns the small town (500) paper. Town grocery decided it wasn't worth advertising in the paper for $300 for the month. Mom stopped buying food there. Any guesses on how much a family with 6 kids spends at the grocery?

Joel. phx

Oh, yeah! I'm always the first guy in line on Monday morning. I consider it an honor to be paying taxes in a state that is near the highest one in the nation in taxation and can't find enough reasons or ways to get them even higher. That isn't preventing them from trying, though.

Good luck with that project. The best scenario is to live where there's no snow. Notice I don't practice what I preach?

Harold

Ha, that's *nothing*. What about the time the local liquor store gave my mom the wrong change from a 20, and denied gyping her?

That place went out of business a couple of years later.

Jim

================================================== please reply to: JRR(zero) at yktvmv (dot) vnet (dot) ibm (dot) com ==================================================

Talk about biting the hand the feeds you!

Harold

Hmmm, I'm asking myself the same question as I look at fuel prices. Our biggest local dealer, who used to be a mom & pop of long-standing in the community, was purchased by "city people," a couple of years ago, (literally, NYC "investors") and now refuses to deliver anything less than 150 gal. at a pop, and at nearly $1.60/gal this is a bit much for *many* people in this tiny burg to cough up at a time (myself included, sometimes). Their excuse is, "With everybody only buying

100 gallons at a time, we can't keep up with the deliveries." Huh?? A competitor will gladly deliver of theirs will gladly deliver less.

A survey of local kerosene prices (at the pump) yields $1.95/gal for the "local guy" and $1.63/gal for the town 11 miles away (further south, that is). I've been asking myself for several years now, since our local grocery chain started charging "screw you" prices year 'round, rather than just in the summer, "When did the local, small business model become &$#@* the Locals?"

Amen! Another local fuel dealer, this one a gas station, (also owned by a transplanted city dude, oddly enough..hmmm, notice a trend?) was on the gas roller coaster recently, but keeping prices apace with the larger community down the road. Then, in the last go-'round, when prices dropped back down 20-cents or so, his stayed high. Consequently, I stopped buying my gas there. Then, one day I stopped and asked, with all due respect, why their price had previously reflected that of the same brand station in the next town, but this time had stayed high? His reply? "Go down there and buy your gas." So, guess who _doesn't_ get my 3-5 fillups a week now?

-- Chuck *#:^) chaz3913(AT)yahoo(DOT)com Anti-spam sig: please remove "NO SPAM" from e-mail address to reply. <

September 11, 2001 - Never Forget

I learned that lesson from a former employee years ago. He told of working for an old guy who sent him out for some item to purchase. When the guy returned with his purchase and showed the old guy the price, the guy asked him what the other two prices were.. Employee said "HUH?" That has always stuck with me, and getting at least 3 prices for anything over around $50 is now what I do.

RJ

Ha ha ha. I would definitely bet a hundred dollars, that if the same guy went out and did comparison shopping, and found the best price by going to three different sources, and saved his boss ten percent on the purchase of a $500 item, the first words out of the bosses mouth when he arrived back at the shop would be:

W H E R E T H E H E L L H A V E Y O U

B E E N A L L D A M N D A Y !!!!!!

Bosses tend only see the downside to certain employee pracices. :^)

Jim

================================================== please reply to: JRR(zero) at yktvmv (dot) vnet (dot) ibm (dot) com ==================================================

About 10 minutes after you posted this, Rich indicated that the saw was a

9HP chainsaw for using on an Alaskan mill. That means its a model 3120XP. A 3120XP with a 36" bar and chain is available for $1179 + $2.50 s&h with no sales tax from southwestfastener.com. The same package is $1199 from alamia.com with free s&h and no sales tax. If you're willing to order from Canada you can easily do $100 better. Both of the dealers listed above are Husqvarna dealers and the US warranty is valid on all Husqvarna saws purchased from Canadian dealers.

Unless Rich lives in Oregon or Washington, the local dealers probably aren't going to stock this saw. They will special order it and he would have to wait a minimum of a week to get it. If they are like most of the local shops around me, they are going to sell it for MSRP plus or minus 5%. MSRP on this saw is $1399.95 for the power head only. A 36" bar and chain from a local dealer will run you another $120 or so. The *sales tax* you'd pay the local dealer would most likely cost more than an hours worth of labor.

Rich probably would have paid an extra ~$400 dollars to possibly get good service from his dealer. However, he might not have gotten significantly better service either...

On Fri, 23 Jan 2004 16:11:05 GMT, Rick Chamberlain brought forth from the murky depths:

Where the 'ell did you find the warranty info on the Husky site? I looked at the registration pages, did a search, etc. and in 15 minutes had not been able to find anything except the 15-day money back guarantee, the Husqvarna Crown Commitment. The searches under both product and manuals for "warranty" turned up empty.

Perzactly.

------------------------------------------------------ No matter how hard you try, you cannot baptize a cat. ----------------------------

Comprehensive Website Development ---------------------------------------------------

Found it under one of the chainsaws. Once there, I downloaded the owners manual. Not sure if this link will work, but give it a shot. It's for the 3120XP saw (watch the wrap):

No excuse for bad attitude, but gas prices are an odd case. Assume a station buys 3,000 gallons at a time (pretty typical). They sell it at a price that is usually 1-5 cents above their invoice (plus all the taxes). If the price of gas goes up 3 cents and they were selling at 2 cents over cost they have to dig into profit from other sales to cover the increase, but they can recoup that as they sell the new load. The problem comes when the price starts to drop. If the station across the street buys a new load that is 6 cents cheaper and cuts their retail price while you still have 2,000 gallons in the tanks you are pretty much up the proverbial creek sans paddle. If you price match the guy across the street you lose money on every gallon you sell. If you don't it takes forever to empty your tank and refill with cheaper gas. Most stations split the difference.

Most of the c-store gas stations actually sell their gas at almost no profit because they make the money on beer and cigs. The low gas price is just to get you in the door. Stations that sell gas and do mechanical work can also keep their prices lower. The ones that only sell gas usually have the highest prices because they have to make enough profit to run the business, and that will depend on volume and the local competition.

Tim Douglass

She has a lot of friends in town.

Jim

================================================== please reply to: JRR(zero) at yktvmv (dot) vnet (dot) ibm (dot) com ==================================================

If they shop efficiently, in the $250-300/month range. :) However, grocery stores are a _low_ margin operation. 4% gross profit is a "healthy" store. that $300 of revenues means maybe $10-12 gross profits.

Then, there's the _other_ side of the story. The town I grew up in was considerably bigger -- metro area circa 250,000 -- but it was a one- newspaper town. Just after the Korean conflict, the paper raised it's ad rates significantly. The local owner of three grocery stores went in to 'talk about it'. The paper said, in almost so many words, "If you don't like our rates, advertise in another newspaper". He pulled _all_ his newspaper advertising. Eliminated 'advertising' as a line-item in his budget. *REDUCED* his shelf prices by the amount of the expense reduction. Sent a one-time mailing to every household in town, announcing why he wouldn't be running any more newspaper ads, what he'd done with his prices, and asking people to patronize his stores. 15 years later, he had 10 stores in town, and the _smallest_ of his stores did twice the volume of the next-largest store in town.

Since that time, they've run a newspaper ad precisely _once_. And _never_ done any radio or TV advertising. The one occasion was to mark the opening of a new "showplace" store -- lots of exotic vegetables, etc. And more than twice the square footage of any prior store.

They bought one full-page ad, and the newspaper ran a THREE PAGE (three _full_ pages, including the entire front page of the 'family' section) "feature" story about the new store. (Yes, the newspaper management was _drooling_ at the thought that they might start behaving like a 'regular' grocery again -- picking up several full pages of ads every week.)

They're a _strange_ operation. They don't advertise -- that one newspaper ad was the *only* piece of paid-for advertising they've done in more than FIFTY YEARS now. They don't even hang sale signs in the windows. Or have sale flyers in the store. Their prices are generally stable/predictable, and -- except for 'loss-leader' sale items at other stores -- usually lower than at the competition. Combined with superior customer-service (would you believe that they _still_ have the 'bag boys' take groceries to your car and load 'em for you?), it's a _very_ successful model.