Walmart

The car won't start because the battery, not quite dead, does not quite have enough charge to start the car. They just need a little help, not the full 400 amps the starter might require. In fact, if the battery is 100% flat, you probably won't be able to start it with 2/0 booster cables. Even if you did, the alternator alone probably would not keep it running. Most battery jumps are successful because the donor car is just charging the battery to get it over the "hump". So your 12-gauge cables do the job just fine.

True - however while the Walmart 45 minutes away from your rural homestead may approach a bricks and mortar monopoly, they have to compete with online retailers offering delivery to your door in a day or three. Probably, there will be one of those offering the professional version of an item - ie, the one used by people who use it daily and know how it's supposed to work.

We buy from a lot of manufacturers who also sell to Wal-Mart. The Turtle Wax guy was showing us the new items for 2006. One was cross off with a red pen. We asked what happened to that one. the answer was "We announced it, but Wal-Mart did not buy it, so we cancelled it". Similarly, WD40 came out with a new pen applicator. We placed an order then, but were told that it would not be available to anyone but Wal-Mart until Jan 2006. it would take them that long - 6 months production - to fill the Wal-Mart order.

I wouldn't say there is a strict monopoly on much of anything sold in the US, and Internet shopping, a modern replacement for catalog shopping, makes a wide variety of things available to most people.

But if you look at the practicalities of it, in which there are things that few people would buy on the Internet, and there are things you want to see and to buy *now*, the reality is that a strongly dominant retailer who has knocked off much of the local competition is in a position to decide what your choices will be. They lose contact with what you may want because they don't have enough *volume* of competition to measure what it is you *do* want.

It's a matter of numbers and weighting, not a matter of absolutes.

-- Ed Huntress

They shut off or report error conditions, where I think the battery can be still charged.

i

Almost no one "overbuilds" anything anymore that is sold to "consumers". Looks like consumers like you are rare and short term thinking CEOs and boards are the rule.

I had a problem with a Maytag dryer where a particular plastic plunger was clearly designed to fail after warranty expires.

The lawnmower that I have, was sold without a fuel filter or shutoff valve. As I learned, basically no lawnmowers have that anymore. Saved $3 to the manufacturer. The cost to me, $99 for a new carb, as I had no time to clean the old one under the threat of city code inspectors.

i

I agree. I am rather disappointed about it, as I think that the manufacturers could do something at the extra cost of, say, under $15.

i

It's worse. If you dive all the way down to buying the Wal-Mart brand $0.99/can spray paint, you'll find that one can of $2.99 Ace Spray enamel will cover as much as four cans of the Wally-World stuff.

LLoyd

Good morning, Iggy ! Hope you had a good sleep. Ken.

I have had completely satisfactory performance from Minn-Kota automatic chargers on deep-cycle batteries in my boat.

12 ga X 3. The three wires were paralleled.

Ron Thompson On the Beautiful Florida Space Coast, right beside the Kennedy Space Center, USA

hobby pages are here: Severe stupidity is self correcting, but mild stupidity is rampant in the land.

-Ron Thompson

Hum - a pair of long Welding lines - Gas Oxy - 1/4 or ?bigger ? - feed down one an 4 or #2 wire. Have a thick protective layer... -

Hum - what a thought - a faulty or used long welding lines are trash - and maybe just dirty with a bad connector(s) - clipped off anyway...

Martin Martin Eastburn @ home at Lions' Lair with our computer lionslair at consolidated dot net NRA LOH & Endowment Member NRA Second Amendment Task Force Charter Founder

Carl Byrns wrote:

I think the only difference was that Sears was a massive mail order company - to the ignored fly over region. You could buy a house or chickens. House in a kit form would be delivered. Chickens by the mailman.

The big help was - there wasn't a store - not for 50 or 100 miles... If it was then it was for food and general store - maybe a coop.

What I see is multi-generation family businesses have been crushed. This was wrong. I didn't see a buyout offer - just lots of cheap or volume stuff.

I like the small shops - were people knew their business and products. These big ones are programmed from afar and sell 'us' what they want to sell - and it likely is different in different areas - e.g. only 100 of these turkey things - ship them to Charlie and give him xxx per item to sell over the normal margin.

Martin

Martin Eastburn @ home at Lions' Lair with our computer lionslair at consolidated dot net NRA LOH & Endowment Member NRA Second Amendment Task Force Charter Founder

Ed Huntress wrote:

The same thing has been said about a lot of the "chain" stores.

The "funny" thing is that, in my small town, Wal-Mart really isn't competing with the existing stores [a lot of the older businesses closed during the '90s (Wally-World didn't arrive until 2004) when the owners retired/died] but appears to be coordinating with them: the items stocked are unique to each store either by brand or size.

Even the prices are in the same ball park.

Sure, many of the products are "entry level"/"bottom end"/"closeout" - which lets the other places carry the better-quality goods.

My biggest gripe about the people working in Retail is that very, very few have even a clue as to their products - no matter what they're peddling - and, generally, are interchangeable with their burger-flipping friends at the fast-food joints.

Which list should we add it to? The first list (good parts suppliers) or the second (cheesy chrome trim, mudflaps, seatcovers and gewgaws stores) list? Please elaborate - use as many bytes as necessary.

But be warned, I buy odd (stuff) on a regular basis. Like AC PF4, Gates TR22401 and TR22657, Purolator L20700... ;-)

-->--

Yeah, I think many of us do. We all bemoan the loss of the little hardware stores that had some of everything, right down to one nut or bolt.

We had one of these in my town until around 1990. It was real old-fashioned, with a whole floor of warehouse and things that had been stored there for 70 years. They had a sale on farrier's rasps one time when they were doing one of their futile, periodic housecleanings, no kidding.

I bought 3/8" Cro-Max HSS lathe bits there -- after asking if they had any lathe bits, and after one of the guys scrounged for 15 minutes in the warehouse. When they went broke (after Home Depot moved in) I talked to the former owner at a social event and told him how much I missed being able to buy a nut, a couple of springs or a pair of motor brushes. "What was the big reason you went broke?," I asked. "Because people like you bought one nut at a time," he replied.

-- Ed Huntress

Funny you should mention about buying a house form sears......My grandfather bought a house from them in the 20's or early 30's. It was delivered to a rail siding in the local town, and he had so many days to unload it. From what I remember from his telling me about it, it came complete right down to the door knobs.....

They are more than a retailer. They bully manufacturers into lowering their prices - or like one manufacturer, buy millions of dollars of new equipment in order to be able to meet Walmart's price point. Then, the next year Walmart wanted another 10%, and went to an offshore manufacturer when they COULD NOT supply at that price.

And who was that manufacturer?

Dan