Two more American companies gone...

[RaWarrior]

Sad to inform you all that two more long running American companies have gone out of business, I suspect you've heard of both and likely have their products in your home/garage.

First, Tecumpseh engines went under. You probably have one in your lawnmower, tractor, or snowblower. Increasing pressure from low cost chinese "clone" motors pretty much forced Tec out of the circle. Briggs&Stratton is hanging in there, but from what I hear just barely, relying mostly on contracts supplying their engines to other equipment manufacturers. You can buy an 11hp "Greyhound" clone motor from Harbor Freight for almost half what a comparable Briggs would cost(about $350 vs $700)...and the Greyhound comes with electric start, whereas that's extra on the Briggs.

If you've seen my "MiniMax" thread, you know the minibike I'm talking about. It originally had a chinese 6.5hp motor in it, and I have to admit that motor was tough as anything and still starts easy and runs strong. It has gone WOT into deep puddles and hydrolocked, the bike has been downed countless times, and I bypassed the governor and set it's WOT speed to about 5600 RPM--original governor setting was 3600. It still ran great when I pulled it out- didn't burn oil, started first pull every time, and you can get one for $99 at harbor freight. Not surprising American made motors are having trouble competing against the chinese, espically when the chinese are of such high quality now. The only annoyance(which seems to be almost universal among chinese motors) is that they are set so lean for emissions, they ALWAYS need the choke to start, even when warm. The minibike it was in returned about 30mpg, and that was with a fixed 10:1 drive ratio cruising at 25mph.

I got the 11hp NIB Briggs INTEK off a craigslist ad for $125. Brand new, never run, but it had been dropped in shipping and had a crack in the oil pan---some JB weld took care of that. It runs great and runs smooth, with less vibration than the chinese motor even though it's larger displacement. Definitely happy with it, I'll see how it holds up.

Second, Comet Industries filed for bankruptcy last month after "temporarily stopping shipments" for a couple months prior. Comet made drive systems for all sorts of equipment...namely centrifugal type clutches and their "Torq-a-Verter" drive system, famous among the go-kart community. They also made a lot of the electric clutches for riding mowers and other equipment. Many snowmobiles made by almost all manufacturers used Comet clutches, with the "94C Duster" being a favorite among small displacement sleds. One of their main contracts was selling CVT clutches to John Deere for use in their Gator utility vehicles. Probably due to cost-cutting, they dropped Comet in favor of a chinese made system. Comet was "just scraping by" before, and the loss of the JD contract put them big time in the hole. This was devastating to the karting and minibike community, since there really is no competitor/replacement for their venerable "torq a verter" system. Rumor says a chinese clone is on the way, but dealers are already reporting tons of problems with them and overall poor performance.


It's pretty unfortunate that every day it seems another long running American company closes it's doors. The US government is hesitant to put any big tariffs on chinese goods, because they know the chinese would respond the same way, and with out gigantic deficit, they need all the exports they can get. They tried this in the eighties to protect Hardly-Driveable by restricting Japanese bikes to a certain displacement, otherwise an enormous tariff was imposed. It flopped then, mainly because people would pay a bigger price for a superior quality bike...the American wasn't a direct equivalent to the import...the import was better. Still are as far as I can tell. H-D is well, H-D, and all my experiences with Polaris have been nothing but bad.

Wonder how this will work...chinese people are willing to do the same work as Americans for a lot less wage. Unless American workers are willing to start taking wages equivalent to a dollar or two per hour(sometimes much less), we will never be able to compete with the chinese workforce. The huge number of people looking for work enables employers to pay such little wage since there is such tremendous competition for every single job.

 

[ghostntheshell]

It is an interesting scenario.

The American dollar is (although declining) is worth a lot more in other countries. You can start a company - and simply reverse engineer a product and begin producing your own. No engineering costs - nothing.

You then sell it to the American public - who then pays half price - which allows the chinese to pay their employees a decent wage (in chinese currency) and still take a profit.

They buy our resources, reverse engineer our products, and sell them to us beating out our own producers.

Essentially, we are consuming our way out of the food chain, so to speak.

We feel entitled to a higher standard of living, expect to get paid for nothing, and buy what ever is cheapest on the shelves. We expect to remain on the top of the food chain while maintaining this life style. It's not possible.

Speaking for Canada - we are selling our resources - and I don't mean producing, refining, and then selling to the market - I mean we are letting DIFFERENT COUNTRIES take over OUR resources.

It makes you wonder what REALLY is going on - and perhaps there is something bigger going on. Governments make policies. They allow this to happen. They have orchestrated the events that have led to the economy being the way it is right now.

I can recall having discussions in 2003 with friends about the eventual crash of the American housing market. There was so much evidence it was happening - that even I could see it, living in a small northern city miles and miles away removed. We could see that it was unsustainable. We could also see out resources being sold underneath Canadians with not so much as a front page report in the papers.

 

[EvilD]

IMO, and I'm not an economist by any means, what we need to do is say, hey Chine, we buy most of your shit, and most of it is shit, so, we're going to tax the hell out of it unless you start importing more US made stuff. I'm sure we make up more than half the sales from China, with out us they'd be pretty screwed. Not only that, but if they don't balance out the trade deficit, we cut off %100 of our agricultural supplies, embargo them and ANY OTHER COUNTRY that does business with them. Seems pretty simple to me.

 

[kaboom]

I am no economist either......but what you guys want the U.S. to do goes against one of our core principles....

That of a free market......

Find a way to make it cheaper or better.....

If item X costs $10.00 and item Y costs $20.00.....both have the same function etc.

What is product Y doing to earn that extra cost...if anything......:confused2:

Now apply this to EVERYTHING......what you buy......the services you pay for.....the job YOU do........and what YOU get paid.....

Everyone is looking for the deal.....you do it.....I do it......they do it....

If it costs more it had better be WORTH more to the person paying for it....

Unfortunately the rest of the world will give similar quality and functionality and service in most every category of goods and services.....

At a lower cost......

Countries are now operating as businesses......which is what they have become.....

Compete or die......whether we like it or not.....:bang head:

 

[ghostntheshell]

I have an idea!

Obviously cars (domestic) are a hot issue. Bail outs. Bankruptcy. Poor sales.

I will tell you my true story:

I went to the states a couple years back, when the Canadian dollar peaked at 1.10 American. I went to the states with full intent to drive back a new car.

I went to a GM dealership. I looked at the Pontiac G6 GXP. Fully loaded with almost every single option. The sticker said 23-24k. My jaw dropped. It was well below the MSRP. PLUS the dealer was offering an instant 2k drop.

The kicker? This exact car was 45k in Canada. FORTY FIVE THOUSAND DOLLARS.

I talked to the dealer and he said he would love to take my money. he would love to take all my friends money too - but the dealerships advised he would lose his dealership license by doing so.


SO - GM would rather have ZERO of my dollars than receive what an American would pay anyway.


All in the name of trying to keep the unbalanced car market slanted and keeping Canadians paying more for what the Americans pay less for.

Keep in mind we make a lot GM's products right here in Ontario. So all the shipping / manufacturing boo-shiz doesn't hold water.

I was one of thousands of people trying to take advantage of this - and buy a GM product. They did it to themselves.




On a different note - Toyota could not sell to me either - but would have gladly sold me any car I wanted..... used

 

[satariel666]

Ha! Sounds familiar to me Ghost.

Guess whats Yamaha doing? Exactly the same.
Guess how much for brand new 2gen here?

34.000$!

 

[EvilD]

I'm all for a free market as long as it's on a level playing filed, which, dealing with China, isn't. I absloutly hate the fact that sooooooo much stuff is Chinese and there is no US or any other alternative to buy.

 

[kaboom]

I'm all for a free market as long as it's on a level playing filed, which, dealing with China, isn't. I absloutly hate the fact that sooooooo much stuff is Chinese and there is no US or any other alternative to buy.

Who determines what constitutes a level playing field???:ummm:

 

[richwrench]

China owns all our debt - therefor they own US ! Whatever they say goes. I hate it, but it's true. I dumped all my stocks for a precious metals fund. It's making money hand over fist every time the dollar plunges. I believe our politicians are purposely destroying our dollar so that we will be forced to accept a one-world currency. OK, conspiricy rant over - I will miss Tecumseh motors. I know I'm in a minority, but I think Tecumseh built a better motor than Briggs ever did. I always had better luck with them, all things considered. Sorry to see them disappear...:rip:

 

[EvilD]

Who determines what constitutes a level playing field???:ummm:

Modernized health care, factories with environmental regulations, human beings with basic civil rights, child labor laws...the list goes on and on, thats what would constitute a level playing field.

 

[RaWarrior]

I don't really have much of an opinion on Tec engines one way or another, but I would have to say the 8.5 in the snowblower just doesn't run that well, and never has since new. Tends to hunt/surge(since new), at night you can see blowby, little poofs of flame out of the exhaust. Seems the general consensus is that Tec kinda "fell out" once they made the switch from flatheads to OHV and they were never as good.

What bothers me the most is that I find myself going nuts for bargains at Harbor Freight. In a way I want to support American industry, but I also find it awfully hard to justify paying twice as much for a very similar product...I'm not exactly made of money. If a Craftsman set of wrenches was the same price as hung-lo industries set of wrenches, I'd go for the craftsman every time. But I got a set of metric end wrenches at HF for $9.99. Had them for a couple years now and have yet to break one. That equivalent set at Sears was nearly $50. Not to mention HF offers a lifetime guarantee(same as Craftsman) on most of their stuff. As much as I hate it, it's a really strong argument for chinese products. Similar quality, a good warranty, and a fraction of the price. I love going into Harbor Freight and walking out with two bags full of stuff and having change left from my twenty.

The US is really trapped in a viscous cycle here. A lot of American companies are being forced to export jobs overseas, or outsource manufacturing to cut domestic costs in order to keep prices down. This feeds the Chinese economy even more, all while supplying our engineering and design to their factories so they can make a cheap copy with 100% chinese labor and parts and sell it back to the US. Now the same companies who exported labor to China in the first place are faced with an even lower priced version of the same product they were trying to save on in the first place.

Chinese factories don't have to pay fair wages, furnish benefits, or do much of anything. Some factories own massive "apartment" buildings, and they house/feed the employees as payment, making virtually no money at all. Since the job market is so ultra competitive there, there's always somebody willing to do the same job for a few cents less wage.

It's kind of the modern-day middle class American's dilemma: The desire to support your country is countered by the cost of doing so. Sure, ask most any American if they would rather buy a US made or Chinese made product and they'll respond for the domestic. But then ask how much more they'd be willing to pay. Chances are, it's not much. Particularly when the chinese version is nearly or as good as the American. I'm sure people would pay a lot more knowing the domestic was of superior quality, but that most often isn't the case.

I guess it's kinda ironic since this is a site full of people that love a Japanese made motorcycle, but honestly I don't think it's Japan we have to worry about anymore. We buy their cars and electronics, that's about it. We buy every-friggen-thing from China.

Have you seen the commercial Ford has been airing recently...touting how they are now ranked equal to Toyota in reliability. Which is great, but did it really take nearly 25 years for an American company to catch back up to the Japanese who nearly killed the US auto industry in the 70's?

 

[06VMAXIMUS]

Richwrench hit the nail directly on the head. The US can do NOTHING about China....its even been in the news about Obama being over there for "talks" about human rights etc....they hold us by the balls because they are the ones financing our bailout---to the tune of 800 BILLION dollars. I got laid off in 2004 because our company sent production to China. One of our engineers grew up in Hong Kong and said that the working conditions were extremely bad, and that there were people "living" in the parking lot of the company---waiting for the next available job. He said he saw a guy get killed from a stamping die (smashed by it), they cleaned him out of it, went to the door and grabbed the next person in line....the job was running again in less than 15 minutes!! Unless our government does something quickly, we are screwed.

 

[Buster Hymen]

I don't really have much of an opinion on Tec engines one way or another, but I would have to say the 8.5 in the snowblower just doesn't run that well, and never has since new. Tends to hunt/surge(since new), at night you can see blowby, little poofs of flame out of the exhaust. Seems the general consensus is that Tec kinda "fell out" once they made the switch from flatheads to OHV and they were never as good.

What bothers me the most is that I find myself going nuts for bargains at Harbor Freight. In a way I want to support American industry, but I also find it awfully hard to justify paying twice as much for a very similar product...I'm not exactly made of money. If a Craftsman set of wrenches was the same price as hung-lo industries set of wrenches, I'd go for the craftsman every time. But I got a set of metric end wrenches at HF for $9.99. Had them for a couple years now and have yet to break one. That equivalent set at Sears was nearly $50. Not to mention HF offers a lifetime guarantee(same as Craftsman) on most of their stuff. As much as I hate it, it's a really strong argument for chinese products. Similar quality, a good warranty, and a fraction of the price. I love going into Harbor Freight and walking out with two bags full of stuff and having change left from my twenty.

The US is really trapped in a viscous cycle here. A lot of American companies are being forced to export jobs overseas, or outsource manufacturing to cut domestic costs in order to keep prices down. This feeds the Chinese economy even more, all while supplying our engineering and design to their factories so they can make a cheap copy with 100% chinese labor and parts and sell it back to the US. Now the same companies who exported labor to China in the first place are faced with an even lower priced version of the same product they were trying to save on in the first place.

Chinese factories don't have to pay fair wages, furnish benefits, or do much of anything. Some factories own massive "apartment" buildings, and they house/feed the employees as payment, making virtually no money at all. Since the job market is so ultra competitive there, there's always somebody willing to do the same job for a few cents less wage.

It's kind of the modern-day middle class American's dilemma: The desire to support your country is countered by the cost of doing so. Sure, ask most any American if they would rather buy a US made or Chinese made product and they'll respond for the domestic. But then ask how much more they'd be willing to pay. Chances are, it's not much. Particularly when the chinese version is nearly or as good as the American. I'm sure people would pay a lot more knowing the domestic was of superior quality, but that most often isn't the case.

I guess it's kinda ironic since this is a site full of people that love a Japanese made motorcycle, but honestly I don't think it's Japan we have to worry about anymore. We buy their cars and electronics, that's about it. We buy every-friggen-thing from China.

Have you seen the commercial Ford has been airing recently...touting how they are now ranked equal to Toyota in reliability. Which is great, but did it really take nearly 25 years for an American company to catch back up to the Japanese who nearly killed the US auto industry in the 70's?

The problem with the "it costs less" approach is that it becomes a double edge sword. While you may be getting a "deal" on that $10 wrench set, each item being imported erodes at the domestic job base to the point where there is no one buying items because they cannot afford it. If the majority of the consumer market is making minimum wage or less, than that $10 wrench set might as be $1000 as you cannot afford it. It's better to pay more now, at a time that you can afford it.

 

[dannymax]

The problem with the "it costs less" approach is that it becomes a double edge sword. While you may be getting a "deal" on that $10 wrench set, each item being imported erodes at the domestic job base to the point where there is no one buying items because they cannot afford it. If the majority of the consumer market is making minimum wage or less, than that $10 wrench set might as be $1000 as you cannot afford it. It's better to pay more now, at a time that you can afford it.

We want it both ways, we want that price deal yet we want a secure national economy....we want our freedom, but we aren't willing to fight for it....on and on!

We want the best of everything but we're not willing to do the 'heavy lifting' to get it.

Actually WANT is incorrect....we EXPECT it! Then when it turns out bad, as it inevitably will, we lay blame, point fingers and whine about it!!

 

[vmaxride06]

Richwrench hit the nail directly on the head. The US can do NOTHING about China....its even been in the news about Obama being over there for "talks" about human rights etc....they hold us by the balls because they are the ones financing our bailout---to the tune of 800 BILLION dollars. I got laid off in 2004 because our company sent production to China. One of our engineers grew up in Hong Kong and said that the working conditions were extremely bad, and that there were people "living" in the parking lot of the company---waiting for the next available job. He said he saw a guy get killed from a stamping die (smashed by it), they cleaned him out of it, went to the door and grabbed the next person in line....the job was running again in less than 15 minutes!! Unless our government does something quickly, we are screwed.

Sort of like this Video....This is Nuts

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=2ca_1179747718

 

[kaboom]

We want it both ways, we want that price deal yet we want a secure national economy....we want our freedom, but we aren't willing to fight for it....on and on!

We want the best of everything but we're not willing to do the 'heavy lifting' to get it.

Actually WANT is incorrect....we EXPECT it! Then when it turns out bad, as it inevitably will, we lay blame, point fingers and whine about it!!

EXACTLY!!!!!!:bang head:

And now we are in competition with people who will do stuff WAY cheaper than us......

So we have to do it BETTER or FASTER......and that is getting harder all the time...

 

[kaboom]

Sort of like this Video....This is Nuts

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=2ca_1179747718

I and others have done that bad and worse in factories here in the U.S.......recently.....:confused2:

 

[vmaxride06]

I and others have done that bad and worse in factories here in the U.S.......recently.....:confused2:

I have been in Manufacturing my whole life.. I have never seen anything this unsafe in the US. OSHA would have a field day with this operation.

Maybe I have worked for the right companies. Not sure.. But I would never have anyone on my staff operate anything like this. Hell It would have never been installed, wired or turned on. One lost arm or wrongful death would negate any profit gained. That and it is just plain wrong. Walk out with what you came in with.. Nothing less.

Some scary shit right there.

 

[kaboom]

I have been in Manufacturing my whole life.. I have never seen anything this unsafe in the US. OSHA would have a field day with this operation.

Maybe I have worked for the right companies. Not sure.. But I would never have anyone on my staff operate anything like this. Hell It would have never been installed, wired or turned on. One lost arm or wrongful death would negate any profit gained. That and it is just plain wrong. Walk out with what you came in with.. Nothing less.

Some scary shit right there.

A friend of mine.......who worked at the same factory I did......doing the same job....lost his hand and half his forearm while taking a metal sample from a furnace......

You opened the door......put on a heat glove.....and using a set of tongs dipped a little round sample mold into the molten metal.....twice per shift......

The turnbuckle on the cable holding the door failed.....dropping a 3 ton door on his arm....pinning it 6 inches above the surface of the metal at 1475 degrees F.....

Night shift on a Saturday the place was fairly deserted......he was trapped for 6 minutes or so before anyone found him.....

This was how it was done for YEARS......he was following a written job instruction APPROVED by OSHA.......

We did it every day:confused2:

 

[vmaxride06]

A friend of mine.......who worked at the same factory I did......doing the same job....lost his hand and half his forearm while taking a metal sample from a furnace......

You opened the door......put on a heat glove.....and using a set of tongs dipped a little round sample mold into the molten metal.....twice per shift......

The turnbuckle on the cable holding the door failed.....dropping a 3 ton door on his arm....pinning it 6 inches above the surface of the metal at 1475 degrees F.....

Night shift on a Saturday the place was fairly deserted......he was trapped for 6 minutes or so before anyone found him.....

This was how it was done for YEARS......he was following a written job instruction APPROVED by OSHA.......

We did it every day:confused2:

Glad that did not happen to you bro.
jeesh. Tragic accident .