Disposable culture

I have a Husqvarna 136 chainsaw that my dad bought in the mid 1990’s.  It’s a great saw, plenty of compression, works great, except it’s been hard starting lately.

After doing a little troubleshooting I determined that it needs a carburetor kit. I head over to the parts store to find that a new Walbro carburetor is a few dollars cheaper than the kit.  So, I reckon I’ll throw the old one away and bolt the new one on.

While I’m at it, I need to do some more maintenance on the saw to try to get another 30 years out of it.  I need a new chain sprocket assembly, a spare airfilter, and new clutch band.

The clutch comes as an assembly cheaper than the parts.   Again.

All in all the parts bill comes to $159.   These are all genuine Husqvarna parts.  I’m not buying chinese junk that’ll cause me to be out in the woods tearing a saw down on the tailgate in order to get my work done.

A new Stihl MS 181 is $219.00.

How in the hell is a brand new saw only $60 more?  I find this over and over again.  Repair parts for even high quality machines and tools are too expensive, and the machine is too cheap to justify repair.   I find it utterly offensive that we are incented to throw good things away rather than fix them.

I know I can just buy the parts and spend an hour or two installing them.  But then I’ll still have a 30 year old saw with less than perfect compression and all the internal wear and tear 15 or so firewood seasons (it was shelved for a while) would put on a saw.   I’ll end up buying new piston and cylinder for it.  When does the ignition coil fail?

It’s not oiling perfectly either.  The automatic oiler needs to be torn down and cleaned at minimum, repaired with another parts bill at worst.

Fix, or add to the problem of waste?    WAT DO?

1 thought on “Disposable culture”

  1. Offensive is the word. I keep saying I’ll spend 3-5 times the price for something of appreciable quality that I can easily maintain with parts readily available at a reasonable price but it’s becoming impossible.

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