Small enigne manufacturer Tecumseh, noted best for their Snow King snow blower engines produced its last small engine on Dec 15, 2008. The company's engine manufacturing roots dated back to 1895.
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RIP another iconic American company
- Thread starter Uncletruck
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They weren't competitive anymore, so that's what happens. Briggs and Stratton and Honda own the small engine market with Briggs being the low end, and Honda being the more expensive, more reliable manufacturer.
Tec's compressor business is still alive- for the time being, the company is owned by a hodling company that is breaking it up and selling it or shutting it down.
They just couldn't compete with China for small engines. What sucks is the Snow King was an excellent engine for us (less fortunate) snow blower owners. Now even Briggs and Stratton's small horizontal shaft engines are China sourced. With Tecumseh gone, snow blowers will have either a cheap Chinese engine, or you spend 3 times as much over a Toro or Ariens for a Honda blower. And many of Honda's small engines are China or Indonesia built also. Honda snow blowers are good, but not worth three times the price of Toro or Ariens IMHO.
What happened in Japan will happen in China too. Eventually the water will level out, as people there aren't going to be doing all that manufacturing forever for 35 cents an hour. But, it won't likely level out in the remainder of my lifetime.
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They just couldn't compete with China for small engines. What sucks is the Snow King was an excellent engine for us (less fortunate) snow blower owners. Now even Briggs and Stratton's small horizontal shaft engines are China sourced. With Tecumseh gone, snow blowers will have either a cheap Chinese engine, or you spend 3 times as much over a Toro or Ariens for a Honda blower. And many of Honda's small engines are China or Indonesia built also. Honda snow blowers are good, but not worth three times the price of Toro or Ariens IMHO.
What happened in Japan will happen in China too. Eventually the water will level out, as people there aren't going to be doing all that manufacturing forever for 35 cents an hour. But, it won't likely level out in the remainder of my lifetime.
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Uncletruck said:
I have one of those snow blowers that I got from my grandpa. It has to be like 10 or 15 years old and is still going, barely, but it still gets the job done. I think it is finally time to rebuild the carb on it, I think its still original. Even though it is running crappy it still managed to get through about a foot of snow, slowly.
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