Snow blower

Oh, the woes I experience. Yesterday, we had our third measurable and shovel-able snowfall in the Chicago area. I say shovel-able because that's exactly what I did. Wait, don't you have a snow-blower? Yes, I do. However, it's been in for repair since October 21st. That's right, it's been almost two months to have a few simple things taken care of:

-new primer bulb
-new primer line
-check fuel line
-replace grounding bolt
-tune engine
-replace shear pins

I have an Ariens 5 HP two-stage snow thrower. It looks like this only it's about 20 years old. I bought it last winter as-is for $150 and it was the best investment I have ever made. I did some preliminary work on it (with Brian's help of course; does anything get done w/o him?) last winter and it worked out great. I figured that if a professional tore it apart, they might make it work even better when under higher loads and also extend its longevity.

The long story is that when I dropped it off in October, I was told that I was way ahead of the curve. I figured I was, too. This really didn't come to fruition because it's still in the hands of Honda House.

Why did I drop it off at a Honda dealer if it's an Ariens, you ask? I'll tell you why. 1)I was on the Ariens web site and HH is listed as an authorized retailer and 2)I bought my moto from them and 3)it was close and 4)I knew the service department staff well. Now you know. Now back to my story of woe.

The reason why the snow blower is still there is that it has taken this long to get the parts delivered that were ordered. I don't know the entire laundry list of parts, but when I called last Saturday, they stated that the last item remaining was the primer bulb. Since they don't start any work until all the parts arrive, there has been no progress. I'm not in service or sales, but if I were in charge over there, I would have called me and asked if I would like them to start work on all the other pieces and maybe have me install the primer bulb myself after the fact. I have electric start and won't likely even use the primer. Why are the parts taking so long to arrive? I'll tell you why.

HH tells me that Ariens has a very "funky" method of shipping parts. They take forever. I find this hard to believe. I've gone to my local True Value and picked up shear pins off the shelf before. On top of all this, Ariens is probably the number one seller of snow thrower products on the market. Maybe Honda House is trying to get me to buy a Honda snow thrower. Keep trying. You're over-priced.