"All of us are entitled to ones opinion of their preferred engines. What should be noted I think is Honda, Tecumseh, Briggs and Kohler ALL have some duds in their lineups. All four have some fantastic engines as well." RB> Those companies are probably best classified as having produced a lot more good engines than ones that might have had problems. Otherwise their stay in he business would have been very short indeed. I'm not aware of any engines from those companies that just out and out fail from poor design. NW> Obviously these mainline engine builders have more good to their credit than bad. My comments are by and large directed at engines from the OHV era forward. I have pulled and replaced something like 25-30 B&S Intek twins of all HPs in the last year or two. These engines come in smoking if they will still run, completely seized or a rod having blown a hole in the side of the block. I wont attempt to make a call as to poor design but these engines fail far too often. These are not warranty repairs, most of these engines failed fairly shortly after the warranty period causing me to wonder how many others failed and were taken care of by factory warranty. Another very weak engine is the horizontal 6.75 HP OHV. This engine is just prone to smoking and losing rods. I see it over and over and over be it on a tiller, pressure washer or go kart. What I hate about that is there is not really an alternative in that price range so we re-power with the same engine and hope for the best. Pretty much the same story line on the newer AVS high HP single cylinder engines. One word sums up the problem with itsmoker. Unlike the previous version of the engine its smoke is almost never caused by a blown head gasket. Its the real deal, oil getting by the rings. Add to this the AVS and the previous generation engine almost will not hold valve clearance settings. This small problem leads to way to many trips to the shop and no telling how many burned up starters. On a positive note the 3.75 Sprint or Classic and the Quantum seem to hold up very well but they are for the most part proven L head designs. So, out of the 5 most used engines in my area B&S has 3 that seem to be very weak and 2 that could be expected to give some service. "Sure, I would probably dodge that brand myself if I didnt know what I know. Let me tell you what I knowIve been working on and using small engines daily for 38 years." RB> Which brand???? NW> Like every mechanic here I have to work on all of them. Honda, Kawasaki, B&S, Kohler, Tecumseh and some Robin and Onan. " As I said EVERY one of the four above mentioned outfits have some serious junk to their credit. I could list every dud and tell you what models tend to fail very early if requested. Here is a fact that may stir many up around here though its not intended toOf the 4 makes above Briggs by far has the most models with VERY poor records. I hate this because as most of us did I learned on B&S, my first parts dealership was B&S, my first mower was B&S powered. Now, would I state across the board to not buy B&S.of course not. What I would do is present what I have seen over and over and over with a particular line of engines and suggest that they try something else be that B&S or other. " RB> If it is true that a greater proportion the total number of Brigs motors manufacturered are defective than for other manufacturers then how did Briggs become the dominant producer of lawn mower motors? If they had such a reputation for producing shoddy products I would have thought mower companies would have abandoned them decades ago. From what i've seen Briggs has been and continues to be the single most popular brand of lawn mower motor. NW> I hope I have somewhat explained what I meant about B&S having a greater proportion of problems compared to the others at this time. Note I did clarify that I am referring to the OHV era which is not what B&S built their great rep on. The fact is this.If B&S doesnt address these problems soon and continues to turn out the stuff they are today you will see their market share fall. MTD has already pulled them off of their equipment for 2009 but I think that was business politics more so than a quality issue. That is a serious blow to Briggs and should cause them to think hard about getting back where they once were. Mike Merritt

OK, got the flywheel off, the entire alternator coil is off and damaged. The cast post on the engine block that the coil attaches to busted off. So now, my question is: is the engine still safe to use even though this chunk broke off?? I hope my explanation makes sense. Under the flywheel, there are two posts that are cast into the block. This alternator was attached to one of the posts, that entire post failed and sheered off the block. Does anyone think this affects the integrity of the block itself? I don't want to fire it up and have it explode or something! Thanks again everyone!

This is a very old thread, things have changed at Ariens. The units sold at Home Depot are rebadged Husqvarna/Poulan/Craftsman and certainly not up to their usual standards. The average consumer simply will not pay for the traditional quality although long time Ariens fans such as myself will step up to the plate and go for the dealer only models. Having said that, it appears all models are getting an Ariens branded engines which likely means Chinese. With my experience with MTD's Powermore crapola, I will stick with an older model and repower with Briggs if necessary if and when I need a snowthrower, certainly not at the moment in southwestern British Columbia lol.

I too have an Ariens Snow Thrower with a Tecumseh engine. I am a mechanical schmuck -- my father was an aircraft mechanic and I picked up more than a few things from him in the past but by no means am I an expert when it comes to these little engines. I have a kid that is a highly trained motorcycle repairman. I have a brother who used to service Hueys. My snow thrower ran like a top for 2-3 years -- no problems. Two years ago it started to surge -- this problem progressively got a bit worse. My snow thrower use has been quite limited all things considered. My first thought was the carburetor. My son and I disassembled the cowlings and detached the carb. Suffice to say it all looked like it was new. (it should have looked like new -- probably operated less than 20-30 times total). Ian rebuilt the carburetor. New gaskets/seals. Net effect: Nothing changed -- nothing at all. My brother suggested running straight sea foam (higher octane) -- this too failed to improve things a bit. Then my brother suggested we spray gas (with a spritzer) on various areas on the assembly while the engine was running -- if the surging stopped, that would suggest there was an air leak. I told him he was certifiable -- spray gas on a hot manifold??? Well after much argument, we sprayed carb cleaner as previously suggested with the engine running and low and behold, the problem resolved -- temporarily. Spraying the front of the carburetor seemed to get the best results. So it appears the problem is an air leak. Why would an air leak manifest over three years after purchase? An air leak will make an engine run lean. Wonderful! Now I have one more issue to resolve. Where the heck is the air leak? (bangs head on the desk). Nope, I cannot identify this new phantom. Sorry, I didn't solve your problem here but this is a real issue, it is not the choke, the carb, the old gas, or many other of the well intentioned suggestions. It is likely caused by an air leak. Now if anyone can tell me how to identify this air leak I would be most appreciative and I suspect others might benefit from information of that nature as well. I got a bad feeling that I will have to replace the entire carburetor -- just bet this is a manufacturing defect. mjc