borat

I don't drive awards or publications.  I drive vehicles.  I know what my experience has taught me.  I've learned valuable and expensive lessons in automotive ownership.  Lesson no. 1:  A vehicle that needs less repairs tends to be more readily accessible and inexpensive to operate.  Lesson no. 2:  Lower initial price of vehicle is not necessarily a bargain if that same vehicle will cost many thousands of dollars more in repairs over the long run. 

All four of our Toyotas combined over a period of thirty years of ownership were  probably 1/10th as costly in repairs than one of my North American vehicles.   In addition to that, I always had a Toyota in our own garage at night rather than in the repair shop.  It's a defining moment when you get up to go to work in the morning, go to the garage and remember your transportation is in getting fixed AGAIN but the wife's old Toyota is in the garage.  You'll need a ride to work again.  After a few of these events, one begins to connect the dots....  I connected them a long time ago.

The Czech snow throwers remind me of their 1980s four wheel drive Skoda Arrow (I think that's what it was called).  It looked good and rugged and kind of had military like styling.  I had a friend who couldn't resist buying one.  All was good for the first six months then problems began to raise their ugly heads.   Being a manual transmission, it had a floor shift with a shift lever approx 20" long and at least 5/8" thick.  The truck began to stick in gear and he couldn't get it into neutral without a lot of jiggling.  One day, myself, he and another buddy were out hunting and decided to stop in at a rural tavern outside of town for a brew.  As we pulled into the parking lot, the transmission got stuck in fourth gear.  The owner had begun to develop rituals which he thought would help him get the transmission to shift.  Jiggle more to the left, then a bit to the right.  Let the transmission cool down and try it cold., jamb it hard to the left, then to the right. etc.   After stopping the vehicle, he tried the jiggle routine.  No effect.  We went in for a beer and after half an hour or so, he went out and tried the cool down trick.  No change.  Back in for a few more beers.  Now this guy is Irish, and normally easy going.  If however, he goes off the deep end, he's more than a handful.  By about beer six, he getting pretty upset and decides to go to stage three in his list of methods.  He leaves and is gone for maybe three minutes.  Upon his return he walks up to our table cross eyed mad and throws the shift rod onto the table.  He had snapped it right off.  Needless to say, his tirade on communist block manufacturing  was none too complimentary.   Later on, my buddy and I clipped a large pair of vice grips onto the stub of the shift lever protruding from the transmission and the three of us rocked the vehicle back and forth until the shifter went into neutral.  We made it home without further incident.  The owner immediately got rid of his Skoda.  Not saying all of the eastern block stuff is bad.  After all, they do make some very good guns. 

Snowmann wrote:
I agree.  That's a $700.00 machine at best.   Simplicity must have hired the marketing director from Toro to sell that model.  More name than machine....

Paul7 wrote:
We buy all of our vehicles new and run them for a long time.  The Toyota strategy worked for this household.  We've been driving Toyota's for thirty years.  The last North American vehicle I bought was a pick up back in 1986.  As per usual, it was nothing but trouble.  My wife was driving a seven year old Toyota that was less trouble than my new truck.  As soon as Toyota started making bigger pick up trucks, I bought one.  I've never looked back.  I could afford to buy North American vehicles, just couldn't afford to operate them.  They've lost this customer for life.

Looking at the pictures, they look like rudimentary machines.  Similar to the very old Ariens models that used a chain drive off of the side of the power deliver system to run the auger. 

Don't know if you noticed.  It's a Czech Company. 

www.wisconsineng.cz

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