HP and the Adventure of the Craftsman Lawn Mower

Some days you just can't win....

So, on Sunday, I decided to mow the lawn. The previous time we had mowed the lawn, we mowed it and then put on a special de-thatching blade (thanks for the recommendation Jay!) to rake up all the dead grass that was building up. That worked pretty well, and after raking and bagging that up, the lawn looked better. So this time, I had to remove the de-thatching blade and put the old blade back on. Simple enough, right? Well, apparently not...I got the old blade back on (it is slotted in such a way that you really can't put it on wrong), tightened the bolt, and tried to start the mower. Nothing. Tried the gas primer and pulled again several times. Nothing (and it sorta sounded like something was wrong). The mower is 9 years old, and I probably don't take as good care of it as I should, but still, I didn't think replacing the blade would cause it not to start.

But, after messing with it some more, I decided I should just take it somewhere and have them check it out and tune it up, and hopefully fix whatever was wrong - after 9 years it probably needed a tune-up anyway. Since it was a Craftsman mower, my first thought was to just take it to Sears, as they should have all the necessary parts and (hopefully) someone familiar with the mowers they sell. I went to their website - I had actually had good luck with their website before when I needed to order a couple of new parts for the mower - very easy to navigate, find the replacement parts you need, and order. It took a little longer to find the repair services, but I did find them, and they directed me to a store locater page, which showed me the Apache Mall store (which I expected) and a phone number. I called the number, and immediately got into an automated answering system - that by itself isn't a big deal as some of them are good these days. But this one wasn't - it was a voice-response one, but not very well done (I've used good ones too, so I know it's possible - Amtrak is one of the best ones in existence if you ever have to check on a train schedule...but I digress).

Anyway, after 3 frustrating tries of trying to get through this voice-response system, I finally did get to an actual human person, but NOT someone at the Apache Mall store. After some vague questions and giving them my address and phone number, she asked what type of mower it was, and I said it was a Craftsman push mower...and she then informed me that all I needed to do for those was to take it into the closest repair center. Now on the web page, the Apache Mall store was listed as an authorized repair center, but I asked anyway to make sure where the closest repair center was, and she told me it was the Apache Mall store. I then asked if there was a way I could talk to someone to get an estimate of how much it would cost, and to see how much time it generally took to repair something like this, and she sort of freaked out and then told me I should call the number for the Apache Mall store, which was the exact same number that had gotten me to her in the first place (obviously no one actually answers the phone at the Apache Mall store). So she was less than helpful...but I decided to try and take it in anyway if it was the fastest way to get it fixed.

So today I loaded up the mower into my Vue and drove down to the mall. As I was driving around Sears, I didn't actually see anywhere labeled "Service Center" besides the automotive repair center, which was different. So I went into the store to the lawn & garden center (the place I originally bought the mower 9 years ago) and asked the first employee I could find if they did lawn mower repairs. He got this glazed look and then said something like "oh, I don't think we do anything like that". I told him this was where I was told to bring my lawn mower by the customer service rep I talked to. He sorta blanked again, but then went to find someone who might know something more (this guy was apparently new, or not too bright, or both). The other guy sort of got the same weird look and asked if it was under warranty. I said no, it was 9 years old - he then was like "Oh, whoa, well it's going to cost you to have it fixed then" (duh). I told him I expected that, but that I wanted to know where I should take it to get repaired. He said, "well you can take to the repair center in the cities", so I asked if that was my only choice, and he said "well you can take it over to the repair center on 16th street but they'll just ship it up to the cities to the repair center" (so there is obviously no repair place here in town like the website said). So I said thank you and left (thanks for nothing!). SO, I'm officially done with Sears now.

Since I already had the mower and was a few miles away, I headed over to the place Jay recommended, "Wright's Small Engine" who has a pretty good reputation in town. The guy there was nice and friendly, but told me they only service the brands they sell now, and that they can barely keep up with that (their ad in the yellow pages says otherwise, but the ad might have been old as the phone book I have might be like 2003). But he did give me the business card of a guy they send overflow to, and I guess he works on all types of small engines. OK, so at least that's something (and this guy will probably take it). I'm going to call tomorrow...

I didn't think finding someone to take my money and fix my mower would be so hard - usually when it comes to any service industry they're more than happy to get business!