Officials: Tecumseh Plant Closing In August

WFRV.COM ^ | 10 FEBRUARY 2007 | AP

[xcamel]

Job leaving town? Thank your union bosses.

[somemoreequalthanothers]

Did Tecumseh ever make an engine that would idle smoothly?
Good riddance.

[cripplecreek]

I found something odd the other day. A teamsters union local website with a link to FreeRepublic.

[SIDENET]

As a kid, I had a go-cart with a Tecumseh engine in it. It SUCKED. Briggs and Stratton engines were far better.

[somemoreequalthanothers]

I've had several over the years. Could never get them to idle properly. Not a damn one of them.

Briggs & Honda made far superior engines.

[Extremely Extreme Extremist]

We have simply got to lower the costs of doing business here in America.

[Extremely Extreme Extremist]

BTTT

[Fierce Allegiance]

confirmed by union officials

Shocked, i tell ya.

Unions - the death knell of American industry.

[Fierce Allegiance]

Yeah, I had mini bikes, gokarts and landscape equipment with teecumseh engines as a kid. I definitely preferred briggs stuff. Tecumseh parts were a pain to get, and their carburetors sucked balls bigtime. I had one minibike thta would go through oil faster than gas. it was great at mosquito control.

[A. Pole]

We have simply got to lower the costs of doing business here in America.

By lowering the wages and eliminating benefits?

[somemoreequalthanothers]

I noticed willie got the ax some time ago.

[cripplecreek]

Unions have forgotten their original intent and become greedy political animals. Obviously that doesn't translate down to the average union member but some people prefer that fantasy to reality.

Michigan became an industrial powerhouse with strong unions and we feel to our current welfare state with those same unions.

[A. Pole]

Unions have forgotten their original intent and become greedy

What about corporations?

[Gay State Conservative]

Did Tecumseh ever make an engine that would idle smoothly? Good riddance.

My sister's snow blower has a Tecumseh engine.It's not one that I'd mistake for something that came out of a Ferrari but it starts every time and it has been reliable.

[cripplecreek]

Them too. I've worked for both good and bad companies as well as good and bad unions. In both cases, treatment of labor made a big difference in the happiness of employees. I would go so far as to say that a happy employee is far more loyal than a wealthy one.

[cripplecreek]

I've got a roto tiller here that was my great grandmother's. I would say that it's 60 years old but I still use it.

[OregonRancher]

While driving outside Pune in India, I came across a HUGE
factory doing nothing but making Tecumseh engines....

[Spktyr]

Hey, UAW Local 750 - how do you feel about extorting more money from Tecumseh NOW?

[epow]

Maybe Tecumseh can make a better engine somewhere else. The Tecumseh engine on the 5KW generator I bought has not operated properly, actually barely at all, since the day I brought it home. When I called the service number in the owner's manual a very unpleasant and sarcastic service rep told me that it's normal for small air cooled engines to be hard to start, and that I was probably not following the instructions in the owner's manual. After more unproductive calls I gave up on the factory warranty and took it to a local small engine repair shop where I had to pay for the work that should have been done under warranty if there had been an authorized Tecumseh dealer in my town. But it came out even harder to start, and a 2nd visit to that shop got the same result.

I finally got an authorized Tecumseh service shop in another town to admit that the carburetor is defective and the fuel tank needs a check valve to prevent flooding. But it's now out of warranty, so it would cost approximately 1/2 the original price of the generator/engine combination to have a new carburetor installed and the tank fixed. Tecumseh won't even sell me a new carburetor and just tells me to go back to the out of town Tecumseh authorized shop. I am now tired of the runarounds and I'm stuck with a virtually useless piece of Tecumseh junk unless I sell it to some unsuspecting poor slob for much less than it cost, which I have enough honesty and decency not to do.

AFAIC Tecumseh can move anywhere it wants and I say good riddance to bad rubbish. Of course the down side is the hundreds of American workers who will lose their jobs, but I'm sure the convenience store industry will take up the slack if the supply of Pakistani and Arab immigrants runs short. (sarcasm)