Sunday, January 23, 2011

Snowblower Repair

A year ago, a clutch cable partially broke on my Craftsman snowblower. My most excellent neighbor helped me rig a fix that worked for a year. But, last Tuesday, it slipped out again and a push nut fell off, making a spacer handle come loose. I was able to put the handle back together and applied the same fix to the clutch cable. But, I think it's only a matter of time before things break badly enough that I'm not able to hack them back together.

My neighbor told me about a power equipment and supply store across town in West Natick. But, I wasn't able to find it the one time I tried to find it, and, with two kids, it's hard to find the time to go searching again. Lucky for me, today I discovered Sears Parts Direct. All I had to do was enter the part numbers from my snow blower manual, pay for the parts and $8 shipping. And, voila, they're on their way to my front door! I know what you're thinking---that sort of thing was exciting 5-10 years ago, but today? C'mon, Amazon has just about everything. Sure, but have you tried buying a snowblower part online? Search for the part number and manufacturer name and you're likely to find... nothing. There just ain't sufficient volume in snowblower parts for Amazon to start selling them and many manufacturers just don't have the incentive to create a web site that makes part buying easy. So, I'm pleasantly surprised that Craftsman/Sears makes it so easy.