Outdoor Power Equipment and Small Engines - Briggs & Stratton Warranty

My Briggs & Stratton 16.5 engine on my 29 month old MTD mower is giving me serious problems with occasional knocking and hard starting. Their warranty is for two years but when I wrote an email to them the answer indicated that I may be covered but the local dealer says “no way”. I am wondering just what, if any, recourse I have to get some kind of warranty on the repair of this engine and also wondering what kind of reputation B&S has. I have been a Gravely owner all my life and have never before had any serious engine problems like this. Thanks in advance.

Jvp in Canton, Ohio

Print out your email and show it to the local dealer. Briggs often does the good faith thing.

As far as their reputation, it is hard to say, since now they have engines from entry level bottom of the line consumer grade engines up to japanese made super high quality engines. Their reputation as far as customer service is concerned varies greatly. I think a lot of any bad rap is partly because of dealer actions.

As a reputable dealer, I can say that Briggs has about the best warranty lieniency out there. There are many scenarios that we've had no problem in obtaining warranty for a customer whose engine is past warranty. Mind you, it must be clearly a defect in material or workmanship and not as a result of a lack of maintenance and must be a reasonable amount of time that has past since the warranty ran out. It certainly is a matter of the dealer going to bat for you if you believe that you have a good candidate for consideration of an "extension" of warranty. Another option that any authorized Briggs dealer has is what is called a "Questionable/Disputed" claim. If you, as the owner, feel that you have a repair that "should" be covered then you can pay, up front, for the work to be done and then the factory will decide, once the work is complete and the paperwork has been filed, if you, in fact, have a genuine claim. And, if so, they will send you a refund check for the service work performed to repair such claim. Another situation and option available, called a "Policy Adjustment," is if you have a questionable claim and you're past the warranty period, Briggs may pick up the tab on the part(s) and the owner pays for the labor charges.
So, just what is your trouble? Do you know the source of trouble? If not, can you explain in good detail and perhaps I can give you my opinion on the matter.

I thank you for your answers, they were very interesting. I am one ticked off person as the B&S authorized dealer that I talked with at his shop told me he would pick up my machine and take a look at it but never did call me or show up. I seem to have run into a bad bunch of contractors of late as that is the second time this past summer that I have been stood up! So in my disgust I decided to look into the problem myself and the hell with the warranty. I was already puzzled by this dealers statement that a new 16.5 HP engine would cost me $800 when I had already seen prices on the internet that were $525????. I have done a lot of previous repair work on my old Gravelys and so took off the carburetor and took it apart and cleaned it and found a lot of rust dirt in the steel bowl that covers the float operated valve (why wouldn’t they use aluminum?) make sure all ports in carb were clear and replaced the fuel filter that was also full of residue. Also cleaned out the gas tank as it had some debris in it also. Also checked the spark plug and cleaned and the overhead valves. When I was done the motor ran very well and much smoother then before and now I do not need to warm it up with full choke as I had been and so the flooding should be gone. Everything seems to be back to normal except the engine still knocks occasionally when it is put under a heavy load such as cutting with the blade very low which I did a bit of after I worked on it just to see what would happen. I intend to keep running the mower, albeit carefully, and perhaps at reduced throttle and see if I can keep the knocks to a minimum. Since the engine runs smooth and fine most of the time I hesitate to tear it down and start looking for worn or loose bearings on piston and crank. I am all ears for any more tips you can give me. Thanks.

jplot

I am getting the impression that the "knocks" you are hearing are casued by the engine mounting bolts being a tad bit loose. This allows the entire engine to jolt every time it fires when under a load, and creates a noticeable knock.