In our throwaway culture, do we repair anything anymore? I bring up the question because our lawnmower had some serious problems and my first thought was to buy a new one at Home Depot or Lowe's, not look for a repair shop. The blade needed to be sharpened or replaced, the motor backfired every time I stopped the engine, and (the final straw) the right front wheel had decided not to stay put at the level it's set. It's a little tricky trying to mow with a three wheeled-lawnmower. So I started looking at lawnmower ads.
Then Ed mentioned that they had had trouble at Lowe's getting them to repair the lawnmower they bought there. They had finally taken it to a repair shop that had fixed the problem. I got the name and took our mower in to them. They couldn't have been any nicer, in spite of the fact that I admitted buying the lawnmower at Costco or Home Depot. I'm sure they'd rather people buy mowers from them but they'll fix others as well.
It took a couple of days longer than the 10 they had originally promised because they had to order a part, a part which I had brought to their attention when I brought the mower in. They could have ordered it then and saved time. But the lawn didn't really seem to suffer going a couple of weeks without being mown and the neighbors were kind enough to not say anything.
Now back in commission, the mower feels like new and runs as smooth as an electric. The total cost was less than half the cost of a new mower so I guess this time getting it repaired was worth it.
