Can It Last the Season?

At Rural Ways we are often presented with the dilemma of "repair or replace." On the one hand, we are philosophically predisposed to maintaining our equipment over the long term. On the other hand, it can sometimes be more costly to repair something than it is to replace it. As a recent example of the latter, we had the chainsaw in the shop recently because the gas line was cracked and leaking. It cost $60 to repair the gas line. Yikes. At that rate, it would only take four or five repairs to exceed the value of a new saw. It must be some kind of Keynesian plot to stimulate consumer spending or something.

In any case, when a piece of our equipment becomes used and abused to the point that it seems unwise to continue spending on repairs, we start to plan for replacement. Part of that planning is to ask the question in the title above. That is, can we limp the broken one along for another year? Why spend our money now for something that we can live with for another week, another season, another year?

Right now, besides the saw, our lawn mower has reached the replacement point. One problem is that the air filter mounting bolt, which screws directly into the carburetor, has stripped out and no longer holds the air filter in place. I have remounted the filter using baling wire, but it isn't pretty. The motor also burns oil more quickly than it burns gas and stalls out periodically for no apparent reason. Hopefully we can make it last the season.