Don't Buy a Sears Lawnmower

For years, I've bought major appliances at Sears, and I've always had good results. This week I learned that my good fortune may have been limited to Sears in California. My recent experience with Sears in Pittsburgh has been disastrous. Sometimes working through Pittsburgh's problems takes big ideas; sometimes it takes little anecdotes. Here's a little anecdote. Don't buy a Craftsman lawnmower.

Unfortunately, a couple of years ago, I did. A self-propelled push model. It seems to work fine, most of the time. This spring (and it is spring, notwithstanding the cold), it came out of the shed and needed a tuneup before the first mow. Sharpen the blade, check and change the oil, filter, etc. So we took it to the Sears Service Center in McMurray. This is a Craftsman mower (a Sears brand), and it's only a couple of years old.

Sears Service took the mower and kept it for a few days. They called and said that the mower was ready to be picked up. Went down to retrieve the mower. No service had been performed, they said; the mower had been shipped from facility to facility and then returned to McMurray, but Sears could not figure out what the model number was. No model number, no service. Remember, this is a Craftsman mower, and it's only a couple of years old.

Unhappily, the mower came home, and we went to the file and pulled out the instruction manual that came with the mower. A manual that has a picture of the mower on the front and the model number in big black letters and numbers.

Back the mower went to the Sears Service Center in McMurray. This time, the folks there refused to accept the mower because the mower had no plate attached to it that included the model number. What about what you said before? What about the instruction manual that we retrieved and delivered with the mower? But the wise souls in McMurray would not budge. No service.

I could get upset and refer to the staff at the Sears Service Center in McMurray as incompetent, obtuse morons. But I won't; that would be disrespectful to people who suffer from true disabilities. And the Sears staff doesn't suffer from any genuine disability.

Instead, I'll be calm and note that the real problem is that the Sears Service staff in McMurray choose to be self-absorbed and stupid. They could care about their customers, and they could remind themselves that they are, after all, in the service business. These people at Sears are simply too dumb and lazy and rude to do so. What about those people people who bought large Craftsman machines from Sears and who reasonably expect that a Sears Service Center will actually service and repair them? Remember, this is a Craftsman mower -- it says so, unambiguously, on the mower itself -- and it's only a couple of years old. Does Sears -- Sears! -- have some kind of catalog that might actually list the mowers that the company has sold over the last couple of years? Care to look inside? Or how about trusting the fact that the person who brings in the mower AND the instruction manual WITH THE MOWER PICTURED ON IT might be entitled to a bit of courtesy? Go ahead. Sharpen the blade and change the air filter. Make my day.

I don't suppose that these mindless Sears nitwits are representative of Pittsburgh's service economy. Some of the merchants I visit in Mt. Lebanon, for example, are the models of what a fabulous neighborhood business should be. But Sears doesn't do Pittsburgh any favors, and that's the point. When I lived in California, my Sears Service reps knocked themselves out on my behalf. You want an economy and a culture to move forward at anything greater than a snail's pace (actually, in Pittsburgh sometimes, even a snail's pace will do)? Then everyone -- and I mean everyuone -- needs to get with the program. It's a service economy. Meanwhile, I'll look for a different shop to service my mower (if you know of a place in the South Hills that does a good job with Craftsman mowers, let me know). And under no circumstances should you ever, ever, buy a large appliance at Sears in Pittsburgh and have the company expect to stand behind its product.

UPDATE and a happy ending (April 14): We decided to take matters into our own hands, literally, by recovering a sense of mechanical do-it-yourselfness (changing our own plugs, points, and oil) that came more naturally to us before we had kids. We bought replacement parts (oil, filter, plug, blade) at Sears (South Hills Village), where the staff was everything you would want a sales staff to be (that is, appalled by the behavior of their Service Center colleagues). Total cost: $30. The lawnmower will live to mow for several seasons more. Still, I can't recommend the Craftsman models unhesitatingly; there is something to be said for a brand that can be serviced anywhere -- if you can't service it yourself.