Does anyone know what happened to the company that made Troy-bilts?

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I heard they went bankrupt. That surprised me because they'd been around so long. Decades ago I was impressed by their advertising guy, Dean Leith, and how he managed to tie in a Troy-bilt ad in places that many wouldn't think about. I don't think anyone could have gotten more publicity.

Was this another case of thinking bigger is better? Did the company expand and get in over their head? It used to be they didn't have dealers. Then it seemed everyone was selling Troy-bilts.

-- Darren (df1@infi.net), February 21, 2002

Answers

I just talked to our troybuilt dealer yesterday cuz I needed a part for my snowblower. He said that Cub has bought out the company . Don't really know why though.

-- handy (nmhoofer@paulbunyan.net), February 21, 2002.

MTD boughtTroy-Bilt. MTD also makes Cub.

-- Jay (candlebn@maxminn.com), February 21, 2002.

Garden Way, the company that made Troy-Bilt Rototillers was based in Troy, NY (the next county south of me). A few years ago, yes, they announced they were closing their forever. It was no longer profitable for them. I was an employee of Garden Way for several years and left voluntarily in the fall of 1991. There had always been frequent layoffs, both seasonal and otherwise. We used to say there were "too many Chiefs and not enough Indians." This means too many Executives, Managers, Supervisors, etc. and not enough actual "workers." No, I wasn't in the factory, I was an office worker not getting paid enough to keep up with inflation. I have been at home almost 12 years now raising and homeschooling my chidren. Just my 2 cents :-)

-- Cheri Asprion (t.asprion@worldnet.att.net), February 21, 2002.

You kids really show your age. Troy Bilt was a company itself before Garden Way bought them in the 70s I believe...or was it the 80s? Garden Way pretty much kept the Troy Bilt as a heavy duty unit and kept the lifetime warranty.

MTD bought Cub Cadet and is also Yard Man and Murray, and Ryobi lawn eqpt., White Tillers, Wizard mowers, as well as MTD and a bunch of discount store brands. Cub Cadet, like Troy Bilt was built heavy duty in this case by International Harvester. MTD has done a decent job of keeping the Cub Cadet pretty high quality, but you have to watch the consumer vs the professional line distinction. Perhaps they will keep Troy Bilt as a good machine too, but I would not be surprised to see less expensive castings and drive trains. For example, modern cub cadet's use a peerless hydrostatic transaxle built by Tecumsa where they used to have either the Farmall Cub 3 speed transmission or the farmall cub differential driven by a robust hydrostatic pump/motor unit built by Eaton I think. The peerless is plenty for the average homeowner, but you would not pull any ground engaging equipment like a plow with that transaxle. Will this happen to Troy Bilt??? Who Knows.

Oscar

-- Oscar H. Will III (owill@mail.whittier.edu), February 21, 2002.


Ok, here is the real scoop right from the company. We were going to buy a new troybuilt in December and before we did we wanted to know what was really going on with the company, so here it is:

Troybuilt (a division of MTD) filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy. 2/3 of all company employees has been laid off and not expected to return. The bankruptcy court is expected to approve a buy-out from another company, but that had not happened yet (as of December); however, all the warranty work has been purchased by a company in Canada. All warranties (prior and in the future) will be handled by that company. This means if you purchase a Troybuilt your warrantly will NOT be with Troybuilt itself.

In view of all the foregoing, we opted not to buy a Troybuilt. Although worth the money, they are really expensive so we just thought it way too risky at this point.

-- Karen (mountains_mama2@hotmail.com), February 21, 2002.



Karen, If I was you and wanted a good tiller I would look at a Honda. I have been looking and that is the one i decided on. They have a great motor and the rest is heavy built also.

-- Mel Kelly (melkelly@webtv.net), February 21, 2002.

Well, so much for Troy-Bilt -- and all the other good, old-line companies that tried to build quality into their products.

Can't successfully market against the cheap, disposable junk produced by the big conglomerates and sold through the discount chains.

The well-known name on a piece of equipment these days doesn't mean a hill of beans.

At least Stihl is still Stihl.

I think it is, anyway.

-- Hank in Oklahoma (hbaker@ipa.net), March 24, 2002.


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