LACKAWANNA COUNTY, Pa. — From lawnmowers to weed whackers, repair shops across our region are searching high and low for parts.
“Some parts are hard to come by; you have to scrounge around to find them. I'm looking in different locations than I'd normally look because my normal distributors are out of stock with them back right through to the factory,” said Tim Von Storch.
The owner of Von Storch Repair Company near Clarks Summit says their distributors have long timelines for when parts will be available. Some are as far out as late summer. So in the meantime, owners are trying to do whatever they can to avoid the wait.
“It just sits until something comes in that we can fix it with. I use a lot of used parts if I have them around just to keep people going,” said Von Storch.
In Luzerne County, lawnmowers are lined up outside Vac-Way Lawn and Garden in Kingston. However, getting parts is holding customers up for weeks.
“At this time, they expect to wait a little bit, but they don't expect to be waiting four weeks. It's kind of six one, half dozen, but most are quite aware that it's happening,” said Ashley Stirling.
Buying a new lawnmower seems like the next best thing to get the lawn taken care of. But even those are getting harder for small retailers to get their hands on.
“Normally, we have about 20 to choose from, mowers, random models, various perks, but we couldn't even obtain any this year,” said Stirling.
Vac-Way has so many repairs on the books it’s had to pause new service requests for the time being.
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