SaferProducts incident

Failure type

Fire / ignition

Incident narrative

SaferProducts.gov consumer incident report 20141120-746EA-2147438699. Severity: Incident, No Injury. Product: Sears Craftsman Model 536.881851 (Sears Craftsman snow thrower model 536.881851 with Briggs and Stratton engine 15A114 0342 E1 050902 FD). Incident: In Dec of 2013 my wife was clearing our driveway with our Sears Craftsman snow thrower, model 536.881851. (The engine plate shows 15A114 0342 E1 and 050902 FD) She had been working on the driveway for about 10 minutes. The machine stalled. She attempted to restart it and it caught on fire. We put the fire out with a fire extinguisher and when the unit cooled down, we stored it back in the barn. We received so much snow last winter that I could not get it back out of the barn to have it looked at until after the winter was over. This fall I attempted to see about getting it repaired and found that it was on a recall list from the CPSC and the reason was that it could catch fire. I called Sears and they said that I needed to call Briggs and Stratton directly. When I called them, they say that they have to recall for a machine that old and they can not do anything for a unit that is eight years out of warranty.