Ralph Helm

I have to say these guys are better than average for a couple of reasons:
1) I bought a snowblower from them and had it serviced where they would pick up and drop off it was serviced by them. After one year and a routine service it wouldn’t start. I dropped it off and they called me up with some good news and bad news. Bad news the year old snowblower was dead, good news it was due to a factory issue and since it was less than 2 years old with them not making the model anymore I got upgraded to a newer better model. They even dropped it off fully assembled and ready to go.
2) I bought a lawnmower and wanted a certain model. The guy asked me what kind of lawn I had, what kind of lawn I wanted, how often I cut the grass. Basically more questions than I ever thought of about cutting my grass. He recommended a model that was cheaper than the one I originally wanted. Nope I didn’t listen to the guy who deals with lawns all day I bought the one I thought I wanted. Turns out he was right. 3 years later I deal with the issues he EXACTLY pointed out why I wouldn’t want the model and should have gotten the other one.
So what did I learn? They are good at keeping repeat customers and know their domain. I’m an idiot at purchasing lawn equipment.
Also if you think you’re ‘saving’ money by buying from a big box retailer, you’re not. You’re buying the cheapo retail version of the product that you can get from an authorized dealer with better service in terms of asking what you’re going to do with it, servicing it and generally having more knowledge then the part time big box employee.

Called to see if they could repair my Honda mower and they gave me a quick quote on the phone. Ran it over about 30 minutes before close on Friday night. Dropped it off and explained the issues. Just got a call 10 minutes ago on Tuesday morning that the lawnmower is fixed. The height adjustment lever broke off the rear wheels. When I explained this to the guy on the phone said it would be about $ 20 for the part and 30 minutes labor so about $ 60 maybe less. Guy who called today when I asked how much it ended up being said $ 104. What a jump. I would not have put $ 104 into a 7 year old lawnmower. Went to pick it up today and he explained the guy who gave me the quote didn’t realize they had to drop the transmission to fix the part that is why it cost more. He adjusted the invoice to a fair amount. Will be back. Thank you.

After visiting the big box guys — again, I realized that I did not want to buy anthing from them! They have no clue about the features and specs of anything they sell. I have bought several weedeaters and lawnmowers from them and when they go bad, I find there not worth fixing. Most repair centers want $ 75-​$ 95 for repair per hour.
I heard about Ralph Helm and heard they had good quality brands. The kind of brands that the big guys arent allowed to sell because they have no clue about the products and these elite manufactureres will not stand for that.
Whithin 5 minutes of walking in, I was greeted by a sales person. I was looking for a weed eater and wanted a good one. The sales person showed me several options. He clearly was very skilled and knew about these products.
He recommended one that was $ 130 less than I was prepaired to spend. He walked me through long and short term care and even filled it with gas and prepaired it for use.. He completely removed all the string and then showed me how to install it. He then started it and walked me through the complete operation. I can not remember when I received service this good. Best part of it all was that the one that I had purchased was only a few bucks more that what the big box guys had. The advise he had given me may have saved some of my other machines.
Although they are about 10 miles from my house, I will make ALL my lawn equipment and will have all my stuff serviced by them!

I visited this dealer in Elgin this past weekend to see what could be done with my month old Toro lawnmower that I purchased at a big box store. I was really hoping for some advice regarding the mower’s problem, and thinking seriously about trading up if they’d work a deal with me. The gentleman behind the counter really didn’t seem interested at all in helping me try and diagnose the issue — he merely informed me that since i hadn’t originally purchased the mower from them, I was in for at least a three week wait period before they could even look at it. When I asked about trading it in, his first words were «well, does it run?» Had you taken five minutes to listen to what the issue was, you would have known that the mower starts and runs just fine. Thanks to Google, I was able to diagnose the issue online with a great tutorial and discovered a belt was off the pulley. A very simple fix, and now the self-​propel feature is humming along again just fine. I’m sure they’re a very fine dealer with a very good repair shop, but their customer service from the guys behind the counter failed to make a customer out of me. I won’t be back.