Second-Season Index Calculator
Almost nothing that kills a budget import is visible on the day it arrives. It dies at month nine, when a $12 gasket turns out not to exist and the seller has delisted the model. Answer five questions about the machine you are looking at and this runs our published weights over them — the same five inputs behind every Second-Season Index in the registry.
How fast a consumable arrives, and whether anyone still lists one at all.
Whether a part sold for another machine will physically fit this one.
Valve clearances, carb cleans and chain adjustment on your own bench.
What actually limits a child on the throttle, and whether it is documented.
What a top end costs measured against what the whole machine cost.
Second-Season Index
50/100
Coin flip — stock the shelf first
This is the profile that dies quietly at month nine. Price a top-end kit, a carb and a set of gaskets today; if you cannot find them today you will not find them then.
Biggest single drag: Spare-parts channel and lead time — costing 15 index points on its own. Fix that input and the whole number moves.
Points lost by input
- Spare-parts channel and lead time−15
- Clone-pattern interchangeability−12.5
- Tools and skill for routine service−7.5
- Restrictor and youth-safety provision−7.5
- Hours-to-rebuild economics−7.5
The index is your five answers multiplied by the published weights above — nothing hidden, nothing scraped. If you cannot answer the interchange question yet, run the displacement calculator over the engine first, then come back to this one.