As someone who repairs electronics, who has 2 mechanics as neighbors (farm/small engine and car/truck), I get the sense that I could spend a lot of time on a site like this, but I'm not sure that most things I'd speak to are even worth other people reading.
For instance, sometime after 2010 nearly every small engine switched to plastic parts inside, with some brands and models cutting so many corners that there's no bearings on the main shaft at all.
Short of "find an old one and fix it up" there isn't much you can do to prevent this, or even find an alternate brand. Your choice becomes: garbage, refurbish, commercial; with the price being logarithmic across. Commercial stuff may last a while or be easier to repair for commercial entities, but being 10 times as expensive at minimum really hampers my enthusiasm.
I lost count of how many extension cords, axes, rakes, trash cans, hoses, sprinklers, outdoor lights and cameras, etc etc I have rusting or trashed for breaking at this point.
I'm finding the same with power tools. Being a part-time power tool service tech has really burst my bubble about any new tech in tools, plus it's getting harder and harder to get parts for old ones.
I was shopping for an impact wrench yesterday and came across one that was in my budget and was a brand I know I can get replacement parts for. It looked kind of familiar and when I started reading the reviews I remembered why: several people mentioned that the model has a design flaw that makes it overheat and melts the armature fan to the plastic case. A customer brought one in a few years ago and if it hadn't been covered by warranty it would've cost almost as much as a new one to replace the cooked armature. Even at 4-5x my budget the tools are only slightly more dependable, and they've really transitioned from being tools to unrepairable (epoxy-potted) electronic devices.
For instance, sometime after 2010 nearly every small engine switched to plastic parts inside, with some brands and models cutting so many corners that there's no bearings on the main shaft at all.
Short of "find an old one and fix it up" there isn't much you can do to prevent this, or even find an alternate brand. Your choice becomes: garbage, refurbish, commercial; with the price being logarithmic across. Commercial stuff may last a while or be easier to repair for commercial entities, but being 10 times as expensive at minimum really hampers my enthusiasm.
I lost count of how many extension cords, axes, rakes, trash cans, hoses, sprinklers, outdoor lights and cameras, etc etc I have rusting or trashed for breaking at this point.