Honest answers, valley edition. Prices below are ballparks so you're not flying blind — ask the mechanic for the real number before anything gets touched.
More often than not, a no-start after storage is fuel: gummed carburetor, rotten fuel line, stale gas. A carb clean and tune-up around here usually lands somewhere in the $60–$150 neighborhood depending on the machine. If it needs a new carb, add parts. You'll get the actual number on the callback — and if the fix costs more than the machine is worth, ask straight out — it's a fair question.
Rough rule the mechanics themselves use: if the repair runs past about half what a comparable new machine costs, and yours is over ten years old, put the money toward new. But a solid older machine — a cast-deck mower, a two-stage blower with a good gearbox — is usually worth saving. They genuinely don't build a lot of the new stuff as heavy.
Because it's the gas. Ethanol-blend fuel starts breaking down in a month or two, absorbs water, and turns to varnish inside a carburetor over a valley winter. Run the tank dry in fall or dose it with stabilizer, and you skip most spring no-starts entirely. Cheapest repair in this whole FAQ: a $6 bottle of Sta-Bil in October.
Depends entirely on when you call. Off-season, often inside a week. The week after the first snowfall, or the week everybody mows for the first time in April? Benches around the county back up for weeks at once. September snowblower service and March mower service is the whole cheat code.
Ask on the call — several of the local guys do pickup for riders and other stuff that won't fit in a trunk, usually for a fee that beats renting a trailer. Mention what the machine is and where you are (town or rural route) and you'll know in a minute.
Yes on all three, though not every mechanic does every machine — outboards especially are their own specialty. That's part of why the line exists: you describe the machine, we get it in front of a mechanic who works on that type instead of you calling four shops in a row.
Brand and rough age of the machine, what it's doing (or not doing), whether it sat with gas in it over the winter — don't be embarrassed, everyone's did — and your town. Thirty seconds of that beats a guessing game later.