Thanks
Don’t you watch the news? There won’t be any snow in the coming years. No polar bears.
Invest in air conditioning.
/sarc
Snow??? What is snow, I forgot what it looks like. In FL we don’t have to shovel the heat, no mater how long the driveway is. We don’t miss Troy either. I’d go with a Troy built over a Craftsman. If I remember correctly Craftsman is a different colored model of a MTD.
What is missing from the article is that ALL of the machines listed are under the company MTD. Look up a website for MTD, that will have parts, manuals etc on PDF files. You will find that all of the companies are MTD. Many engines are the same, either Tecumseh, or Briggs and Stratton (US/Mexico) or maybe Kohler. I’d stay away from Tecumseh, other 2 are okay. So then you have to differentiate between the ease of operation, reliability and design differences in the blower. I don’t have one, but have a Troy-Bilt largest garden tractor for the lawn/garden. Anything else, would use the belly mower on the Deere full size tractor. Good luck. It is discouraging to try to find a product.
Give me a big Honda snow blower every time! They are tough, simple and WORK!
I am quite happy with my Ariens, going strong after 10 years. Simply change the belts and the oil once a year and you are good to go.
I’ll take my Ariens 24 inch model any day. Always dependable, goes through even the deepest (in excess of 2 feet deep) snows easily. I can do my 15 X 200 driveway in 45 minutes or less.
Honda are the best. PERIOD. Simplicity are next, followed by Ariens ,Snapper and Toro. All the rest are junk.
However, they are also the most expensive.
Look on Craigslist for a good used Simplicity. 8-9 HP with 24-26”.
Make sure whatever you get has a cast iron front gearbox.
We can get a lot of lake effect snow here in West Michigan. I had a 6hp 2-stage Toro for 23 years and it refused to die (I wanted a bigger one for my 300+ feet of driveway). I gave up waiting, left it at my in-laws place and bought myself a new Toro anyway...
Don’t know about snow blowers, but I can tell you about the stupid design of my Troy-Bilt rototiller. It has counter-rotating tines so they throw the tilled dirt forward. Nice idea, except also tosses rocks and pebbles forward which then find their way into the drive pulley, dislodging the belt, which then jams between the pulley rim and the chassis. You know this happens when the thing slows down and you smell burning belt. The belt is so jammed up you need to disassemble the machine to repair it.
Troy-Bilt’s “solution” to this design error? Take off the guard around the pulley so the pebbles and stones fall out before they get a chance to bounce around inside the guard and land in the pulley!
Based on this design excellence, I would never buy another of their products.
I do have to say, though, when it is not ingesting belt/pulley jamming stones, it works very nicely. Good power (Honda engine), good transmission, lots of power. Just try not to till an area with marble-sized stones.
last time I shopped for snowblowers, the Ariens was twice the price of the Toro. of course that’s changed now that Home Depot carries Ariens.
I found that they were basically commodities - pretty much the same. some had tank treads, some had plastic chutes, others steel ones. the chassis’ seemed to be all the same, adn the only diff was size and price. the best deal I got was a ten hp Brute for under a grand. that was twelve or thirteen years ago.
Just don’t do this:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2411817/posts?page=1
Ariens.
All you need to know.