Outdoor Power Equipment (Lawn Mowers, Snow Blowers, Chain Saws and more) Discussions

Hi all,
     Went upstate this past weekend to Cortland County (near Syracuse) to visit my mother. While I was there I swung by an old Ariens dealer to see if he had any of those snow cabs for my Ariens 8526LE. When i walked in I was greated with lots of nice machines....Simplicitys all over and a bunch of Toros. But no Ariens...so I just wondered around and was really digging Toro's new quick aim snow shoot! Pretty cool! But lots of plastic.... The Simplicitys look rugged and well built. Then the salesman/owner came out to ask if he could help. He didn't have any of the cabs but they were due in a week or so....then I asked him "where are the Ariens machines?" His reply.... "Ariens really cheapend their product to get it into Home Depo" Is there any truth to this? He went on to say that warranty work was killing him...his shop was full of repairs...and mainly all with the same problems. He said that the tranys were a major problem....plastic bushings causing problems and some other things that I can't remember. He said that after the last 2 years, he gave up.

Clarks garden power supply
They carry Simplicity, Ferris, Echo, and Toro...and no longer Ariens:(

I'll check that out Fred,  thanks!

It's no secret. You ALMOST always get better service whit small dedicated business than the big surfaces stores when it comes to maintenance and repair.

In fact in Canada except for the Ariens (regular models, not the Pro models) at HD, the "good" more expensives brands are always find in the smaller stores while you can find the more "unexpensive" more affordable ones at the big surfaces stores.

I have an old ariens 24" 5hp that I was tired of working on. I was all set to buy an Ariens 11hp, went to the Home Depot the day after a storm, and they were sold out.  My daughter and I looked around the store and finally, out in the garden department we saw 12 of the 11hp models.  Evry single one of them (two still in the original boxes) were marked defective for return.

After seeing this I decided, thanks to a great post on this site, to buy a new engine for my old war horse.  I ordered the 7.5hp Intek from smallenginewarehouse.com for $222 (free shipping). They sent me an 8hp for some reason but after drilling 4 new holes in the deck to mount the engine, putting some gas in and pulling the cord it started right up. Now all I need to do is move the chute control linkage and I have a really great snow blower :)

From what I've read, if your worried about quality, the Hondas seem to be very well built and well liked, although they are pricey.

jcco wrote:

Just curious - did you pull something into the augers by accident? If not, I wonder if a keyway fell out. It seems like a stripped worm gear is an oddity for a brand new machine. Have you actually seen this stripped worm gear? Paul from Ariens (Snowman?) does monitor this site from time to time - I wonder if he might be worth a PM...

Marty

Paul's Forum name is SnowmanN - thats two "N"s. I goofed above...

Marty

2muchtime wrote:

I think you may have missed something... The problem is not with ARIENS but with the place that they are purchased from. You see, at Home Depot, they sell the machines built for a mere $15 more, so most if not ALL people have Home Depot set their machines up. Now the customer takes it home and something goes wrong from the assembly. Home Depot has such a great return policy...so they just take it back and give the customer a new one. These "bad" machines are now sent back to the vender....and it is those machines that you saw at the back of the store.

I wonder if you could get a serious discount by offering to take a "defective" machine off their hands?

nibbler wrote:
Nope! I worked for Home Depot as a district manager and there are NO deals for employees or customers for the most part. The only time they will discount (and spray with orange paint!!!) is with a return that the customers says is in good working order.

2muchtime wrote:

I dont believe they were Defective, mearly misued or mis assembled by HD employees. HD doesnt troubleshoot the proble,. Just ships them back.

Ive see the same setup in the summer with John Deere tractors.  All in the steel shipper crates set for return. Customer brings it back and HD returns to Deere. A true servicing dealer would re-adjust or find the problem and fix the unit, or avoid the problem with proper setup.

Defects in large products are less then 1 in several hundred. So why do HD and other box stores have dozen and dozens of defective returns from the same product line? They dont.... Defective employees and customers.

This is really getting carried away. 12 defective units, some still in boxes. Use you head. Too much speculation and guessing going on IMHO.  Here's what I found and BELIEVE to be fairly accurate when looking for snowblower. Recall on Several snowthrowers with Tecumseh engine concerning the gas line and a 10 cent part. What exactly, don't know, but received this same story from several vendors and on many makes and models. All units were pulled from the floor to be corrected. Now, I won't state this as fact, but I'm sure some of you guys are aware of what the problem was. Again, this was at a few different stores and included several manufacturers.

What to do. Get your snowblower home and check it over. There's not much assembly done at the store and is well described in the manul.  On the bright side, one is forced to become familiar with their machine to make sure all is well before the snow hits.