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

Who makes the strongest, most powerful, most durable snow blower?  Price isnt an issue.  I want to buy a new one and wanted to know who is the best of the best

I see no need for a infinatly variable spped transmission on  a snowblower.

The regular 5 speed disk drive is robust, inexpensive to maintain, and ofers plenty of low end torque for deep snow or high speed for transport.

And yes, try to move a teack honda without starting it . Its a fight. Disk drive units will roll easily.

Have you ever actually tried out a Honda snowblower?  That infinitely variable hydro tranny is light years ahead of "disk drives".  No use for a CVT tranny on a snowblower?  What if you want to crawl beside the house and then take off at a faster speed?  The disk drive requires that you come to a complete stop, shift in to a higher gear, then start again.  With the Honda, you can seemlessly shift speeds on the fly, no stopping.  There really is no comparison.  I could never go back to a disk drive tranny.  Everyone who has tried out my Honda says the same.

Just the crawl factor of that Honda tranny is amazing.  As slow as you want to go, awesome.  Is there a chance of expensive failures?  Sure, there's a chance.  But my friend owns a Honda dealership, and has not seen one single failure since Honda introduced the Hydro tranny in 97 or 98.  They are bulletproof.

While I would love a hydro setup, once you become swift with the disc-o-matic you can pop through the gears easily.

 What means "the best" snowblower?   The more efficient?  the fastest one?  the more durable?  the stronguest one? the more easy to repare?...

Wich snowblower is the best one regardless of the price. I ask myself this question for a long time now.

After a lot of reading, trying, testing and thinking; here's the conclusion I've come to:

WEEL DRIVE: The best snowblower of it's kind (Weel drive) : The Ariens Professionnal models (For the tuffness, the availability of parts, the reliability, the reputation and the resale value) and of course the differential drive for maneuvrability. And now: the trigger for locking the differential while blowing. ( Toro and Simplicity are also very good choice, but Ariens is the winner to me. Simplicity: Not enought dealers, Toro: Not as strong as the Ariens Pro).

TRACK DRIVE: The best of it's kind (Track drive) : The Honda (For the superior traction, the hydrostatic transmission, the legendary reliability of Honda, the reputation, the best engine of all, the ability to "dive" into the hard packed snow and the best resale value)... Any ways there is not much track drive constructors to compare... 

Now the choice:

If you have some "special needs" like having to climb stairs to access a deck or a roof to clean it, a very steep or unpaved drive way. You better go with the Honda track drive. But you have to know that the track drive model are real pain to move if the engine is off. It's like trying to move a small tank. There is a feature that alow to put the transmission on "neutral" but it still hard to move. The other "problem" is that you don't turn on a dime with those two tracks. It means that the 180 degrees turn at the end of the drive way are not as easy as the weeled models. In one word: harder to manouver in tight area. But it's an awsome machine and it will resale like a hot cake at high price. 

But if you don't have those "special needs" go for an Ariens pro model Weel drive for the superior maneuvrability. 

A guy who runs a snow removal business said that he have two Honda track drive and five Ariens weel drive. He said that he's employes all firts want to try the track drive models but after the first snow storm, they all came back to the Ariens weel drive because the track drive are MUCH arder to manouver.  This tell's a lot to me!

In fact, if it was not the more difficult maneuvrability of the track drive. For all the others adventages I would say : Honda is the best of all. Without a doubt.

It might be that I'm still trying to convince myself that I made the right choice five years ago!  >>> I own an Ariens 1332 Pro.

Just my opinion.

Hope this will help. 

This IS a hard question to answer.......like someone else said, it's like asking "What's the best car??"

everyone has different needs......how much snow do you get........, how big is your driveway.....who will use it......storage needs.......dealer support......do you do your own maintanence.......
do you also do neighbors.........do you need to transport it........etc,etc.

That is why I posted a sticky here last year about "Buying a new Snowblower? Ask these questions first".....   The old mods saw the wisdom in making that a sticky....when the new mods took over they wiped it out......it was very helpful, and stupid to take it off.......it IS on the new forum though.

ANYWAY........Try it before you buy it......check out the features you like......quality and dealer support should be more important then price......a quality unit should last you 20 years.....devide the higher price of a quality unit by 20 years and it is pennies, and you have the joy of owning and using a quality snowblower.

That being said, ANY snowblower well taken care of is better then the best snowblower that is NOT taked care of.

For the record, although I've never used a hydro drive, my Ariens Pro snowblower has 6 forward speeds, the first gear is crawling...very slow...perfect.....the 6th gear is FAST.  It is all I need.

If you tell us more about your needs and wants in this area we could be more helpful to you.

Frank D.

Bill said:

"..What if you want to crawl beside the house and then take off at a faster speed?  The disk drive requires that you come to a complete stop, shift in to a higher gear, then start again...."

I shift on the fly with my 1128DLE. The friction disk "walks" across the drive plate.

The machine is "geared" perfect for 1st gear and I do not go faster than 3rd. Anything faster is risking damage to my machine. Those sidewalks are not always level and I could go head first over the handles. lol

NJ is right....you can shift on the fly with the Ariens.....I usually blow in 4th or 5th gear.......5th is fast.........I have the snow cab to stop me from flying over it....

Frank D.

Hi Frank,

I think you're right. The right way to see the problem is to try to find the right snowblower for your needs..... This is the best snowblower for you.

But I think that the question here was simply: Wich snowblower is the best? Regardless of considerations of price or specific needs.

Yes it's difficult to answer the question: Wat car is the best?  But regarding snowblowers I think it's much more easyer to answer. We can debate over two or three contenders of course. But I think we can put the list down to less than four snowblower for the title.

Anyways.

>>>  " I usually blow in 4th or 5th gear.......5th is fast........."    >>>>  Wow!   You must have very small amount of snow to do that!!!

I usually blow in first and sometimes in second gear!  Never in 3th and in the 5th I have to run behind the snowblower!    ....     You must be jocking!?

We just received 41cm ( a bit over 16 inch.) of snow yesterday and the first gear was just fast enought to do a good job and digest the snow without forcing the engine!  (Ariens 1332 DLE)

I find that I rarely use anything but :

1. Fastest forward gear - straight line,- still too slow
2. Slowest forward gear - EOD and deep heavy stuff - Sometimes its too fast
3. Fastest reverse gear - Still too slow but it helps when I need to maneuver backwards

They promised us 20-30cm ( 8-12 " ) and we only got  10cm ( 4") which seems to be normal for this area. I basically guage how fast to go by the engine sound and how much snow is being snowplowed by the augers. I find if I go too slow there isn't enough load on the engine to cause the automatic throttle to kick in and performance degrades. I'm also impatient and want to use all of my horsepower :

If your machine has a friction disk then cable adjustments will help problems 2 & 3. You will get a slower 1st "gear" and a faster reverse but a slower high speed.