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

Hondas seem to be pretty darn good but they are pricey, but thats not an issue with you like you said.

Ariens. Go with the best pro model if money is really not an option. That will set you back between 2 and 3 bucks.

If you are eco friendly you could have a honda hybrid blower imported from Japan.

Ingresol Rand has some nice kits(5-10k) for the bobcats(40k)

BBgarage wrote:

That crazy honda blower isn't going to be anymore eco friendly than the like, because it still has a rather large engine (15hp) to charge the batteries on board etc. so its no eco friendly model for sure.

Honda makes the most impressive LOOKING machine. The 1132 track model is impressive looking but hard to handle because of the tracks especially maneuvering  in tight places. The servo electric driven wheel models are not available in the USA.

The Ariens 1336DLE  can throw 96 tons per hour and has a 12v battery start and I would consider it more reliable than the Honda due to the complexity of the Honda  hydro (or servo driven wheels). In my book, reliability is more important than impressive looking.

But....if you got the money and a large property...then go for it!.

newjerseybt wrote:

Complexity is one thing, but if its built right and doesn't have issues I don't see it being an issue about reliability.

Hi Loudsubz:

I guess the reason I am wary is that I own a 2003 Honda HRC216 commercial 21" hydro mower and I have been losing ground speed for the last 2 years. I never lost fluid and have made a hydro cable adjustment already. It seems I lost about 1 mph  the last  2  summers. I expect the ground speed to be 3.5MPH to make the hydro cost effective. A new Hydro is about $350. ...

You ought to look at the Simps and Snappers for quality also!!

They make great equipment!!

                                                     Fred

Regarding fluid breaking Down:

The mower is only used for residential use so I don't think that is an issue for a 2 year old mower.

Maybe it is more noticeable in the Fall. I like to use the mower at 25 degrees to suck up leaves. I have snow right now so I am going to wait till next year.  Maybe I should have bought an Arien's commercial mower with the disk drive instead. (20/20 hindsight) Nothing cheaper than replacing a friction disk for $6.00 on a snowblower or mower. 

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.

It's not the adjustment that s off its the actual speeds don't match with what I want, a user perception problem as opposed to a mechanical one.

I guess I do not have too much of a snow handling problem because

1) I snowblow often....the other day it was 4 times in one day....

2) 13 hp  for 32 inches seems to handle things well.

I suppose when I have to snowblow heavier snow, or a lot of inches deep I'll go at a lower speed.

Kinda like making love.....you can do it fast, but why rush it?? 

Frank D.

Off colour joke alert

Young bull and old bull are looking down at the herd. Young bull says "lets run down and have a couple", old bull says "lets walk down and have them all".

Except for EOD most of what I have to deal with is 10-20cm ( 4-8" ) so speed is more important than power most of the time.

Bill wrote:

Yes ive tried the Hondas  out. I have snowblower around my House and property before rain storms to prevent flooding with my machines. Never needed anything lower than 1st. My ariens and sears can shift on the fly. And I can move my mahine in the off season much easier than the Honda.

Side note, at the Big county fair, OPE dealer was showing 4 or 5  brands of machines. Alll the Hondas were gasses up, and a few from each other manufacturer. I ran the honda here. They gassed all the Hondas to move them to and about when setting up. The other machines rolled freely without much help.

Toro 828LXE is the Top rated snowblower in North America source Consumer Reports Magazine

Who would you rather believe...

a multibillion dollar corporation that MAY derive certain "benefits" based upon the results of a particular review OR the people
in forums such as this one  who have no vested interest in the performance of their  purchased or trial tested  equipment  whether it was good or bad?

 Quote: Newjerseybt :

ntrtuch:

I just try (again) my neigbour's Honda track drive 1132 today. There is still hardened snow from the last snowstorm 16 inch last friday to blow. I am always impress by the will of this machine. I can tell you: If you got a lot of straight line to blow and dont want to be stop by nothing... this machine is impressive!  But again if you have to swerve around.... hard to steer. But not as bad as I remembered from the last time i use it. It's not that bad after all!

ntrtouch wrote:
Probably Oshkosh. They're roughly $450,000.

Or - did you mean you have a requirement for a residential snow blower and was wondering what best fit your needs for performance and durability?

That depends on  how much snow you get; and what area you have to clear; and what you can physically handle.

Just as there are people who swear that Fords are the ONLY vehicles to buy, so too are there GM or Chrysler fans who would NEVER buy a Ford!!!   Ever talk to a Volkswagen or Volvo fanatic?  So...what is BEST????  It depends on your perspective!!!  Do your research....make your choice.... and move forward!!!  You can only rely on other people's perceptions so far.  There are no clear-cut absolutes!!!

*(:>)*

Garandman:

That behemoth would look good attached on the front of my truck.  They should make Dodge Rams, Ford F250s etc with a PTO option so you can use a blower instead of a plow. The PTO could also be used with a variety of attachments.

NJ,

Get a Unimog!!!

                                Fred

This site helped me greatly 2 years ago to decide what I needed. 

 Conclusion=there is a group of brands making each other better by competition.

AND there is somegroups to avoid.

I'm happy with my purchase, esp. because of my hill!

  18 degrees

P.S. why are people moving there snowblowers around so much in the summer?  In my garage the snowblower is inside and the car sits out in the weather.

TTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS


TOROS

faithfulFrank wrote:
Hi Frank, what do you ean shift on the fly ?

I have an old MTD brand blower, and I must stop moving with the snowblower before changing gears,, don't the Ariens work the same way ?
.... meaning you must put the thing into the gear you want, then pull down lever that engages the gear drive, which is located on the right handle bar ?

thanks for your time

You can shift into forward gears without declutching, just not from forward to reverse or vice versa.

I haven't used every type of snowblower, but Honda is the best I've tried.  Ariens are easy to work on, and you'll get plenty of practice.  The snow/hr ratings are garbage, because my hs828 could easily more more snow than my 1336dle pro.   Its not the shifting.  I think anyone who can drive a standard knows it doesn't slow you down after a week of practice.  The hydro drive is so much more efficient you save a ton of power for the auger.  They're both about the same in powder, but get some heavy snow (which is when you actually need a snowblower) and the honda shifts into a power band on the auger and goes FARTHER!  The Ariens is not the same.  Nowhere near the power in heavy/wet snow.  You can disengage the wheel-dirve models, and push them but they start so easy and are so quiet, why not?

If you go with the Honda don't bother with electric start unless you need a light.  The motor decompresses on start up, so my 6 yr old daughter could start one, and alway on the 1st pull.  They're amazing.  Not even in the same class.    If its money, then buy a cheap one from sears, but don't bother with a $1500-$2000 not-much-better-than-a-cheap-one machine with 95% of the same parts and the same color paint.