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

Have you seen the junk they are now selling on the Home Depot website?It's called Sno-Tek by Ariens.It's being described as a value machine lol.Ariens will do anything to be known as the Co. that sells the most machines.They have forgotten about quality and it's all about sales.

borat wrote:
Ever hear the expression "penny wise but dollar foolish"?  It's the same thing.  I've seen US corporations do the craziest things just to make their numbers for a quarterly earnings call.  Things that did not contribute positively to long range strategy.  One US corporation I was with years ago sold off their only growing company just to meet their earning projections for the semester.

As far as the quality not being what it should on American made premium snowblowers...I can't explain it.  If I had to try, I'd suggest that the American made top of the line machines are less expensive than the top of the line Hondas or Yamahas.   But the fact they're less expensive isn't a good explanation because I feel that any American snow thrower labeled as a Professional model should be able to take a beating and be free of the nuisance problems that I've read about on this forum.

The reduction in build quality has made me hesitant for a while. I just got tired of fixing the little things getting worn out on a 36 year old blower. It's a rather small 24" / 5HP re-labelled Gilson. But it's built like a tank. bent & pressed plate verus stamped sheetmetal, Bearings versus bushings, Cast Iron gearcase versus pot metal. The impeller alone is an exercise in overkill, yet it got bent ingesting a 2x4. However, even bent, it continued to function for many years. I doubt any current impeller would fare as well. But to get anything built as solidly today I'd have to spend $3000 to get even close.
I doubt my next blower (Ariens ST30LE or Poulan PR1330ES) will lat as long.

Thanks for the tips on cable freezing, I'll have to keep that in mind.

I just recently saw a video of those old snowblowers.  Looks like they can gobbles a lot of deep snow and have high volumetric capacity.  However, the throwing distance was fairly short, looks like the most was about 10 feet.

I don't think I want something built as tough as these older snowblowers.  I rather trade off toughness for more performance/efficiency.  Not that I need to, but there may be occasions when placing snow in the neighbor's driveway may be entertaining.

This post is for screen name MM42  I may have a trick that could fix your cable problem.You may have to wait till next season to try it but if you can get the cables dry on the inside or get a new set of cables so you could have a spare set. Let the cables soak in automotive antifreeze use antifreeze straight uncut., if you can see the antifreeze is compleatly thru the cables you shuold be good for a year of two. Using lube may work, but oil and water will still freeze inside the cable.