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.

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.