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

Hello everybody,

This is my first post. I found this website about a week ago and have been trying to learn from all the great info posted here. I'm 54 and live in northeast Wisconsin on a large corner lot right across the road from Lake Michigan (can you say "lake effect snow"?) My driveway is 3 cars wide and a little over 2 car lengths long, with a row of hedges bordering it on one side and an alley on the other. When I clear the snow, I can't throw snow into the alley, so I need to throw it across the 3 car wide driveway clear to the other side (and over the hedges, which are about 4 feet high). Also, I live on a busy street where the city plows are constantly coming by and pushing more snow onto the sidewalks, which are very long.

The last 2 winters have been very harsh in terms of both snow and cold. I've been shopping at all the stores around where I live trying to find a snow thrower that will fit my needs. Reliability and quality is high on the list of what I'm looking for. I've read good things about the Simplicity brand, so I visited a Simplicity dealer near me. The salesperson I dealt with suggested that the L1428E would be the machine to best serve my needs. I love the Easy Turn feature. The one feature that I question is the electric chute controls ... especially without any kind of manual override should it freeze up or short out ... or whatever.

My question: Is there any reason I should be leery about having electric chute controls? As I said, our winters can be very cold and harsh here. I'd hate to have the button freeze up on me or short out in the middle of a blizzard and have no means of clearing the snow if that should happen. I wouldn't mind dropping to the model below this one (the L1226E), which has a manual chute control, if it can still do the job with less chance of problems arising.

Oh, and one more thing. There is also a Snapper dealer in my area. According to him, Snapper is the parent company of Simplicity. So does that mean Snapper would be a better product than Simplicity? Or would they be the same machine with a different name tag on it? They offer what appears to be a very similar snow thrower to the L1428E for the same price (it even has the exact same model number) ... accept that their machine also includes hand warmers (which in my mind isn't really necessary, but I'm just letting you know).

Thanks everybody. I look forward to your opinions and feedback.

Bob

mikiewest wrote:

They don't give their engines to anyone.  They sell them.  Briggs and Stratton is an engine company first that happens to own a couple small equipment manufacturers too.  If Toro or Ariens is going to pay what Briggs asks for the better engines, I don't see why Briggs wouldn't sell them.  Both Toro and Ariens buy a lot of engines every year and it wouldn't make sense for Briggs to jeopordize big contracts like that just to sell a few more snow blowers every year.

Thanks for all the hellos and the great info! I really appreciate the help.

With all the high praise the Toros are getting, I'd like to check them out. But I don't know of any Toro dealers in the area. I went to the Toro website, but their "Dealer Locator" feature isn't compatible with the browser I use. (grrr) I also checked the yellow pages. No mention of Toros in the Snow Removal section. I guess I'll have to ask around.

I did look at a few Ariens snow throwers/blowers at a Home Depot store about 30 miles from where I live. The salesman "helping" me didn't seem to know very much about any of the snow throwers. Most questions I asked were answered with "I don't know". And out of the questions that were answered, I had the feeling that the salesman really didn't know the answers, but had to say something since I asked. Frustrating.

My head is spinning with all the info from here plus all the different snow throwers I looked at over the last week or so ... most of which haven't even been mentioned here (... like Craftsman, Poulan, Cub Cadet, Sno-Tek, Troy-Bilt, MTD, etc.). From what is mentioned here, I'm assuming that Toro, Ariens and Simplicity/Snapper are all highly regarded so that's what I'm concentrating most on. (Plus I'm not sure about any machine with a plastic chute, but I suppose that's another one of those hot-button issues). :-)

Lots of variables to sort through. It might take me some time to figure out, but again, I do appreciate all your help. That's why I came here.

Thanks again!

Bob

Go ahead and ask all you want. Anytime a newby comes by and ask questions, all sorts of "hot buttons" pops up.

Good Luck -- let us know how it works out and what you end up with.  One thought on finding a Toro dealer...  I live in the metro-Milwaukee area and have noticed that several of the ACE Hardware stores are also Toro dealers.  Maybe the same is true up by you? 

mfduffy wrote:
Thanks. I'm in the Door County area. I found a Toro dealer in Green Bay yesterday. Nice looking machines. I've never really paid attention to the details on snow blowers before. Now that I've been looking around, it's an eye opener to see so many different options out there. It won't be an easy decision.

The other brands you mentioned aren't exactly trash. As the saying goes, You get what you pay for. The AYP/MTD machines and their derivatives will perform well under normal circumstances with reasonable maintenance. However, as the other old saying goes, When the going gets tough, the tough get going. Loosely translated means that the higher quality machines will knuckle down and keep going where the other machines struggle. A good example of this was when we had a nasty early spring storm March 31st of this year. We received 30 inches of heavy wet snow. The end of driveway deposit was at least 48 inches. My Simplicity 9528 powered through all of it. I'm not saying it was a breeze. It wasn't. However, the machine performed impressively and didn't miss a beat. My neighbour up the street had her vehicle stuck at the bottom of her drive way (110' long, two cars wide and a 10 per cent uphill grade to the house, much like all the lots on this side of the street.) She had come home during the storm and quite a bit of snow had already accumulated and although, her vehicle is a four wheel drive Rav4, it couldn't make it up the drive way. I saw her shoveling around the Rav with her 10 h.p. 29 inch late model Craftsman parked in about three feet of wet snow near the bottom. I walked over to offer assistance. She said that she was shoveling because the snow thrower had died. I saw that it just needed fuel and gassed it up. Then I went to work using it to start clearing her driveway. I couldn't believe how much more difficult it was using the Craftsman. It's not that I don't have experience with them. I had previously owned two very similar sized/powered machines. After struggling to make just two passes of unpacked snow, I parked it in her garage and came back with the Simplicity. The difference was night and day. With the Craftsman, I was working harder than the machine. The simplicity was a walk in the park by comparison. Even the end of driveway deposit wasn't too much of a chore. More effort required by both machine and operator but it got done. I did three long and wide driveways that morning. One right after the other. The Simplicity was still eager to go but I couldn't say the same for myself. The bottom line is that the higher end machines earn their premium price when the going gets very difficult. Any machine can toss six inches of powder. Thirty inches of heavy wet snow will severely tax lesser machines as well as their operators.

borat ... I love reading real experience posts like yours. Thank you.

With the high talk of the Simplicity, I guess this thread has come full circle to my original question on whether to be concerned with the new electric chutes on the Simplicitys. :)

Since I started this thread, I thought I should add something I found out today regarding electric chute controls. I was looking at another snow blower today. I'll spare you the details as they aren't real important. But what I wanted to mention is that I asked the owner/dealer of the store his thoughts on electric chute controls. He told me that MTD used to have them on some of their snow blowers a few years ago. He said there were a lot of problems with them when moisture would get inside the wiring and then freeze up. He stopped carrying them and suggested I stay away from them. I don't know how "normal" his experience is ... it's just what he told me.

That kind of bums me out because I really liked the Simplicity 1428. But if the electric chutes really are that much of a problem, I'll turn my attention to Ariens or Toro.

Any thoughts on this? Thanks.

You have to remember that MTD makes value level snow blowers.  That means that their electric chute rotation probably was a cheaper/weaker design.  Also factor the length of time MTD had this feature in the market place.  If it was their first attempt then that would explain a lot.  Simplicity/Briggs has been using electric chutes for quite a few years now and they have ironed out their problems.

Its like trying to compare MTD's quick stick chute design to the toro.  MTD makes a horrible quick stick.  Just because of this you can not generalize and say toro also makes a bad one.



Lastly a higher percentage of uneducated consumers own the popular brands... like MTD.  Not that there is anything wrong with owning one, but statistically more people will own a cheaper brand since there are so many of them in all the big box stores.  Uneducated consumers can be harder on their equipment, which would increase chances of failure.


In other words, don't worry.  Unless you are the type that will be bumed out about the purchase forever with the slightest hickup of the electric chute control.  (Remember that every brand has a small % of defects, just the nature of life.  In example, if you are the unfortunate one to get a problematic motor or something, just out of bad luck, would that tarnish your perception of the design?  Obviously the dealer will take care of it if something like this happened.  Or any problem for that matter.  These are questions to ask now to not be disappointed later on, after putting serious money down.)


BTW - I was in home depot today and looked at a Ariens Deluxe 30.  The engine was a B&S Snow Series.  NOT the Max version.  I don't know if the difference between the two matters.  On B&S website it seems the Max has the cast iron sleeve, but it doesn't state any other things.

Thanks opecrazy.

I would like to make it clear that I'm a novice when it comes to snow blower knowledge ... but learning. So please take what I'm saying here with a grain of salt ... especially if you're considering buying a Simplicity. I don't know anything about the design of the MTD electric chute (or the Simplicity chute). But I did want to pass along what was told to me, just in case there was anything to it. I'm glad there are people here that can explain the differences for people like me. Thanks again.