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

Well I decided on a blower finally. Was going to go with a Murray professional, but decided on the Ariens ST1332LE. Quite a nice machine and as you can see in the photo, a nice upgrade to my old one, which will be my backup machine. LET IT SNOW....................................

Well, we got 16" of heavy wet snow on Tuesday eve. The Ariens barely went through it, I was in low gear for alot of it and some drifts were 20" plus. It was a heck of a way to break in a new engine. I felt bad that it was lugging so much. It took me awhile to get use to the new controls compared to the ease of the old Simplicity. Looking back I am thinking that the automatic traction control might have been a better choice than the trigger control. I wish we would have got just a 6" first snowfall, but it is what it is. I was not impressed with the power the engine makes, unless there is a problem with this one. It doesn't seem to have alot of compression and I was thinking of checking the valve adjustment since I can hear what sounds like an exhaust valve leaking. Do these have a easy spin type camshaft??? Maybe that is what I am hearing. Overall I am happy with it and am confident it will perform well with a (normal) snowfall.............

Hi goatman ... Like you, I also live in Wisconsin (near Door County) and also broke in my new Ariens 30" Deluxe Platinum snow blower with this latest blizzard. Depending on who you talk to, we got between 9 and 14 inches of that heavy wet snow. It's really hard to tell because of the strong winds blowing it all over the place. I'm not sure how to gauge the performance of the snow blower because it was the first time out and also because it was such a beast of a storm. One thing for darn sure, it far far far out-threw my older 1971 Ariens that I had been using up to yesterday. Where I struggled the most was trying to get through the EOD stuff left by the city plows. There were many times when I came to a complete stop and had to keep backing up and ramming forward again until I finally got through. I felt a little better about the snow blower's performance after learning of a friend who does snow removal as a business. He was working on somebody's driveway, when both of the snow blowers he was using broke down and he was forced to stop altogether. So maybe these Ariens did better than it seems. ??? Just a hopeful guess. I was very pleased with the Automactic Traction Control. With all the turning I was doing, I can't imagine how confusing it might have been to have to remember to click the remote cable switch every time I wanted to turn. It was nice not having to think about it at all. And the tall chute on the Ariens was also very nice as it just reached over this row of hedges that I have to snow blow against. Nice! I noticed how heavy this new machine is to move around compared to my older one, but I suppose that's to be expected. Overall, I'm happy with the machine. But it was only one snowfall ... and a blizzard at that. I'll be anxious to see how it performs under more normal circumstances.

Breaking in the engine under those conditions are probably better for it than breezing along with 6" of fluff. The load will increase back pressure which goes a long way to properly seat the rings. Had you already performed the initial oil change? If not, I'd strongly recommend you do so now. I don't know for sure but these snow engines might have a compression release mechanism. I know that when I use the pull start to fire up my B&S snow engine on my 9528 Simplicity, it spins over too easy. I thought the engine might be limp dick too but once it's running and up to speed, it makes very good power. Considerably more than the two previous 10 h.p. Tecumseh engines I owned. My engine is the 305cc aluminum bore Snow Tek. It's supposed to be producing 9.5 h.p. If it's only making 9.5, those 10 h.p. Tecumseh's were only making seven or eight. B&S are a little weird regarding the way they rate their engines. I did a part for part comparison of the 305cc engines rated between 9.5 to 11 h.p. Not one part was different. So, I've come to the conclusion that either they're all 9.5 or all 11 h.p. engines. Has to be one or the other. My ""seat of the pants" dyno tells me that they're probably closer to 11 than 9.5.