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

Hello,

  I recently moved into a house in suburban NY (Suffern) with a paved driveway of about 300 feet with a slight grade down to the garage.  Mostly single car width, one pull off spot of triple width and triple width for about 25' in front of the garage.  Plenty of room for throwing snow into the trees on either side, EOD is a cul-de-sac.  I am limited to the big orange box for my snow blower purchase (cashed in all my credit card points for $500 in gift cards when they were on sale at 20% off).  Right now I am leaning towards the Toro 726 OE, but wanted to ask the advice of the experts. 

  To me it looks like this $999 model is identical to all of the other models except it does not have power steering (free wheeling), and it has a 205cc engine and no headlight.  Is this the only difference, or are there other factors in the construction/materials that I should be worried about?  Toro has a comparison PDF here:http://www.toro.com/home/snowthrowers/gastwostage/tsn_490-8117NA_10_launch_ss_cen_lo.pdf and it only mentinos the above.   I have never used a snow blower before, but I am making the call that at 33 years old, I can still muscle the machine around the turn at the EOD and garage, should only need to make 5 or six trips up and down the long driveway.  Is this a crazy assumption?  Will it be miserable to make the turns, or no big deal for a healthy guy.  Also assuming that 205 CC Briggs & Stratton will get the job done.

  If anyone has made a similar choice, please let me know if there are other factors I should be considering, as you can see, I am pretty clueless when it comes to the snowblowers.  I also have a 6spd Jeep Wrangler, but after looking into plows a little bit it seems like it is going to be well over $3k to do it right, and might impact the front end life of the Jeep.

Thanks a lot,
Dan

For me here in Canada my choice came down to the toro 826oxe($1499) or ariens deluxe 28($1399). I chose the toro. The freewheeling and the simple chute control was worth the extra $100, plus I just like the overall look and feel of it better.

In your case I would choose the ariens deluxe 28 over the toro 726oe without hesitation for the bigger engine being that they are the same price on the home depot site at $999. To step up to the toro 826oxe would be $300 more for you though. You should go in the store and size them up and play around with the chute and the freewheel steering compared to the ariens(which has freewheel on the left side only) and decide for yourself if the toro is worth the extra money. They are both solid brands with a good reputation.

giocam wrote:

I'll second the move to the Toro 826OXE. The Toro's trigger control steering is great and easy to use. Plus they have the quick chute feature. The joystick is much easier to use. This is a 10+ year purchase so the extra money is well spent.

Thanks very much for the thoughts.  I did not realize the 726 had a solid axle, assumed it at least had a diff.  I will definitely head out there and try to check them out, although it seems they don't carry the 826 around me in store.   I do have a little brand loyalty to Toro, been very happy with their mower, and being new to snowblowers, have never even heard of Ariens, but it seems like they ar ea solid brand.   Hoping to keep this for at least 10 years+, so those convenient turns may add up :)  What kind of life expectancy do these have?

Thanks,
Dan

daniel wrote:

Minimum 10 year life expectancy if you maintain it every year and put fresh gas in it. The 826 OXE is a decent machine. It's too small for my 200+ foot driveway but I'd expect you could squeak 15 years out of a decent and well maintened snowblower. That would be Toro, Ariens, Simplicity, Honda and a couple of others.

Steve_Cebu wrote:

That's good to hear.  Now that I have the garage and some space I'm looking to get my hands dirty a lot more, both with the jeep and the snowblower.   I am curious though, what is too small about it for a 200' driveway?  My driveway is definitely up there.  Is it just the 26" scoop that will make more trips up and down, or will the engine not be able to process the snow fast enough so you have to crawl up and down really slow?  I'm hoping I would be able to knock out the whole straight run in under an hour, and don't really have any walks apart from a stoop.

Thanks,
Dan

daniel wrote:

Hi Dan, well my driveway is about 220 feet long has a huge EOD that's at least 30 feet wide that's a lot of sushy crappy crusty salted snow. Then I have a 40'x45' section off of that. My Toro 1028 does all that in about 1.5 hours. I have to get down to bare tar. So I tend to go slower. If I didn't care about leaving snow behind, I'd raise the scraper blade and speed it up. But I wanted bare tar because it's going to warm up and make the entire driveway icey, then snow again. Also I have an incline and that factors in. My EOD is much bigger than it looks in the videos. I have to throw it to one side because if I throw it too much towards the mailbox there isn't enough room and the rocks are small over there so they are hard to see. Generally, the slower you go the cleaner the driveway. I run in 2nd or 3rd gear depending. I haven't had it bog down even trying in higher gears with like 10 inches of snow. But it doesn't get it super clean either. Much better that it's done a bit slower and nice clean tar showing. If you don't have an 85 year old aunt who has broken her hip once already, go faster. Plus you have a 4x4. We don't, we drive too much and the gas would kill us on long hauls. I also like to feel I'm controlling the machine and walking too fast can be slippery.

My advice is to buy a slightly bigger machine than you need rather than one that is a bit too small for your needs. If you are doing a 200+ foot driveway and not a lot of narrow walkways the larger machines are an asset. If you have a lot of cars and narrow walkways to manuever through get a smaller machine. 24" versus 28" isn't that much bigger. My driveway isn't flat atthe bottom near the garage so if it was 48" wide it would miss a lot of snow. I could get away with using an Toro 826, but I prefer the 1028. The huge EOD is a factor for me and my 84 lb. wife can easily use it as well.

From what I read on the toro site, the 826 will throw the snow just as far as the 1028, but the throughput is a little slower at 1900 pounds per minute compared to 2000 pounds per minute.