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

I am looking at purchasing my first snow blower.  My local shop carries Toro's and Ariens.  I live in northern NJ (morris county) and we had a lot of wet heavy/icy snow last year, so the wife has finally given in to the purchase. 

Our driveway is about 125' long and most of it is a about a single car lane, but it opens up to about 3 wide at the bottom.  Also my neighbor's drive way is adjacent to it and its about two cars lanes wide in front of their house and one car wide between the two houses.  So I'd have to throw the snow straight ahead when I am in the section between the two houses.

I'm currenty thinking of purchasing the Arien's 920013 (Compact 22).  Do you think a 6 HP engine will cut it, or should I be looking at a 7 HP?

New_Yorker wrote:

We do get a lot of the wetter snow here but they also get it up in Canada above us in Quebec Province. Some states tend to get a lot of powder but many States get crappy wet slushy snow. Higher elevations tend to get more powder, but not always. We rarely get powder and I'm in Central NH. The only way I can see wearing my Toro's drive plate out quickly is if I was running it full tilt into 3 foot high snowbanks of packed snow. Most pro's up here use Toro and Honda tracked machines. Drive an hour south and I have no idea what they use. Our city uses a beast of a machine for sidewalks. It doesn't throw it far but it will throw pure slush. It might throw further but they never do.

New_Yorker wrote:

What snowblower did you have?   In eastern Mass the snow is more than twice what you get and friction disks last from 10 to 30 years.  I've never heard of a drive plate having to be "roughed up",   Cleaned yes.   The sense of "never went longer than 2 years" suggests you probably went through a rubber in one year.   No machine built is that bad.  MTD is the worse I know of and down where you live an MTD friction disk should last 10 to 15 with proper use.  They do that up here.

Your machine must have had a defect and/or way out of adjustment.  If you kept replacing friction disks all the time it's like following the elephant with a shovel and not curing the problem.

>>"no easy task for a part not designed to be removed from the machine for regular service"

   It's very rare for the drive plate assembly to ever need repair.  Sometimes a bearing but anything more would be extreamly rare i.e. drive plate surface. I"ve seen lots of 30-40 year old machines and never had a drive plate surface problem unless there was some other cause which messed up the plate surface like using the machine with the rubber gone so metal to metal on the drive plate surface. 

   Making a negative generalization about friction disk based systems based on your experience is not justified.  The crop of friction disk snowblowers in use today probably makes up 99.8 percent with Honda and the rest of non-friction disk systems making up the rest. 

That pretty much sums up my feelings as well Trouts.

In all of my 30 or so years of using snow throwers and ownership of three, I've never had a disk drive problem that wasn't simply a matter of contamination on the disk, usually in the form of water from melted snow.  Other than that, nothing.  They were stone axe reliable.

It appears that some Honda owners need to justify the expense of their machines.  After all, two to three times the cost of a decent domestic machine should buy you something right? 

First off l strongly agree with trouts and borat on "friction disk dependableity" , lve been working on snowblowers for 15 years and never heard of a friction disk needing replaced yearly ever! if that was the case as trouts said there must have been something else going on there.

Allow me to suggest you buy the largest and most powerful snowblower you can afford. As usual I agree with Borat. I also have a Simplicity snowblower (924E) and am thoroughly satisfied with its build quality and performance. Honda makes an impressive product but they are very expensive and, in my opinion, not worth the extra cost.  

So, is the (921019) ST24E (24") 211cc Two-Stage Snow Blower w/ Subaru Engine good enough?  Or should I be looking at the the Deluxe Platinum ST24DLE (24") 249cc (921017)? I don't think I really need to go up to the professional grade.

My dealer still has a 921019 which is about $350 cheaper, but from what I am hearing, the platinum features and the bigger engine would be worth the price difference.

not the expert here but according to snowmann, the 2 engines are comparable in output so then the difference in price between the deluxe and the platinum is for the headlight, handwarmers, chute control and traction control.

jyanno wrote:

Your area is 125 foot 1 car wide drive with wide entrance.  You get 40-50 inches average a year which is not all that much.  It's 12 -15 less than what I'm used to.  You don't need a lot of power.   You mentioned one place where you have to toss ahead which would end up causing maybe 30 feet of partial double throw.   For the rest you would only have to throw from one side of the drive way to your land side.  No requirement for big power. 

The 211cc is a nice engine and the hp around 6 - 6.75 (probably the high side).  The tourque on that engine is claimed to be a bit higher compared to a similar Briggs.  The 921019 is nice and has the basics with 14 inch augers and 14 inch impeller.  It's got the XS gearbox which is great.  With the three car EOD you might have to take a thinner cut on some storms but will get the area cleared without a problem.   I would think you'd be fine with the 19. 

You might want more power and features in other models.   You could go 622, 724 or 824 and be fine.   With a long thin drive you won't need be turning much so no need for differential or other easy turn features.  Snowblowers are pretty easy to turn with both wheels locked.   

I had an Ariens snowblower, probably their largest 2 stage model for many years it worked well, but eventually lost its ability to drive into heavy wet snow.  I donated it to a relative who put a new engine on it, and its still working for someone out there.   The 15 Years i had the MTD -Craftsman with tracks it was fine so long as the friction wheel mechanism was recently serviced. Last few years i ended up having to help push it whenever it encountered heavy wet slush and snow.  I decided to spring for the Honda because 1- i was sick of the cold weather repair and adjustment needed to make it work, and 2- i'm not pushing anything anymore, life's too shrt and the hospital bill would be a lot more than the Honda snowblower. Light powder is never the problem, it's the wet southern New England snow that's the problem.  If the snow belt line is north, we get rain but when its close by, as it often is, we get this heavy wet snow that snowblowers struggle to throw.  If your friction wheel 2 stage does the job, great.  but for me it required a lot of extra maintenance.  That is why i bought the pricey HONDA HS 928 TAS machine.  It wasn't because I wanted to pay 3 times the price, but I have been there and tried the friction wheel machines and it just didn't Do The Job.  Say what you want, but I Know the Honda will get it done.

New_Yorker wrote:

New_Yorker: First let me state that I'm not trying to get you wound up, but there are more friction wheel drive units out there than not and most don't have the issues you describe. Labeling ALL friction wheel drive snowblowers as inferior or not up to the task of clearing snow is misleading and inaccurate. You had your MTD-Craftsman for 15 years - how did it perform for the majority of those years? You say it required " a lot of extra maintenance" but was that maintenance performed by someone who knew what they were doing? Maybe you got a lemon - it does happen from time to time? You state that your Ariens worked great for many years until it "lost its ability to drive into heavy wet snow" and then a relative replaced the engine. Not quite sure if this was engine or drive system related but it did last for "many years".  

Friction wheel drive has been around for a long time and is a tried and proven propulsion method that is used on almost every snowblower out there except perhaps for the Honda's and Yamaha's. If this system was so problem plagued, it would have been replaced with some other method long ago because people would stop buying snowblowers equipped with friction wheel drive propulsion. In reading your posts, I believe you mentioned that you have not used your new Honda in the snow yet?

I've been using Honda snowblowers for over 10 years and can tell you first hand that they are very nice, well built machines, but there is nothing magical about them. If you overwork the engine or transmission, you will have problems with your new Honda. It may be your technique that requires some thought as it sounds like your pushing the equipment beyond its engineered design limits. Forcing any snowblower into heavy, wet snow (IMO) is not the best way to work the equipment. Taking a smaller bite and slowing down to allow the equipment (namely the augers/impeller) to process the snow would be a better method. Technique and regular, routine maintenance are usually all that is required to keep any equipment operating as it was designed.