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

Have any of you seen the December online issue of Consumer Reports?  Snowthrowers are reviewed.  Lots of facual errors.  The have the retail price for the 828 oxe at $1,700.  If you click on "shop for this item", more mistakes.  They also have all models, at least the 2 stage models, rated poorly for sound.  I'm wondering if this information was pulled from the days of when many of these brands used the Tecumseh L-head.  Further, they have falsely listed certain models as having freewheel steering.  Honestly, there are so many mistakes, that I wonder if they did any actual testing this year.  Is the magazine in trouble financially? 

I have used CR for may years and was disturbed to se this level of recklessness in reporting.

Your best consumer's reports for OPE are right here. 

Real people using real machines posting real experiences.  What more does one need?

CR is great for many products but their reviews on snow throwers missed the mark.

When i last looked at their reviews it was still from last year.

I left feedback on their website regarding the manner in which they rated the tested machines, maybe if enough people do they will adjust those methods.

Their review is late this year compared to years past.  The review is for this year. They list current models; and from I can tell, in at least one occasion, they fit old model info, including price, with current model labels.  This involves the 828oxe.  This is only 1 example of the many errors I see in the Dec 2010 CR review.

I never find CR too useful for my taste.  They have a heavy weighing factor on price/value.  Targeted towards lowest common denominator, low priced commodity type products.  They rarely review highend products, and when they do, the high price goes against the rating, regardless of the performance of the product.  Tell it like it is, don't cloud the facts with pricing bias.  Not for me. 

They're more for speed reading to get familiar with competing products, not critical and indepth reviews final decisions.  With that said, I rarely look at the specs that they quote.

I can't remember being  in agreement with CR on a reviewed item I owned. They are especially suspect. when it comes to Outdoor Power Equiptment. However there are those that accept their opinions as "Gospel" and will only purchase what they suggest.

With the advent of the "net" much more comprehensive information is available from a wider better informed source base than CR's "experts".

Marc

borat wrote:
Yeah, it's definitely more interesting to read people's reviews here than staring at CR columns and rows of red dots and black dots.  :)

(Marc)  -  " With the advent of the "net" much more comprehensive information is available from a wider better informed source base than CR's "experts".

Good point  -  Very true

aa335 wrote:

I find them useful to determine (a) what they think are critical items (b) to consider factors that I hadn't thought of (c) a general idea of what they consider "really good" or "really bad". They're really just another data point. For example, I was purchasing a toaster (yes, they still make those) and looked on CR's website, and looked up the CR top rated toasters on Amazon, and there was little correlation between the ratings by consumers on Amazon and CR's rating. The useful part of Amazon was people wrote 2-3 sentences detailing what they liked and didn't like, which you don't get in consumer reports. In the end, I picked on that was top rated on Amazon by 82 people, but was only mid-rated by CR. Again, CR is just a data point, and I enjoy the magazine and website and appreciate what they do.

I find Amazon.com reviews if there are a lot of them to be for more accurate than CR. Forums like this are considerably more helpful. I'll go to places like Cnet to get an overview of something I'd like to buy but there ratings are always based on something you can't actually buy. Edmunds.com works great for cars at least for me. CR is obsolete but it's still bought by libraries all over the USA. It's no longer as valid as it used to be 20 or more years back.

Consumer reports! What a joke.........I tend to buy top of the line items, and not once was the item I was buying rated in the top five on CR. I just looked at the snow blower reviews, how can the troy be better then the Toro828? Perfect example rite there........Like stated already its not like it used to be, its very subjective these days and sometime wonder what criteria they are actually looking for?????? 

Dollars vs. functionality are probably their basic criteria.  If a $500.00 machine can clear a  driveway as well as a $1400.00 machine with no major performance issues, it will likely be their choice.

I doubt that they take long term performance into consideration.  

borat wrote:

Yeah - it would be nice to see a follow up review of their top OPE picks say, 3 - 5 - 7 years out as a true measure of performance, reliability and longevity. As you aptly stated earlier, forums like this provide on the ground information that can't be found in a magazine.

FrankMA wrote:
Most definitely to all of the above.

I found this  site while researching which machine I should buy several months ago and its been invaluable in helping me figure out what would fit my needs by educating me  far more than i had expected.

I just checked the Consumer Reports on line site, and the price is listed at $ 1700.00 as you say but upon clicking on the shop for the prices of $ 1460.00 come up and when I do a Google search the prices vary even more up to 1600 bucks, so it sounds like Toro is having a sale, and trying move these machines.  You'd have to ask them what decible levels they rate poorly to discover why the sound levels are rated poor.  CR is still the only objective reviewer on all such machines, so don't be too hard on them.  I expalined what is, in my opinion, their deficiency on explaning how snowblowers work, and what actually matters. Heated hand grips won't do you much good if the drive system doesn't move the machine into that heavy wet pile semi-ice.  They also do not tell you important information to compare the brands, like the diameter and wdth of the friction wheel and drive plate on each machine.  That is like leaving off the tire and wheel sizes on cars.

  I find C.R. a usefull tool in my product search,but just that.    I research many other sources